No, Witches Don't Collectively Condemn Ilhan Omar

This essay is about a recent article I read on The Daily Caller in which Janine Nelson from the Covenant of the Goddess (The CoG) interviewed about allegedly antisemitic statements by Ilhan Omar, a member of the United States House of Representatives from Minnesota.

I had a really shitty night of sleep last night, spurred on both by Daylight Saving Time crapping on my sleep schedule and because I had attempted to write a post I was woefully emotionally unprepared for regarding a Daily Caller article titled "Wiccan Community Expresses Outrage At Ilhan Omar's Comments: Anti-Semitic And Unacceptable."  I stumbled upon it because I had read a number of comments on my own feeds about Ilhan Omar, most of them arguing on a range between "she said nothing wrong at all" to "she should have thought about her wording to avoid antisemitic tropes but was otherwise not wrong," and I decided to delve into it a bit.

This is when I learned that apparently Witches had a vote sometime and consistently agreed:  We, a group of people who can't agree on fucking anything, were outraged--outraged--at Omar's comments about Israel, a subject that even Jewish people do not have a consistent, unified opinion on.

Firstly, it's important to mention that the Covenant of the Goddess doesn't really represent Witches in general, or even just Wiccans, and quite frankly their advocacy isn't always a pinnacle of accuracy.  Reading their information about Witchcraft, as a non-Wiccan Witch, is a headache-inducing chore, so to see the opinions of one of their members applied to all of us as a collective whole is frustrating at best.  I basically know nobody who is even a member of the CoG, despite Witches and Wiccans making up a good half of my social circle, and although it's hearsay, when I brought it up the consensus seemed to be that this organization is dwindling.

From the article:

"The statements of Rep. Ilhan Omar were anti-Semitic and unacceptable.  Through our members, a collective voice shared their shock at such hurtful anti-Semitic rhetoric and that this discriminatory, prejudiced language is unacceptable from anyone, especially any public figure."

What did Omar actually say?  She said that United States support of Israel was about money and that it's ridiculous that we're expected to pledge undying loyalty to a foreign country.

One of the reasons I was up so late last night over this is because carefully wording anything about Israel is, quite frankly, a necessary chore.  Because antisemitism is so deeply rooted in our cultural mythos, basically every negative quality a human can have has at some point been promoted as a uniquely Jewish stereotype.  I think it's important that Omar listen to the criticism from Jewish people, but I nonetheless think that it's a stretch that her statements were uniquely antisemitic.  Instead, I believe they're targeting Ilhan Omar not because they care about stopping antisemitism, but because they hate that she is a black Muslim immigrant woman criticizing a country that is well documented to be committing extreme human rights abuses against Muslims, a population the United States not only tolerates, but actively supports oppressing.

"We should crush criticism of the marginalization of a minority religion" is not something I support as a human being let alone as a Witch, so I am more than a little pissed off to see Janine Nelson attempting to speak for me in such a way.  To be fair, this is The Daily Caller we're talking about, so there's a good chance Nelson may have not fully understood what her words were going to be used to say, but it was woefully irresponsible regardless.

Later there is another statement by Nelson that might--I can't be sure because of the limited information provided--suggest Nelson's opinions are more about the resulting resolution than Ilhan Omar's original statements.  To quote the article:

"[We are] pleased at the outcome of the passing of H.Res. 183. While it does not specifically include Wiccans, Witches, or Pagans, it expands the rejection of intolerance to all religions.

[...]

"The Covenant condemns intolerance and discrimination of any kind.  We are also acutely aware that words matter, and every individual should have the liberty to pursue their spiritual calling without fear of persecution based on religion, race, or place of birth."

This is an ironic statement, because it's clear this whole thing is about punishing Omar's reasonable opinions as a Muslim, but I think it's important to look through this anyway, because it's unfortunately common for Pagans to assume any old "religious tolerance" win is going to affect us in a meaningful way.

This has rarely been the case, though, because it's almost always written with a particular event or goal in mind that has nothing to do with us.  Because we weren't in the spirit of why they were written, we wind up becoming "exceptions" because people do not view our beliefs as genuine religious expression.  The goal of H.Res. 183, of course, is to punish a Muslim woman, not to protect religious minorities, and as such it has no hope of ever being usefully applied to hate speech against Witches, Wiccans, or Pagans, at least not without an insufferable fight.  Hell, it probably won't even be used against hate speech toward Muslims, which was added as an afterthought to the original resolution because it was just so brazenly obvious why it was written.

