Photo: Edger Berg from SLEEK 58. Styling: Lorena Maza
Germany has a long history with witches, dating back to the pre-Christian era and the sorceress shaman, Vala. Later, under Christianity in the 16th and 17th centuries, the region’s witches saw the largest witch trials and executions of anywhere in Europe, with roughly 3,000 people burned at the stake in trials of Würzburg, Fulda and Bamberg alone. Two hundred years later, Wolfgang von Goethe and the Brothers Grimm would respectively cement an image of witches in the cultural consciousness with Faust and fairy tales. Today, there are more than a few misconceptions to dispel.
“The picture most people have of witches comes from the witch trial era,” says Sonia Kowa of @geistundmagie, one of Germany’s largest witchcraft Instagram accounts. “If you ask someone what a witch looks like, the fairy-tale version comes to mind with the black hat, wand and kettle. There is also the idea that witches have a pact with the devil, have sex with the devil, kill children, drink blood and eat human flesh.”
While Kowa stresses that painting all witches with broad strokes would be a mistake, she says that most of the witches she meets don’t even believe in Satan. Instead, the 30-year-old witch describes modern witchcraft as a journey in getting to know yourself.
“In contrast to the beginnings of Wicca in the 1950s, most witches practice alone and not in a circle,” Kowa says. “For a long time, witches were organized into circles with rules and hierarchies, but today this is very rare. I believe it makes witches more free because they are allowed to be very individual in their rituals. Many witches are on the search for an integration of spirituality into everyday life and not a religion.”
Although they don’t band together as much anymore, Instagram and Facebook have become crucial platforms for exchanging information on best practices when it comes to spells, recipes, altars — or even finding enough information about witchcraft to know whether or not you are a witch. “It can be difficult to find people to talk to about witchcraft in the physical world,” Kowa says. “You won’t have someone telling you that you will go to hell these days, but they will still look at you strange.”
Another defining characteristic of 21st century witches is a consciousness for the preservation of the planet, as nature lies at the heart of most magic. “We orient ourselves by the seasons and cycles of nature,” she says. “Witches are concerned with environmental protection in their rituals too, so there are many that see themselves as witches who are pulled to the eco movement.”
It makes sense that one of the most important days in the witching calendar coincides with the time of year that the earth is most fertile, Walpurgis Night, or the 30 April, which lies halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. Famous for its depictions in Faust and Otfried Preußler’s The Little Witch, it is described a night where witches gather on the highest peak in the Harz mountain range for a ball. But when Germany’s modern witches celebrate the day, they prefer to use the name “Beltane,” derived from Gaelic mythology. Walpurga is both the name of the Catholic saint tasked to protect people from witches, and the name of a witch who was burned at the stake for killing babies and eating them – neither positive associations
“You’d be hard pressed to find two witches who celebrate Beltane in exactly the same way today – everyone has their own rituals and an individual intention for how to use the fertility of the night,” Kowa says. “There are still witches’ circles, and they will surely get together on Beltane and celebrate traditionally with a fire and naked dancing, but most will celebrate at home or alone in nature.”
As for Kowa, she will be taking her portable altar out in the woods and doing her own thing.