Toolbox
In Jane Donaworth’s book, Conversational
Rhetoric, an exceptional collection of critically analyzed woman’s rhetoric
theories is discussed. As woman’s voices became more socially outspoken in the late
nineteenth century, elocution played a respectable part in broadening woman’s
platform to communicate emotions by performance. Society frequently began
accepting to see woman as public speakers. Restraints from traditional gender
driven of expressing the physical body was often seen a provocative. Specifically, Donaworth’s focus on Genevie Stebbins Emotional Semiotics, we
see a parallel between Stebbins’s philosophy of semiotics and witches’ use of
guerrilla theatre. This dramatic public performance known as guerilla theatre
is demonstrated as socio-political activism derived from Marxism. It was
developed in the 1960, structured as a form entertaining activism, highly based
on satire. The unapologetic, dodgy acts drew in an audience and forced them to
acknowledge issues that were being ignored or over looked. Just as woman
professed in elocution to catch the public’s attention of their less-heard
voices. WITCH dress against the social norm and purposely conveys a dark aura
with intentions to shock the public into submission. Specific rituals and
written hexes are created as a physical form of the inner passions. Stebbins
found that ones’ outputs of communication are reflections of the soul and state
of mind. Emotions are essentially translated from the inner form into the
physical gestures in the performance of elocution. Withes tape into the inner
source of power being the universe to extract the dark magic and use articulated rhetoric and gestures in
synchronized hex rituals to reflectively communicate and implement change to
the larger society. The power generated from a higher being merges with
accumulated sentiments.
Egyptian Rhetoric
We see a connection in Edward Karshner’s book, Thought, Utterance, & Power: Towards a
Rhetoric of Magic discussion on Ancient Egyptian Rhetoric and the WITCH
magical rhetoric. Egyptian’s used articulated rhetoric to connect with
hierarchical deities’ powers of the cosmological society through a two-fold
dimension. A deep intellectual metacognition and rule on how to effectively
communicate in these complex realms was established. Essentially, they would utilize
articulated magical utterance in a onto-cosmological narrative to transcend mystic
knowledge of truth to society. This discourse is particularly unique and
apparent to witches use of magic and articulated rhetoric to ping into
universal energies in seek of social order. WITCH is an exclusive society with
specific practices and rituals put in place, with methods and rules to be
understood to execute the desired spiritual transcendence in which will
initiate societal justice. Witches praise the Goddess being the Universe and
all surrounding energies for power. WITCH claims that “Magic has three parts:
Intent, A Spoken Spell, and A Sympathetic Act” (WITCH.PTX). Indicating that an
intentional goal must be established to cast a spell. Egyptians use a parallel
process, their initial steps being, “Through perception, the heart/mind would
design an idea”, in relation to the WITCH, this would be equivalent to having
an intent (Karshner). This step requires a developed passion for a subject of
change. Next the onto-cosmological narrative, much like spoken spells, create a
bond between the divine power and humans using articulated rhetoric. Finally, through
this established connection, the Egyptians utilized, “human desire to identify
with and articulate, through symbolic expression, the innate knowledge of the
cosmos”. With a sympathetic act, the power can be directed in a spell.
Displayed is a zine from WITCH-EARTH-DAY:
We see the use of magic explained in a context that is
implementation. Magic is not a single step process just as Karshner
acknowledges in magical utterance; as explained there are multiple extensions of
connections required to activate this transcendence of energy. WITCH uses this
approach to motivate the movement by relying on a superior presence in which
establishes a sense of credibility to their odd behavior. The pubic gestures
and guerrilla theater uses as a dramatized performance of keening into the
powers of the universe through an unseen spiritual domain is practiced as a
religion. Identifying as a religion associates a societal given respect that
may not be given if say they didn’t implement magic into their practices or
identify as a religion. For a decent human, this would create an ethical dilemma
when avoiding arbitrating someone’s beliefs. With all skepticism aside, how is
it any different than a Catholic creating a and praising God on two knees. These
aspects of identifying as a religion and using magic is vital to the integrity
and legitimacy of the movement.
In any social movement, gathering the public’s attention is
vital to the Social Movement Plan. Analyzing the correlation of the WITCH
movement to the social movement plan, we see a strong foundation for the
witches’ intentions. The public issues are clear and known, mainly activating
woman’s liberation and to dismantle the patriarchy. The first-wave and
second-wave feminist were most responsible for the awareness trending and
campaigning, not WITCH. After all, they did break off from the radical woman,
so it is reasonable to take this approach of essentially winging off
second-wave feminist’s campaigns and starting their social movement plan
beginning at campaigns. It wasn’t until the hex on Wall Street that WITCH exposed
their movement externally.
During this process an
articulated magical and radical conspiracy rhetoric was used, mostly heard
through their hexes. Although terrorist is in their name, they demonstrate more of peaceful protests and arranged civil disobedience during their hexes. Their demands are clear in fighting oppression and the patriarchy but allow for flexibility in how radical a witch prefers to be.
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