Following the Threads of Federici
A History of Radical Resistance & Rebellion - achieved by Magickal Means
From the Inquisition to Black Lives Matter
Following the Threads of Federici is both an invitation and exploration to develop the themes outlined by Italian Marxist-Feminist Silvia Federici in her groundbreaking work Caliban and the Witch.
It's a tentative attempt to untangle the complex connections which span out across the Black Atlantic. We travel anti-clockwise: starting with the European Witchcraft Inquisition, moving across the Atlantic to Haiti & the Vodou ceremony at Bwa Kaiyman which kicked off the most successful revolution of enslaved folx in history. Next, we head to New Orleans & the antebellum South examining rebellions of the enslaved, then, to the 1960's looking at the potentials (and pitfalls) of second wave Goddess Feminism, and finally, leading up to the contemporary ‘magical resistance’ in the United States and beyond.
The project investigates the question, how was the persecution and disciplining of women (both economically, politically, racially, sexually, spiritually and socially) fundamental to the introduction of the Capitalist logic? As well as exploring the potentialities of magical praxis to dismantle systems of patriarchal white supremacy, foster networks of care and create new spaces of possibility.
As a scholar of radical social movements, who also self-identifies as a witch, this is also an experiment in moving beyond the purely materialist perspective, infusing Federici’s Marxist narrative with mysticism and mythology, tracing the contours of her thought and revaluing the contribution of practitioners of trance-based and ecstatic spiritualities (and the spirits who support them) as co-conspirators to projects striving towards healing justice and social transformation.
You can check out some videos presenting parts of my research below, or listen to the audio on my spotify podcast. (But be warned, my video editing skills back then were still a bit unpolished)
Here I explore the importance of Federici's groundbreaking text for any radical study of the European Inquisition, as well as beginning to delve into some of the Heretical groups who were the previous targets of the Inquisition, before the eyes of both the state and church became firmly fixed on the figure of the witch.
From the Demonological Doctrines that created the classic stereotype of night flying, infanticidal sex crazed Witches; secular reports of power hungry Magistrates; to wine stealing, cellar shitting Heretics, join us on this journey through the Alps, as we follow the threads of Federici and discover how radical political movements were transformed into a Conspiracy of Witches.
How did the figure of the Witch transform from male and female heretics into sexually deviant, diabolical women? And what does a penis nest have to do with gendered negotiations of power? ✨
Today we'll put a face to the name and investigate the man (or monster) who wrote the infamous Witch hunter’s Manual the Malleus Maleficarum : Heinrich Kramer. This highly misogynistic text was instrumental in fixing the figure of the witch as a female, associating harmful sorcery with women’s sexual deviancy and effectively rendering any female contribution to the political sphere as diabolical.
