The Truth About Magic

I’m not trying to throw shade here. I’m merely trying to speak to a subject that’s sensitive, and maybe even a bit taboo. I’m not going to use sensitive language though. I’m just going to throw it all out there on the table.

You’ve been warned.

There’s a lot of crazy in my family. Like undeniable, diagnosable, Baker Act worthy crazy, and I have no shortage of tales to tell. But for now, I’m going to stick with just one.

Let me begin by saying, certain members of my extended family have a tendency to twist the truth. Not on purpose — like they’re lying. More like they get an idea in their head, and to them, it becomes the truth. Which makes it really hard to know what’s real and what’s not.

I’ll give you a quick and simple example. When my Grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer, she underwent chemotherapy treatment (as many cancer patients do). In the end, when she passed away, my aunt told me that the chemo was what killed her. She claimed that the doctors over-treated her — that the chemo singed her up from the inside out — and that’s what killed her.

Maybe that’s true. Maybe the chemo treatments were too much for her, and maybe it did “singe her up from the inside out.” In either case, the real truth is that my Grandma had lung cancer, and she died because of lung cancer.

Okay, so I guess I’m telling two stories. This second one is longer. Buckle up.

My great aunt was a witch, and even though she was born in the 1930s (not the 1630s) she was convicted and persecuted. Sort of…

Here’s the story I was told:

My great aunt was married to a man who had her committed sometime in the 1950s or 60s. This is true.

Here’s where the story gets a little hazy. Supposedly she was committed by her husband after he caught her praying at an alter she had made in the closet. After catching her in the act, he had her committed and she became a prisoner to the awful mental health care systems we had in place during those times.

The family insisted that my great aunt wasn’t really crazy. It was just that, by the time the Baker Act was passed and she’d received her freedom (as the mental institutes of the past were shut down), the damage had already been done. My great aunt had been held captive and medicated against her will for so long, that by that time, she had indeed become “crazy.”

This was all long before I was born. By then, she was living comfortably in an assisted living facility and she was no longer a prisoner. She even came over to my Grandmother’s house from time to time. Even so, I remember hearing stories about how they had to force-feed her prescribed medications and check to make sure she’d swallowed them

Given this version of the story, I began to weave my own ideas about the truth. I thought that perhaps my great aunt really was a witch. And that, obviously, must have meant that magic ran in my family. I hated what happened her, but I fell in love with this idea that my family was magical.

Of course, what I’ve shared so far isn’t the full story. And the real truth becomes much easier to piece together when you receive additional details. Details that I did not receive until I was much older (and had asked for them).

Those details are as follows:

Number one — my great aunt had already long been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.

Number two — her reason for partaking in said “witch craft” was related to the birth of her child, who was sick, and eventually passed away.

Number three — She did make an alter in the closet (perhaps as a dedication to her child), and her husband did awkwardly catch her praying in there one day.

Number four — My bi-polar, great aunt was in a deep state of inconsolable grief for a long period of time after the death of her child. The real reason her husband had her committed was because he could not tolerate her deep state of grief-induced depression.

This is perhaps one of the saddest of my own family’s stories. And although receiving all the details certainly changes my understanding of what happened, I still think that there’s something much bigger at play behind the anxiety, depression, bi-polar, and schizophrenia diagnoses that exist on that side of the family.

When my own mental health becomes an issue, it’s easy to look at my family history and wonder if perhaps some sort of diagnosis is something that I can’t outrun. But I also have reason to believe that the root cause behind the “crazy” in my family is in fact something much more mysterious and magical.

I am drawn to these things, and my interest in them has helped me understand and develop my own sensitivity to energy, collective consciousness, and maybe even ghosts.

I think this sensitivity is strong in my family. However, my family is very catholic. As such, I think they deny and fear those parts of themselves, and I think that they have been taught to believe that they are crazy.

I think this is true for many highly religious people. Especially those of us who come from cultures that were originally pagan, native, or otherwise magic-based. We fear and deny our truth, and we come to believe that something is wrong with us and that we are crazy. Just look at the history behind the spread of Christianity. It speaks for itself.

Now, I can’t deny the fact that there is also a lot of Capital-T Trauma that’s spread like wildfire through that side of the family; and I know that this trauma plays a role in the state of many relatives’ mental health. There’s also a lot of Capital-T trauma associated with the death of the old religions and the rise of Christianity. It’s very complicated.

Still, based on conversations I’ve had with certain family members, I know that at least some of them choose to self-medicate with everyday drugs like alcohol and marijuana, because it keeps them from having to face their traumas or connect to the mysterious parts of themselves that they fear. I think it’s easier for them to believe that they are “fucked up,” than it is to believe that they are powerful beyond their belief.

Maybe this attachment that I have to magic is my way of coping with the crazy in my family. This is something I can’t help but consider from time to time. But also, especially for those of us who feel connected to the magical, mystical and mysterious, this deeply ingrained need to question ourselves has been cultivated. It’s been cultivated in human beings over centuries by design.

Thankfully, my experience with life and the unseen has helped me move beyond the belief that I’m crazy. The hopeful, whimsical, self-aware, and deeply connected part of me, truly knows better.

Most of the time.

xoxo,