If Quakers Were (Also) Witches

Sara Jolena Wolcott was featured in the October 2023 Quakers Today podcast.

Pendle Hill, in the Forest of Bowland amidst the English county now known as Lancashire is—according to Wikipedia—best known for three events in the seventeenth century: the Pendle witch trials in 1612; an important scientific experiment around barometers in 1661; and the vision which George Fox had in 1652 of a “great people to be gathered,” which led to the beginning of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

I was surprised when one of my Quaker elders told me that for much of the world, Pendle Hill was far more closely associated with witches and the 1612 witch hunts, which occurred shortly before Fox’s birth, than with Quakerism.

In my early twenties, I joyfully joined a pilgrimage to Pendle Hill alongside other young Friends from around the world, hosted by the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). Caught up in my own religious tradition’s story, I didn’t see the larger “witchy” context: Pendle Hill is a popular spot for local ghost tours; it was featured in Doctor Who; and in the 400-year anniversary of the Pendle Witch Trials in 2012, there was a huge art exhibition on Pendle Hill with the date 1612 featured in honor of those women who died.

I was recently back near Pendle Hill while giving talks and workshops around Origin Stories. Looking again at Pendle Hill’s evocative outline after many years, I found myself thinking: of course Fox was drawn there, to a place where witches gathered for so long. The hill herself is a powerful sacred site. Through time and across generations, it has summoned mystical beings, offering us visions. She, the Divine Feminine, spoke to Fox in the language that he could understand in his time.

Looking again at Pendle Hill’s evocative outline after many years, I found myself thinking: of course Fox was drawn there, to a place where witches gathered for so long. The hill herself is a powerful sacred site. Through time and across generations, it has summoned mystical beings, offering us visions. She, the Divine Feminine, spoke to Fox in the language that he could understand in his time.

The Quaker movement that arose from that vision strikingly overlaps historical and contemporary animist/pagan understandings and practices. Worship was taken (back) outside of the Church buildings and held under trees. People gathered in a circle and ignored the (man-made, not God-ordained) hierarchy of the church. Women stepped into meaningful and valued roles. Continuing revelation was expected.

Quakers have long had a strong witchy/animist part of ourselves. Indeed, early Friends were treated with suspicion; some were accused of being witches. How Quakers have engaged with these similarities has varied tremendously across time and space.

I have little doubt that there is much to gain from engaging with the many people who are trying to renew and recreate animist, pagan, and eco-spiritual communities of practices. Yet here, the framing of interfaith dialogue between witch/pagan/animist/eco-spiritual communities and Quakerism is insufficient.

For one thing, interfaith dialogue assumes that the two faiths in question, in this case Quakerism and witchy/pagan, are clearly defined, separate entities, each with its own distinct history, tradition, and practice. Quakerism has that to some extent. But witch/pagan/animism is far less cohesive. European Western pagan and related animist practices, which some refer to as indigenous European spiritualities, are diverse and non-centralized. There is little systematic theology, creeds, or structure to shape the diversity into coherence. And, of course, much of European-originated eco-spiritual traditions have been intentionally dis-membered from European peoples. Much was lost, forbidden, forgotten, hidden, and shape-shifted during the centuries-long shift into Christianity.

If Liberal Quakers themselves are no longer inherently always Christian, then how do we relate to the ambiguous set of practices, beliefs, and avenues of entry to the Spirit that paganism/animism represents? And: are we so different?

In the first century, a small group of powerful Christians began using the term pagan to mean non-Christian. “Pagans” did not use this term for themselves. Included in this definition is a long history of scorn, violence, and a disdain of animism and paganism as a separate faith.

But if Liberal Quakers themselves are no longer inherently always Christian, then how do we relate to the ambiguous set of practices, beliefs, and avenues of entry to the Spirit that paganism/animism represents? And: are we so different?

