This is really interesting, because my experience is the same but different. Most (thought not by an overwhelming margin) of the people I know who practice something that they call ‘magic’ are male and not especially marginalized, but this is probably because I’m in the same demographic as them. My guess would be that talking about ‘magic’ across demographic boundaries is hard, because there are so many ways in which one can be misunderstood, so magical groups tend not to cross these boundaries easily.
My instinct is to find this regretful, but perhaps the secret, underground nature of the whole thing is part of the magic? And this leads us right in to the question of how we do magic on the internet, where privacy and secrecy are hard to maintain.
I’ve really noticed that people whose social media personas are cloaked in magical imagery seem to be able to handle social media better than most. They seem able to be open but private, accessible without being exposed, able to communicate big ideas without getting caught in constant bitter argument, and I think that points to something really interesting. I guess there are parallels to how esotericism was used both to obscure and reveal in the past.
I really liked this article and I’d love to see more discussion of this kind of thing. Thanks Leigh!
