Heresy is a manifesto, a ritual, a manifestation, a performance, a scream, and eventually a film installation. The project begins with a few essential questions: What is the role of magic today and who are the people embarking on this magical journey? What are the boundaries of our world and importantly, what are the boundaries of online and offline space? Who is seeking to destroy and diminish the power of magic? How can magic be used to empower queer people, trans people, and people of color?
I’d like to get us grounded in the same reality or at the very least attempt to orient us as we move through these questions and into the portal that Heresy may provide.
To do this, I’d like to first provide some guiding terms and definitions, which is important as words are slippery, full of projections, double meaning, fluid. And yet words are one of the essential components to my magical practice and an essential way in which I can transcend my body and communicate with you.
So let’s begin here, with the understanding of both precision and fluidity, the understanding that words do have power, and the understanding that this list is not and will not ever be complete.
Magic is the use of tools to shape our inner and outer worlds.
Power is the energy flowing through all things.
Consensus Reality comprises what a large group of people generally agree to be “real” and provides constraints on what is possible in the world.
Disenchanted World is a world where we are disconnected from ourselves and each other and where the power of magic is intentionally diminished.
Score set of instructions with constraints.
Rituals historically were often the inversion of social values and traditional Christian rituals but more generally can be an intentional set of actions, gestures, words performed like a score.
The Witch is someone who is dedicated to the path of connection, turned against the disenchanted world, and has access to power and magic.
The Devil represents that which deviates from restrictive and normative ways. Can represent both that which is feared but also the promise of love, power, and riches.
Enclosure is the transition of that which is public and communal to that which is private and commodified, oftentime, demonstrated through the enclosure of land but can also be something more “abstract” such as knowledge. Think: parks and academic institutions.
Conjuratio is a pact made between the devil and the witch, but also those made by workers in solidarity.