Finally, I want to talk about the bizarre implication that Witches, Wiccans, and Pagans collectively support Israel and everything it does, because this is quite frankly nonsensical bullshit.  I'm baffled that Nelson seems to believe this is a widespread enough opinion among Witches to even make a comment about it, because it's certainly not how any of my Wiccan or Pagan contacts see it.  Almost all of them are on that same "said nothing wrong" to "said a correct thing but badly" spectrum I was talking about before, with most who say anything immediately pointing out that Israel is a religiously-motivated ethnostate, a concept that is wildly harmful to any minority religion within that state, let alone an unpopular one like Wicca.  Perhaps the most pro-Israel thing I've seen among Witches were the Jewish Witches and Pagans of Jewish descent whose opinion was merely "we need to clean our own house first," a reasonable reminder that even though Israel commits human rights abuses, the United States is basically the cartoon villain of the world.  All of these statements have come from Witches who have a long-documented hatred of Israel's treatment of Palestinians and are merely critical of antisemitism disguised as pro-Palestine activism.

That's not to say there aren't extremely pro-Israel Pagans, Wiccans, and Witches.  I don't know any, but Witches exist in all political corners and don't have homogeneous political beliefs or opinions about our relationships to other belief systems, so they certainly exist.  But are we collectively of this opinion?  No.  And there are plenty of Witches out there actively standing with Ilhan Omar, too.

To summarize, regardless of your personal opinions regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict or Ilhan Omar's comments, there is no unified belief among Pagans, Witches, or Wiccans.  The Covenant of the Goddess does not speak for all Wiccans let alone all Witches, or even most Witches, and although I'm not convinced she understood what it would be turned into, Janine Nelson's statements were irresponsible.  I would argue that Pagans in particular should be critical of any religious ethnostate or attempt at creating one, and that vague religious tolerance statements rarely in practice apply to us.

That said, happy trails,
-- Setkheni-itw

Please Step Away From The Essential Oils

This post is about why I scaled back my use of essential oils considerably and urge caution with their use, some alternatives to essential oils, and a good chunk of why you shouldn't join multi-level marketing (MLM) pyramid schemes because they're creepily relevant to this topic.  Note that there are casual references to death including infant and pet death in this post.

I've been on a huge anti-MLM kick lately, mostly because I listened to the first season of the compelling podcast "The Dream" but also because I have seen family and friends completely ripped off by them.  My mom, notably, is a serial MLM flop... she has spent thousands over the years trying to start "home businesses" for things like fancy powdered vitamins.  On a personal note, listening to "The Dream" really punched my in the gut because it brought to the forefront how much of this problem was ultimately not really her fault; these are designed to make you really feel like you're going to make a living while ensuring you fail miserably.  Once, when I was still in Literal Poverty, I tried an MLM, too, and I have definitely considered others.

This post is, though, only partially about MLMs.  It's mostly about essential oils, although the connection will be made in this essay, trust me.

When I was a baby Witch essential oils carried a lot of mystique for me.  Being a broom-closeted early teen too young to secure a job or drive a car, I relied heavily on DIY solutions and the Internet to practice, and so I lusted over this concept of "essential oils" that I kept seeing in ritual and spell instructionals.  Since I couldn't get my hands on them I just steeped kitchen spices in vegetable oil and used those whenever an essential oil was requested.  I could get away with being at the supermarket with my parents and spending my allowance on average herbs, but essential oils?  Didn't want to explain them, and furthermore, expensive as fuck.

Having gone so long without acquiring these, when I was a young adult I obtained an enviable stash of essential oils that I used for practically everything.  Why would I use messy ground herbs for stuff when I could just use essential oils?  It was quick, it was convenient, and it was cheap in the long run.  My room smelled like a lavender hellhole (to this day lavender essential oil triggers memories of dorm room magick) but I felt like a more genuine Witch.

It turns out I was using them super irresponsibly.  I didn't use them internally--we'll discuss that with the MLMs, though, I promise--but I did use a lot of them, used them topically without understanding whether that was a good idea, I did use some of them in my mouth (even if I didn't swallow), and used them without diluting them enough (if at all).  I was lucky and didn't have that many extreme reactions at the time (my first reaction was when I made a deodorant that had a great deal of essential oil in it including some that are not nice for the skin at all, and I convinced myself I was allergic to arrowroot powder instead somehow).  I was convinced that these oils were concentrated plant magick and did this stuff for many years.

