A prominent figure in witchcraft and paganism can vary a bit. There are no true religious figures so-to-say. Like we don’t have a pope that ushers all of us. Individually you may have high priests and such in covens or sects, but no true uniting leader. On top of that since there are so many different branches of witchcraft and paganism there’s no real or true practice. Everyone has a different approach on some things, and religions vary wildly from one another.
Prominent figures for us are usually influencers, authors, well known figures in history, that sort of thing. There is no peer review board, and we have no true religious organization we all unite under-so the list can be pretty expansive depending on what your path looks like as to who you’d see as a prominent figure.
Now obviously we’re still all humans. Some people are misinformed, some are just power or fame hungry. Just as there are bad priests there are bad pagans, and just as a Minister shouldn’t be treated as a sole source of understanding, we shouldn’t treat people on the witch/pagan side any different. This is because we’re all human, and humans are flawed.
Scholars will often have to defend and pitch their research and claims to a regulatory board, they are reviewed by their peers and rated on their work. They are publicly blacklisted when they’re total nutcases (though maybe not as often as they should be). Your local Reverend is not. Neither am I. When publishing a book, you may have the publishing house to look to and depend on for credibility and truth but even that is fuzzy sometimes.
What is Confirmation Bias? What does this have to do with confirmation bias, or my views?
Confirmation Bias is defined as “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.” So, for a real-life example we’ll look at something that’s relatively harmless. Someone is stealing candy at work. There are rumors that Jake from Accounting is the one doing it. You see Jake open his desk drawer and see five (5) starbursts in there! You have now decided that Jake IS the one stealing. However, what you didn’t see is that on his way to work he bought a pack of starburst at the gas station and is completely unaware of the candy thief.
So, as you can see, confirmation bias requires jumping on new evidence as if it’s a solid form of proof. The evidence was the candy in Jake’s desk. But you did not do any actual work to look into it. If you would’ve asked Jake, he could’ve shown you his receipts and explained he buys a pack every week because his blood sugar drops, and he sometimes needs that quick pick up and he loves starburst.
Confirmation Bias comes in many different flavors, sometimes its maybe you finally found that one bad thing is it about someone you got bad vibes from and are suddenly validated in your dislike of them. Or it could be you learned something about a celebrity that made you feel validated in your hate of their music. Or something that made you feel smart because you were right. We all have it occasionally, it’s just important to keep it in check.
So, the connection between scholars, prominent figures, confirmation bias, and your personal path may not be clear just yet. What do starburst and candy thief’s having to do with witchcraft? Well, the sad truth of the matter is many people will listen to “scholars” who are not only NOT scholars, but sometimes very poorly educated on a subject because something as simple as it came from a website they really like, or a book that was published.
Which is why we’re here now-this level of disconnect where we stop seeing our religious leaders and figures as what they are-because we’re ‘different.’ As a Demonolater I can’t tell you how many edgelord power fantasies I have seen in print. Borderline cult shit. Why? No one is often there to stop them. People can publish stuff that’s culturally appropriative with little to no issue. People can just say stuff that’s blatantly wrong and get on any self-publishing service to print it. That’s not to say no one can be trusted, there are plenty of trustworthy authors out there. Even ones that are self-published!
But we have to stop holding onto their every word because it’s in print. We have to be open to further learning and understanding, even if that means we may have been wrong in the past. Eat that L-that’s witchcraft baby! You should be always aiming to grow and learn, you will only truly fail when you stop trying to grow. We can’t really just stop at this one person’s word, we have to keep going past that or else we start to fall into this cycle of ‘but so and so said this,’ instead of attempting to understand it further when presented with new information.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up a general witchcraft book that starting off talking about how NO WITCHES will EVER worship SATAN and CURSES are SO EVIL AND BAD and WITCHES WOULD NEVER. Well, I’m a witch. I worship Satan. I don’t cast curses willy-nilly, but I am very curse positive. All this wording does is appeal to your own confirmation bias. You’re a witch and you’re not bad therefore NO witches are bad and the ones that are? Well, those just aren’t witches! Often times when people are trying to gain acceptance or persuade a person that this side isn’t as bad as they heard, so they should be willing to join.
Again, usually based off a level of confirmation bias to go ”See? We’re not bad people. you shouldn’t hate us. We hate the same person!” But… we are the same person. You cannot amputate your arm and still try to use it. Trying to shove us to the side just makes it more awkward for you later. You can even just be unhappy people like me exist. It’s completely wrong to pretend we don’t exist because it makes it easier for people to accept you and even join you. You’re swaying them under a false pretense and promise. But they’ll see it soon and now everything you’ve said is under question.
This is also where once more I want to say-we can’t trust all authors. They are human and often aren’t peer reviewed and are more likely to share to you their way of thinking. I’m included in this, I just try to be upfront when something is my personal belief, or a belief stated by another, or where I pull my information from, so you don’t have to guess.
When it comes to confirmation bias it’s best to manage by vetting, and cross checking. And there’s so many reasons to do this to begin with! I will even go as far to say that my posts and writing should always 100% be cross referenced despite the fact that I know I make an effort to be upfront about where I find stuff. Because that’s the importance of getting good information. If someone tells you that you don’t need to look into what they tell you… look into it. Also, there’s really not a lot of wrong and right ways in things like witchcraft. Religion-yes there’s more structure on that end and in some cases, there is a right and wrong way. But witchcraft is very fluid.
On this side of things, we’re more likely to run into things like cultural appropriation. Before you come for my neck, when I talk about cultural appropriation, I am talking about things that are taken out of context and done incorrectly because someone is not paying attention to the culture it comes from. I’m not talking about culture that are already open, or to tell you what you can and cannot do. I’m talking about stuff that is misinforming you about something, especially if it’s something you can’t easily fact check.
Cross checking your information is the best way to try and combat this kind of thing. Search into it more and see if you see other discrepancies. Maybe you find there’s a long-standing controversy, maybe you find one is outdated and misused. Maybe you find out it’s a mistranslation. Or maybe you find out it’s true and presented correctly. You don’t really hurt yourself by cross checking, and while yes, it’s more reading, and often times more work for you, it’s much better to understand where this stuff can come from, and understanding no one person’s word is law. It simply can’t be by human nature.
Because after all confirmation bias is very human in nature. We seek those who agree with us and make us feel safe. We will want people to listen to us and agree with us to feel seen and heard. This isn’t bad on its own, but it becomes bad if we begin to twist the truth, or even reject it, for a sense of belonging and group-safety.
Be open to learning new information, be understanding of change and why it comes, and you will always be able to grow. You won’t lose group safety by learning, but you may switch the groups you’re in.
Share your thoughts!