Is witchcraft on the rise?

[afleitch]

In 'benevolent' terms, yes. Tarot, readings etc are becoming popular amongst spiritually inclined 'online' queer Gen Z youths because organised religion has gaslit them.

[afleitch]

In 'benevolent' terms, yes. Tarot, readings etc are becoming popular amongst spiritually inclined 'online' queer Gen Z youths because organised religion has gaslit them.

What are you using this word to mean here? I keep seeing "gaslight" thrown around hither and yon as, basically, a synonym for "lie", but I trust you to use it in a more precise way than that.

Worse than lie. Manipulate.

The more difficult it becomes to show outward either hatred or disdain, and attempts at 'conversion' being harder to market and being a mostly busted flush, non affirming churches often need the heavy lifting of queer worshippers; sing for us, act for us, read for us, do community work for us, but you can never minister for us and if you happen to get gay married get out which is emotional and spiritual manipulation.

For groups like Church Clarity, people like Kevin Michael Garcia etc, certainly in the US it's very difficult to find or get a straight answer out of a lot of mainstream Protestant to evangelical churches particularly those who market to young people, about what they believe; not 'let's discuss for a coffee', not 'just try us', not general obfuscation but actual clarity on whether you affirm, even whether you don't but still allow service in the church community. On day one.

That's what I mean by gaslighting. Churches marshal the forces of self-doubt disproportionately and in some cases almost exclusively to queer Christians.

[afleitch]

“Witchcraft” is usually what people mean when they use paganism in a derogatory sense (as opposed to its more philosophical  strains), and it is indeed endemic to all societies which trust the senses over the intellect, including our own.

Paganism, stretched out as far as one can take it, is not endemic in our society. Wiccans, the largest “pagan” group, number less than 1.5 million people and the total “pagan” + new age folks probably number less than 1% in adherence.

Group affiliation isn’t really appropriate when it comes to “new age” beliefs - 30% of all Americans believe in astrology after all. Besides, idols like nationalism and identity politics are just as pagan as tarot and the zodiac.

I don't think on the one hand you can have a dig at the 'otherness' of esotericism or astrology and tarot readings while mainstreaming temple offerings, praying the rosary and glossolalia.

[afleitch]

Alcibiades, here are some links to (or about) Pew polls showing a mild upswing in belief in astrology:

Pew poll from 2009 showing 25% of American adults believe in astrology
New Yorker article from 2019 citing a figure of 29% from the 2018 Pew poll
Stridently supercilious and condemnatory post on a Columbia University stats blog analyzing the 2018 numbers

Note that the last link has breakdowns by religion and shows almost half of "nothing in particular" respondents believing in astrology, and fully 78% believing in at least one of "spiritual energy located in physical things", psychics, reincarnation, and astrology--the highest of any religious group in the poll. (Avowed atheists, on the other hand, were, as one would expect, the lowest, followed by Evangelicals. Bizarrely, the stats blog interprets the very low "atheists" number as evidence that belief in these sorts of things doesn't substitute for traditional religious belief, while the staggeringly high "nones" number goes completely unremarked-on.)

Given the numbers for reincarnation--51% of "nones" believe in it--I feel increasingly confident in my hypothesis that that is now the plurality belief about the afterlife among Americans who aren't committed Christians.

Pew asked again in 2017.

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans

Only worth noting because the make-up of the rapidly increasing 'none' demographic has shifted a lot since then. But the figures aren't too different. Indeed the nones' figures align closely with mainline/historically black/Catholic views (which probably fits with where these 'nones' have came from.) You can also see it reflected in younger respondents.

UK polling from the same year (and 2015) has belief in astrology at 19% or 6% depending on who asked. So there's a bit of cultural difference.