Let’s face it: for those who are familiar with long train journeys, buying a women’s magazine at the station promising to “reconnect with their inner power” or to tame their “sacred feminine” has already saved more than one path of boredom. With, at the end of the day, the earthy prospect of “freeing your inner witch”. After all, why deprive yourself? For the past few years, even the most feminist of feminists have been promoting all sorts of esoteric beliefs.
“If you are a woman and you dare to look inside yourself, then you are a witch”. It is with this postulate, taken from the manifesto of the feminist movement Watch, that Mona Chollet introduces witches, the undefeated power of women (La Découverte), her bestseller published in 2018. The author explains that “magic paradoxically appears as a very pragmatic remedy, a vital leap”. On the Fnac site, in addition to the indestructible Mona Chollet, My Little Witch Rituals (Larousse) and Soul of a witch or the magic of the feminine (Pocket) arrive before holy witches, the classic for children by Roald Dahl… This normalization of the occult also finds relays within the political sphere. In 2019, Marlène Schiappa, then Secretary of State, revealed to the magazine She his interest in witchcraft. Two years later, the ecologist Sandrine Rousseau declared “prefers [r] women who cast spells rather than men who build EPRs”.
Between 2017 and 2020, the editorial production of non-fiction devoted to women jumped by 15%, particularly in the fields of health, well-being and esotericism (+72%), according to data from Weekly Books. According to an Ifop poll carried out in 2020, while 58% of French people said they believed in at least one of the para-science disciplines (such as the lines of the hand or witchcraft), women were 63%, against 52% among men.
“Religious Delusions”
In the 1970s, certain feminists had already reappropriated the figure of the witch. Thus the writer Xaviere Gauthier who created in 1975 the review Witches. Women live. “It was,” she says, at a time when the great struggle of women in the 20th century was taking place, that for contraception and for abortion. As in the time of the witches, the order of priests and the order of doctors strongly opposed this freedom. I took the symbol of the witches, to express our revolt, our strength as subversive and creative women.” But, adds Xaviere Gauthier, the women who participated in the review would not recognize themselves in the current esoteric trend. “No between us indulged in religious delusions; We didn’t believe in goddesses, the devil, or witches for that matter!”
Maryse Simon, historian lecturer at the University of Strasbourg, regrets a sometimes “abusive” use of the figure of the witch, even if it means sacrificing historical reality. Above all, the academic underlines that unlike the years 1960-1970, “the appropriation of this figure is done more in a process of personal development – an open door of choice for scammers and other sellers of amulets.”
In its 2021 report, the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes) particularly alerted to the dangers of the theory of the “sacred feminine”, presented as a work of “reconnecting body and mind” . Among the mystical figures used, we find that of the witch. “This concept indicates being a feminist approach to thinking about the freedom of women and their empowermentunderlines the Miviludes. […] In reality, this lucrative movement is essentially based on unregulated internships and practices.”
Ironically, most sites offering services to “reconnect” with one’s “sacred feminine” display a share of free. The implicit message is that this would be a process devoid of pecuniary considerations. Within the School of Mysteries – the awakeners of the feminine, whose mission is to “restore the sacred and ancestral rites of the feminine”, we offer a free test to discover her profile of “magician”. But for who would take the game, the note can reach heights. In order to carry out the “complete cycle of the four face-to-face four-day portals”, count 3,500 euros.
“Archetypes” of women
The cost of these “sacred journeys” appears all the more exorbitant as they often convey a conception of women bordering on caricature. The School of Mysteries – which did not respond to our requests – thus offers to explore the “archetypes” of women such as the witch, the lover, the Amazon or even the mother goddess. A concept inspired by the theories of psychiatrist Carl Jung and taken up by self-proclaimed therapist Miranda Gray, one of the high priestesses of the “sacred feminine”. According to her, the woman goes through four states according to the phases of her ovulatory cycle: the young girl (pre-ovulatory), the mother (ovulatory), the enchantress (premenstrual), the witch (menstruation). Miranda Gray popularized the “womb blessing”, which aims to “harmonize” the energies of women, and advises to synchronize their daily life with the cycle of the moon and menstruation. “These advice and rituals, which are not the subject of any scientific consensus, are presented as imperative rules for female well-being”, warns Miviludes.
According to Illana Weizman, essayist and feminist activist, this rhetoric lending women a particular energy because they are women is “essentializing in many ways, because it results in reassociating biological attributes, such as the uterus, with an archaic conception of the woman, who would be intrinsically gentle, provider of care, maternal. Ultimately, the danger of these movements is precisely to return to something anti-feminist!
“It’s a real strength to be aware of your body”, defends Amma Polovtseva, creator of Amma Soul. This “Moon Mother level 3” – understanding that she has received training allowing her to achieve blessings from the womb – entrusts organizing her time according to her cycles: “If I need to do something very intellectual , I’m going to do this in the girlish phase (right after my period, where my energy is high and my intellect is sharp). from the mother…”
Mathieu Repiquet, from the No FakeMed collective, has been observing this phenomenon since 2021. “The main danger of these practices is that they predispose some to drift towards pseudo medicines promising to relieve real pathologies by ‘womb blessings'”. For Mathieu Repiquet, these drifts “feed on the failures of the classic medical system”. He takes the example of the lack of diagnosis on endometriosis which “may further push some women to seek ‘simple’ answers in esoteric practices”. Some therapists thus promise to “transform” these disorders of the “wounded feminine”, whether it is cancer of the uterus or fertility problems. “Transform” ? It is undoubtedly in the ambiguity between emotional support and promise of treatment that the main danger of these practices lies. When sorority becomes the enemy of women…