Augusten Burroughs - Toil & Trouble: A Memoir

There are three things you should know about witches.

Number one: as long as there have been human beings there have been witch beings.

Number two: witches have always been misunderstood. For most of recorded history they have been persecuted and killed, and this continues today in many parts of the world. Since the majority of those accused and convicted have been female, the hunt for witches is yet another vehicle for the persecution of women of every color by (of course) white men.

When the hateful Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock, the men wasted no time launching their bigotry grenades against any women who didnt fit their image of what a woman should be and how she should behave. This began withsurprise!a woman of color, a slave named Tituba, but any woman who wasnt subservient or who exhibited a modicum of individuality and independence was likely to be accused. Several men were also put to death in colonial Salem, so one can only speculate that they, too, failed to behave in a manner expected of the White Puritan Male, Americas first frat guy.

It is no longer a crime in this country to be a witch, but thats mainly because Americans consider the notion patently absurd. Scientifically minded people look back on the witch trials and cringe at the primitive stupidity, not so much because alleged witches were killed but because the accusers actually believed that witches existed.

Which brings me to number three: witches are real. And witchcraftthe work they do, their craftis also real.

So what is a witch?

I define a witch as someonefemale, male, neither, other, bothwho has the innate ability to focus on a desired outcome with such perfect clarity, intensity, and singularity that the desired outcome can materialize, provided it does not violate the natural laws of the universe. This is why a witch cannot turn a man into a goat, but a witch may very well know if a man five thousand miles away is about to be trampled by a goat. Witches may experience what we call time and distance in such ways that time and distance collapse or are circumvented. Frequently, they possess information that it does not seem possible one could have, such as knowledge of events that will occur further down the time line.

Witchcraft is not a religion. Wicca is a religion, started by Englishman and occultist Gerald Gardner in the early 1950s. Many Wiccans are witches, too, practicing some form of craft as part of their faith. Druidism is another pagan religion that incorporates witchcraft.

There are many different styles or schools, from the extremely formalized and ritualized to the improvised and spontaneous. There are those who engage in highly structured rituals, and while these are interesting and kind of cool, they arent necessary.

Different witches have different abilities. Some are excellent at creating shields: protecting loved ones from harm, hiding in plain sight, traveling through life without a scratch. Others are adept at causing things to happen or not happen. Which is to say, they are sculptors of matter, exerting influenceand changeover the energy we observe as matter. Still others have amazing powers of perception and reception. They might feel a devastating storm coming long before it arrives, or perhaps they know of events occurring many miles away. Witches can possess any of or all these traits in greater or lesser degrees.

Heres a partial list of things I dont believe in:

God

the Devil

heaven

hell

Bigfoot

ancient aliens

past lives

life after death

vampires

zombies

Reiki

homeopathy

Rolfing

reflexology

Note that witches and witchcraft are absent from this list. The thing is, I wouldnt believe in them, and I would privately ridicule any idiot who did, except for one thing: I am a witch.

This is a fact Ive kept to myself. Even my husband didnt know for years. Yet witchcraft has been an almost daily part of my life since I was a little boy. It was the strongest bond my mother and I had when I was young: our common power, our shared secret. She was a witch from a long line of witches and I was her second-born sonan accidentand, as she would discover eight years after my birth, also a witch. She schooled me, day after day, story after story, passing her knowledge and wisdom along to me, until her mind was quite abruptly shattered by mental illness just as I entered adolescence.

From that point, I was on my own.

I had no idea I was a witch until the day I knew something that was simply impossible for me to knowor at least impossible according to mankinds empirical understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe. I was staring out the school bus window on my way home, the trees a blur. My seat was over the left rear wheel, the one with the hump on the floor. I concentrated on the flow of liquid leaves without a single thought in my mind. At eight, I was already accomplished at gazing into the distance while thinking nothing at all.

The bus bounced as it went over the first wooden bridge, then again as it crossed the second one, and at that moment I saw my grandmothers forehead and her thinning hairline, and my being was suddenly occupied by the spirit of certainty. Certainty was all that I contained. This was followed by feelings of fear and anxiety.