They are concentrated... too concentrated.  The vast majority of home users of essential oils are not really equipped to understand how strong an essential oil is, we have this underlying assumption that natural medicine is inherently safe and gentle.  Essential oils are neither, especially when used in wantonly irresponsible ways.  You are also losing out on a big part of the plant when you use them... one of the appeals of plant medicine is that rather than concentrating out one particular chemical that affects your body you're using a whole matrix of chemicals grown in that plant together.  And even some of the safest ways of using essential oils--through diffusing them--can be unsafe or even deadly for pets! 


It's also important to mention that essential oils--especially cheap ones--are a massive environmental hazard, because depending on the herb one little quarter-ounce bottle of that shit could have taken a whole shed or more full of plant matter, and for some plants it's damn near impossible to ethically source them unless you grow them yourself, and buying a bottle of essential oils with them is dozens of times worse.

I'm definitely not saying that essential oils aren't useful.  Do I use them?  Of course.  I use them very sparingly, I'm much pickier about them, and I use fixed oils instead, but I'll talk about that way at the end when I talk about how I think you should reduce, reconsider, and replace essential oils.  First...

What does this have to do with MLMs?  It turns out, there are some very popular MLMs right now that focus on essential oils.  I had them on my mind this morning because I noted a local Pagan shop I go to posted about a bad review they got on Facebook, which said:

Lack of knowledge regarding essential oils and why it is necessary to take them internally.

And I immediately knew right away:  This person is selling either Young Living or doTERRA.  I checked out her Facebook and... yup.  This is a Christian woman who sells doTERRA.

"Why does it matter that she is Christian?!"  I think it's important to mention that both doTERRA and Young Living are deeply based on exploiting the treatment of women in fundamentalist Christianity.  Many of these women are not allowed (by their husbands, their churches, or of course their own personal beliefs) to take jobs outside of the home, and so MLMs have created a kind of loophole to, well, take their money, and a lot of them are built on Christian beliefs.  If you want to read some prime what-the-fuck, here's somebody justifying marketing Young Living essential oils basically because she's allowed to preach while she sells them.  Young Living, by the way, was founded by Donald Gary Young, who made claims his essential oils could cure before dying a good ten years before the average male life expectancy in his state.  He also accidentally drowned his newborn daughter while his wife was giving birth.  Perhaps they should rename the company to "Young Dying?"  doTERRA, by the way, was founded by people who left Young Living.

(Seriously, if you listen to that podcast, so much of the reason MLMs are popular is because of Christian attitudes toward women)

Anyway, this combination of faith healing and repression of women turned out to be a winning combination for making essential oils the in thing again, but one of the many problems of MLMs is that sellers need to keep hemorrhaging money, and so the products wind up being promoted way beyond their original scopes.  There's only so much aromatherapy somebody can do, but what if... hear me out... what if we start eating them?  Just full on eating a whole fucking bottle of doTERRA.  Please buy my doTERRA.

The first time I was in an anti-MLM group and saw somebody post a picture of doTERRA oils being used to brine a turkey, I thought "this couldn't possibly be a normal thing."  But no, they literally are trying to get you to eat essential oils.

So what should I do instead?  Essential oils are not a very old concept and therefore are not really integral to Witchcraft at all.  If you're like me, you already have a lot of essential oils and I'm in no way suggesting you just throw them out or anything, but tone it down.

First and foremost, don't fucking eat them. There are culinary essential oils out there you can get at, say, a candy shop or something, but there are very few essential oils that have any evidence to support taking them internally for health benefits.  For those that do, you really can't wing it and will need to talk somebody who has actual training (not an MLM consultant).

When you do use essential oils, use very little, and always put it in a carrier oil when applying topically or anointing, say, a ritual tool with it.  If you use it topically, do a patch test first because some people react more than others.

I've stopped using essential oils in most ways that would involve putting them on any sensitive areas (in the mouth, on the lips, etc.) but if you do (like, say, in a lip balm) do not

My own technique?  I went back to what I did as a kid... I make steeped, or "fixed" oils.  This, again, has huge historical precedent... essential oils are fairly modern, so ancient talk of plant "oils" are often plant matter steeped in a carrier oil anyway.

Take the spice or herb you want, dry it a bit, and steep it in oil (olive, avocado, sunflower, coconut, animal fat, flax, almond, they all add their own scent and have their own repercussions but they'll all work) for a few days.  Strain out the plant matter and use it any way your Witchcraft books say you should use essential oils... you can use more of it, if you want, and if you use a foodsafe herb and foodsafe oil in a foodsafe location you can even use them internally if you want to make your gross "healing turkey" or whatever.  When you make a fixed oil you don't need a carrier oil because you already have a carrier oil!


Anyway, that's all for essential oils today!
Happy trails,
-- Setkheni-itw