"Judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judged." - A Review of HEX

HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Several years ago, in my early years at university, I took to calling myself a witch. At the time, I did so because I considered myself Wiccan, and though I know a Wiccan may call himself or herself whatever he or she so pleases, I felt that “witch” was as good a term as any for who I was at the time. The word was also interesting in that it played at a hint of rebellion. As I have mentioned in my review of Tom Bissell’s Apostle, I have always tended to question, rather than simply accept, all the things I have ever been told about the Church, and that questioning reached its height when I entered university. And since I was also a rather angry teenager (in my own way) at the time, calling myself “witch” was satisfying not only as a label I felt I could honestly identify with, but also as an upraised middle finger at an agglomeration of conflicting concepts so flimsy it crumbled at even the lightest intellectual poke.

Nowadays, I no longer call myself a witch, nor even a Wiccan, for that matter; I feel I cannot use those words to describe my notion of faith and still be truthful about it. Nor does the word hold the same spirit of rebellion it used to for me, although I can fully understand and appreciate how it can have that kind of meaning for other people. My current (and likely continuing) interest in witches and witchcraft is associated with other things, particularly where they overlap with feminism, power, faith, and fear. After all, witches and witchcraft have occupied an interesting space in history and culture: alternately loved and hated, adored and feared.

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