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Broadly DK

How Anti-Fascist Witches Are Mobilizing Under Trump

As Trump supporters and antifa clash throughout the country, witches are turning their magical attention towards the new administration—and their spells are not all about love and light.

In the days after Trump's inauguration, after the outspoken white supremacist Richard Spencer was punched on camera, the media became entangled in a passionate ethical debate: Is it ever OK to punch a Nazi? several news outletspondered.

Around the same time, I was sent a Google Doc containing a poetic manifesto written by a mysterious group of anti-fascist witches called the Yerbamala Collective (YMC) that seemed to raise a similar question: Is it ever OK to curse a Nazi? The manifesto was titled, succinctly, "Our Vendetta: Witches vs. Fascists." On the first page, it read, "FUCK [DONALD TRUMP], FASCISTS, RICHARD SPENCER, MILO." On the third page, in giant font, the collective proclaimed with unpunctuated urgency, "YOU WILL NOT WIN EVEN IF YOU KILL US WE WILL HAUNT YOU OUR GHOSTS WILL KILL YOUR DOG."

An antifascist spell book created by the group (also in the form of a Google Doc) offered a more extreme alternative to the Wiccan Rede, a moral code central to Wicca and several other Neopagan and witchcraft-based belief systems. "An it harm none, do what thou wilt" is the most common form of the Rede; it simply means that those who abide by the rule are free to do whatever they wish as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. "& IT HARM FASCISTS," the Yerbamala spell book states, "DO WHAT THOU WILT."