Sontag’s opinion on the Campiness of the natural world is clear:
Life is not stylish. Neither is nature.
Nature is so decidedly without style or artifice in Sontag’s eyes that she suggests “camp effaces nature, or else contradicts it outright.” In the spirit of high summer, I thought I’d suggest Witch Balls as this week’s Camp objet d’art. Even if you didn’t know what you were seeing, you’ve probably seen a Witch Ball before—they’re those metallic orbs hung haphazardly about a lawn or in a window, usually about the size of a head. You can get one from a glassblower, or, you know, at Menards (Lowe’s, if you’re coastal).
I suppose because of their resemblance to crystal balls, I’d assumed the name “Witch Ball” meant that these spheres were to be used by witches. It wasn’t until I fact checked this assumption for this very post that I discovered Witch Balls are not for witches at all! On the contrary, they’re an English folk tradition that began in the 1600s intended to ward off evil spirits and spells. The English believed the balls might work in a few different ways—the witch might see the reflection of her victim in the ball, cast a spell, and instead curse herself; evil might gather as dust on the ball’s surface, which could then be wiped away; or evil spirits might be so mesmerized by the ball’s shininess that they’ll get sucked right in.
But witchcraft has always been political and, as such, any attempt to thwart a witch is decidedly unCamp according to Sontag, who says,
It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized—or at least apolitical.
(For a quick rec list of books on feminism and witchcraft, you can read below the Paywall line.) My TL;DR on the subject is: witches have traditionally existed on the fringes of society for economic or social reasons. Deprived of traditional avenues to healthcare and legal protection, they’ve turned to alternative solutions. Enter witch trials, the result of countries scared shitless that women might gain agency over their own bodies through herbal remedies that cause sterility or induce abortion, thus lowering birthrates and reducing the population of low wage laborers crucial for sustained economic success.
A concrete example of the relationship between witchery and politics lurks in our very recent past. Justice Alito actually cited decisions by English Judge Sir Matthew Hale several times as legal precedent to overturn Roe v. Wade. Guess who else cited Hale? Judges in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, who referenced Hale’s 1662 decision sentencing two women to death for bewitching children through dreams. Cool, cool, cool.
While SCOTUS’ arcane views make it unnecessary for me to further connect the Craft to politics in our modern era, I want to call attention to a more recent witch. Mrs. Satan, Victoria Woodhull, a medium, clairvoyant, and suffragette. Pam Grossman has a fantastic article on the spiritualist history of witchcraft, in which she explains Woodhall is known for:
…[founding] the first woman-owned Wall Street brokerage house with her sister, founded the first woman-owned newspaper in the U.S. and was the first woman to address a Congressional committee when she petitioned them to give women the right to vote. But she is perhaps best known as America’s first woman to run for president, which she did under the Cosmo-Political Party in 1872… Her championing of free love, her beliefs that marriage was institutionalized slavery and that sex should always be consensual, her insistence that women wear less restrictive clothing and her support of paid sex work were just a few of the “far-out” views that earned her the sobriquet Mrs. Satan.
So while I cannot suggest you ward off long-established radical feminist icons—witches—with Witch Balls, I still want to suggest you Campify your yard (or sill, or patio, or whatever space your living situation currently affords you). Sontag and my friend Meredith Blankinship over at Notes from Disturbed Ground both consider the Gardens of Versailles for their status as symbols of pure style. Blankinship points out,
…lawns originated with the Palace of Versailles in the 18th century as a shocking display of wealth, basically saying: Look at all this land we don’t even need to grow food on! We care not if you starve, peasants!
Isn’t that wild? Gardens as we know them only exist because Louis XIII wanted to show off.
Blankinship, a Green Witch with a permaculture gardening business, recently helped me install a decidedly unshow-offy vegetable garden using cheap plastic planters and bungee cord. I’m growing vegetables and a few herbs. As Sontag’s biographer, Benjamin Moser (at the Substack Urubuqaqua), notes, for Sontag, “Camp was resistance.” So my suggestion for this week is that in an act of witchy feminist resistance that divests you from Big Ag or Big Pharma even slightly, you plant something you can eat, treat an ailment with, or use to sterilize Justice Alito. Reader’s choice! (I’m going with nightshades, the most ornate and thus Campily named plant.)
For a little video of my garden and book suggestions on feminism and witchcraft, read on…
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