Witchcraft and the Web

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Dot-Com Witchin’ : M. Macha NightMare’s Witchcraft and the Web

reviewed By Calypso

Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving Pagan Traditions Online

It’s always interesting to come across books on contemporary paganism that don’t just reiterate the same basic principles and practices of Wiccanesque spirituality. M. Macha NightMare’s second book, Witchcraft and the Web, takes an intelligent and emotional look at how the growth of the internet has influenced and assisted the expansion of modern witchcraft. Using a poetic image taken from Native American tradition – that of the Spider Woman – NightMare examines the nature and constituency of contemporary witchcraft online. Trained originally in “terraspace”, she explores the history of cybertechnology in modern “witchen” culture, the theory and practice of virtual rituals and covens, and the political empowerment that the web offers to those who walk this non-mainstream spiritual path.

The book begins by considering the vast resources now available to witches online – not just in terms of places for meetings, communication, and the performance of rituals, but also for the ongoing exploration of the natural world. NightMare cites web resources that deal with geology, forestry, and social and political justice, and considers the potential that the web offers for escape to the natural world from within an urban environment. As the book progresses, she documents the history of the earliest virtual pagan groups, and examines the magical theory behind online ritual. NightMare’s focus is ultimately on the significance of the web as a pagan resource, and she offers ample anecdotal evidence – some of her own, some culled from research among pagan groups online – of the web as a connecting space, and, appropriately, a “space between the worlds.”

The idea of connectedness runs throughout the book, in fact – NightMare places heavy emphasis on joining up the different threads of her exploration by noting the points at which they separate and rejoin. This ultimately seems unnecessary: she frequently includes parenthetical notes telling the reader that “This thread reappears in Chapter X”, but because the book is not structured so that the thread can be easily found again, the note seems largely pointless. However, her use of marginal notes is really helpful: rather than hiding potentially unfamiliar terms in a glossary at the back, she defines both technological and pagan-specific language at the side of the text in which it’s introduced, saving non-techno-savvy readers like myself the trouble of flipping back and forward.

NightMare comes from the same Reclaiming tradition as Starhawk – they wrote The Pagan Book of Living and Dying together – so her work, as one might expect, is infused with the politics of activism and equity, though she never descends into polemic. The book – like other works about contemporary paganism as a movement – is not exhaustive: its focus is primarily on Wicca and other Witchcraft traditions, rather than the full range of contemporary pagan paths. However, this is emphasized from the outset and NightMare is very careful not to use language that suggests all pagan paths share the common practices of these traditions. For the most part, though, this is an interesting and informative read, well researched and well written – and, like all good books, thought-provoking. M. Macha NightMare’s book offers an alternative perspective on the way we view ourselves as a community, and considers realistically the paradoxical fusion between technology and the natural world that inspires our spirituality.