The terms themselves make it difficult for many Friends to consider themselves both Christian and pagan. Perhaps we need new terms, because many people share elements of both traditions. Given the chance, articulation and opportunity, they would probably want to engage with fluid orientations. Many already do. This opens up bigger questions: not just about what is interfaith dialogue, but what is the nature of religion itself and the orientations it supports.

Before going further, let me clarify something about terminology. The term “witch” carries multiple meanings, many of them negative. In Africa and many other parts of the world, the term is associated with people who use spells and other forms of dark magic to create outcomes that are mean, dangerous, and harmful, from destroying crops to warping fertility.

I do not use the term “witch”, or pagan/animism, in that way. If I were to work in an African context, I would never refer to myself as “witchy” due to this radically different understanding of the term. I have no interest in associating myself with any form of evil magic or with those who practice it. I encourage others to be sensitive to these cultural differences when using these terms.

I reference instead a sensory, embodied understanding of the world as very much alive and infused with Spirit. It is an animism that gives further dimensions to and creates mystical experiences. Animist and animism are terms of growing popularity that speak to a web of life with which we engage, of a consciousness that can and is shifted, of listening to earth and the Spirit who moves within earth, of the power of circles, and of embodied practices and rituals. I appreciate the definition of magic given by Starhawk, a theorist of feminist neopaganism and ecofeminism, as “the art of shifting consciousness.”

Nothing in the loose-but-core theology of what I think of as animism and witchyness is against or contrary to my understanding of core Quaker theology. For me, the boundaries between Quaker theology and animism are porous; not impermeable.

Nothing in the loose-but-core theology of what I think of as animism and witchyness is against or contrary to my understanding of core Quaker theology. For me, the boundaries between Quaker theology and animism are porous; not impermeable.

Growing up in a west coast liberal Quaker family, I knew many people whom I would now refer to as witchy Quakers, though their own self-definitions were broad,  often avoiding self-definitions altogether. They (men and women) had goddess statues on their home altars and homemade herbal remedies in their cupboards. Some explicitly participated in covens.

Given the stories told to me by my grandmother, a respected Quaker, I suspect there is a long line, perhaps a whole subterranean world, of Quakers who were naturally oriented towards Earth, Her cycles, and the mystical experience of dwelling within a living being. This subset was unbound to Christian theology. It easily fit within my understanding of the Quakerism of the liberal, unprogrammed California meeting that raised me. 

It only becomes a challenge if we see paganism as opposed to Christianity… and Quakers as Christian. Perhaps how Quakers relate to the amorphous field of animism has as much to do with their relationship to Christianity as it has to do with heathen practices themselves.

Strong boundaries between pagan and Christian do not stand the test of truth of my own embodied experience of Spirit. I fully owned my witchy self whilst obtaining my Masters of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary. It was at the same time that I fell in love with biblical exegesis (another thing I had no experience in growing up amidst unprogrammed Friends). And when my own journey of decolonization and working with indigenous peoples in what is now New York led me to re-narrate my familial, national, religious, and ecological origin stories. Connecting with my witchy spiritual lineage was an essential part of my (ongoing) journey of decolonization. I see a similar need in my students today:  to better understand and even draw sustenance from pre-colonial/Christian (often but not only European) spiritual heritage.

These days, I draw sustenance from Christianity and biblical teachings; from earth/divine, feminine/animist practices and songs; and from Quaker practices. 

But the binary remains. It keeps many in the Religious Society of Friends from articulating and exploring our far-more-complex truths. And herein lies much of the challenge. So let us look into some of the early histories between Christianity and “paganism.”  Histories that bear striking resemblance to the missionization/colonization of indigenous America (and the rest of the world) several centuries later.

When Christians were actively missionizing Europe (between roughly 300 C.E. and 900 C.E.), their world was divided between Christian and pagan. Pagan was bad—sometimes evil. Christian was good, and in need of continued purification.

