Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

The #Instawitches of Instagram are claiming two new members as of November 7, the date when yoga instructor Hilaria Baldwin, wife of Alec Baldwin, and jewelry designer Michelle Campbell Mason who claims to be a Salem Witch descendant, will launch their new podcast, “Witches Anonymous.”

According to an announcement on Instagram, Baldwin and Campbell are jumping on the “aren’t witches cool” bandwagon by claiming their new podcast is about exploring women’s relationships with one another. What the practice of witchcraft has to do with this, we can only guess.

In the podcast trailer, they announce, “Hey witches… Come to the coven where we don’t hold back and we don’t shy away from tough topics. Bring your brooms and join us as we tackle why women are pitted against each other and what we can do to stop this vicious cycle.”

Baldwin, who has 998K followers on Instagram, explained: “Women are often pitted against each other and made to be adversaries, fostering cutthroat competitiveness among us. We will look to history, the feminist movements and witches’ stories to learn from the many women who support other women to gain wisdom and realize that we’re better when we work together. We’re going to break down those barriers and join forces to raise up every woman.”

Campbell, who has 22K followers on Instagram, claims the podcasts will “take you on a historical deep dive into an analysis of why women tear each other down. We will explore why women have been raised to be adversaries instead of teammates. Studying the patterns that have reinforced this for generations we will analyze how we got to a time dominated by mean girl culture…”

She continued, "Through this lens we are also celebrating witches of the past, and I feel particularly honored to do so, being a descendant of one of the Salem Witches who was killed in 1692."

Listeners to this podcast should be forewarned that bragging about being a descendant of a Salem Witch is a pretty good indicator that her “historical deep dive” will be steeped in revisionist history about the so-called “Burning Times” that’s so popular among today’s witches. They like to promulgate fanciful fabrications about the burning of witches with grossly inflated numbers and victims whose stories rival that of the Christian martyrs.

A case in point is the popular witch, Starhawk, who claims nine million adherents to witchcraft were killed during the “Burning Times.” She claims this holocaust forced witches to go underground where they remained until the 20th century when today’s version of witchcraft was invented by an amateur anthropologists and occultist named Gerald B. Gardner.

However, serious historians, such as Robin Briggs from Oxford University, say the number of witches executed was actually closer to 40,000 with most of these taking place during a relatively short period – from 1550 to 1630.

While today’s hipster witches like to claim that cruel Christian men were responsible for their demise, the facts tell a different story. The accused women were mostly poor and unpopular and their accusers were ordinary citizens – very often other women – not priests or secular authorities.

“In fact, the authorities generally disliked trying witchcraft cases and acquitted more than half of all defendants,” Briggs found.

In other words, they released more than they executed.

Will these rather inconvenient facts be addressed on a podcast that invites women to “bring your brooms” and “join our coven”? Probably not. Instead, this podcast will join a long list of similar shows that glorify a wildly distorted version of witchcraft that is being fed to mostly young women via social media.

Lisa Lister is a perfect example. She authored a modern day handbook for women entitled, Witch: Unleased, Untamed, Unapologetic writes: “A witch is a woman in her power. She’s wise, a healer – someone who is aligned with the cycles of nature and the phases of the moon. She’s in touch with the dark. She knows how to witness, how to let things go, how to follow her own counsel.”

For this reason, Lister claims, “Every woman is a witch, whether she knows it or not. She’s cyclic, she’s powerful, she can embrace nature to heal herself and her community. In other words, she is magic.”

The reason modern witches brag about being “in touch with the dark” is because, generally speaking, they don’t believe in Satan. Of course, this doesn’t mean there is no Satan. It simply means they choose not to believe in him. As a result of this naivete, they engage in a wide range of occult practices including spell-casting and divination, all of which call upon dark powers that go by various vogueish monikers such as spirit guides, nature spirits, goddesses etc.

But how do we know these powers are dark, they ask? Well, because of the damage they cause, all of which is proven by the hard evidence compiled by exorcists such as Father Chad Ripperger who stand on the front lines of these spiritual battles every day. They tell us that, “A great deal of the work of exorcists around the world is the result of trying to undo the damage of magic and witchcraft.”

It’s only reasonable to assume that exorcists know a bit more about the reality of witchcraft than a pair of hipster witches sporting Alexander McQueen and carrying their grimoires in Gucci bags.

This is why those who sincerely want to empower women should warn them away from the dark arts associated with witchcraft that will only make their lives worse and stop putting forth fairy tales that are saturated in dangerous falsehoods meant to sell their witchy brand to a gullible public.

If Baldwin and Campbell can’t think of a better way to help women “rise up” than by enticing them into witchcraft, then maybe they should stick to teaching yoga and designing jewelry where the damage they cause can at least be less of a public hazard.

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com