The paper discusses feminist witches' theories and practices in the light of anthropological theories about ritual and magic, explores the role of symbols and energy in magic, and demonstrates how these witchesuse ritual for empowerment and healing. For these witches, magic is not anti-science or pseudoscience: it sits alongside science as another wayofaddressingaproblem. Their spells, forexample, incorporate expressive, dramaticand aesthetic components and values, along with an explicit instrumental purpose. The witches who are the focus of this study do not explain their ritual practice in such dichotomized terms. Scholarly theories and debates about magic and ritual have frequently been dichotomously constructed: science versus magic, the symbolists versus the intellectualists, causality versus participation, ritual as action versus belief as thought, and so on. These women are thoughtful and articulate about their magical practice, and it is their theories about how magic works and the function of ritual-making which are the paper's central concern. The paper draws on three years' fieldwork and twelve years' familiarity withfeminist witches in New Zealand.
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