In the early stages of Christianity in Europe, people often practiced both Christianity and their ancestral pagan practices. That’s because they felt there was value in both.  Missionaries then (as during the colonial era) were often aghast at this, and referred to it as incomplete conversions and a lack of proper understanding. But perhaps something else was going on as well: people wanted the both-and. They wanted their traditional, land-based, community-orientated practices and they wanted to be part of a larger European (“universal”) body of people with a similar orientation.

Christianity’s organizational structure, literacy-orientated educational society, and systemized liturgical calendar shifted local European peoples’ relationship to time, to space, and to place. European peoples’ traditional ecological knowledge, embedded in more localized deities and rituals shifted. 

Centuries later, the Great European witch-hunts, happening at the same time as the beginning of colonization, deeply damaged Europe, violently severing people from place and significantly contributed to colonial violence.   

How much of that contributes to our non-sustainable ways of living today?

How much of our collective ecological survival is tied to revitalizing older, sometimes labeled non-Christian, ways of knowing and being?

As Quakers engage in the long process of decolonization and re-examine their own history, how are we now to relate to this category of paganism?  How much of our collective ecological survival is tied to revitalizing older, sometimes labeled non-Christian, ways of knowing and being?

Christianity is not an inherently non-animate tradition. In, When God was a Bird, Swarthmore professor Mark Wallace beautifully charts animate aspects of both the Old and New Testament: moments that show the aspects of both an older Jewish and older Christian tradition that is strikingly similar to paganism and animism. Repeatedly, he illustrates how God is referred to as having bird-like qualities: the wings of the dove, the movement of the Spirit in the air, hovering above the waters at the beginning of Creation. He shows how Moses and later Jesus took on classic shamanic symbols and characteristics, such as when the staff of Moses becomes a snake, and when Jesus spits into the dirt to remove a physical illness.

Once you know what you are looking for, the Scriptures brim with animism. 

“Oh, you’re witchy? I’m Druid-ish.” So said a Quaker friend of mine from Philadelphia. She was so happy to tell me all about her Druidic self, including her research into her non-Christian ancestors, her quasi-hidden practices, her daydreams, and the fullness of her life that has emerged within this semi-forbidden space. I appreciated that we both leaned away from nouns and spoke with adverbs and adjectives, shifting language in our search for greater fluidity.

“You are one of the first Quakers I’ve told this to,” she said: a confession. 

“You are not alone,” I replied.

Many Quakers today are keeping their attempts to revitalize their animist and magical selves somewhat under cover. This suggests that the old anti-pagan dogma still shapes the Religious Society of Friends. We risk both curtailing our religious expression and restricting the ways through which Spirit can speak to us. 

I am not suggesting that Meeting for Worship be converted into a spiral dance. But let’s acknowledge that many Quakers appreciate and participate in spiral dances. Sometimes those same Quakers also appreciate Bible study. And sometimes Earth, Moon, and the conversations of crows are their primary focus. 

I heard that at the 2023 Friends General Conference (FGC) Gathering, there was a two-hour dance party. Some of my students who attended told me that dance was one of their spiritual highlights of the Gathering.

It wasn’t that long ago that such ecstatic moments of bodily motion were ridiculed as pagan … and distinctly non-Quaker.

097616Continual revelation is core to our mystical tradition. The Spirit can move through us in all of those places. Old definitions of religion are shifting. Is Spirit asking something different from us in these times? Truth—old, powerful, and wise— is both ancient and emerging.

Continual revelation is core to our mystical tradition. The Spirit can move through us in all of those places. The moment is changing; the time is coming. Old definitions of religion are shifting. Is Spirit asking something different from us in these times? Truth—old, powerful, and wise— is both ancient and emerging.

I am convening a meeting for worship under a full moon, not in the Forest of Bowland, where some of my spiritual ancestors met, but in a grove of redwood trees, near where I was raised, in California. Maybe Jesus will move with us; maybe the Goddess will come and dance in our midst; maybe we will rise to join Her. Maybe there will ‘just’ be moonbeams and our beloved silence. I look forward to finding out. Perhaps you will join me.