The Defanging of Witchcraft: Why Softness is Suffocating the Craft

When Witchcraft Forgot How to Bite

There was a time—long before hashtags, curated altars, and Etsy algorithms—when the word Witch was spit out with teeth. It was whispered across graveyards and behind shutters, laced with fear, iron, and the raw scent of earth. Witch was not a brand. It was not an aesthetic. It was a blood oath to stand outside, to grasp fate by the throat, to dance where others wouldn’t dare tread.

And now? Gods help us.

Modern Witchcraft has been gutted. Neutered. Smothered beneath layers of lukewarm virtue and moral posturing until it barely resembles the gnashing, feral craft it once was. It’s been colonized, commercialized, and served up sanitized on pastel platters—safe for mass consumption and stripped of its ancient power.

The Gospel of Obedience (Wrapped in the Rede)

"Harm none."

You’ve heard it. Wielded like a blade in online circles, used to police, shame, and muzzle. What was once a guideline from a single tradition has metastasized into a universal gag order, a crowbar to pry Witchcraft into something polite, something docile.

The Rede was never universal law. It is one philosophy among many, yet it’s treated as the singular gospel, weaponized by those more concerned with policing others than interrogating their own comfort.

Where does this deep-seated fear of harm truly come from?
The patriarchy.

Because a Witch who knows her power is dangerous. A Witch who will hex when hexing is due, who stands firm in discomfort—she is a threat. So instead, we’re fed a steady doctrine of restraint. Of softness. Of staying in line.

This isn’t about ethics.
It’s about control.

Witchcraft was never meant to be safe. It was never about moral purity. It is a practice of balance—of knowing when to heal and when to sever, when to nurture and when to burn it all down.

Karma: The Whitewashed Fairy Tale

And then there’s karma—Western Witchcraft’s favorite comfort blanket. The ultimate cosmic cop-out.

“Don’t worry about revenge. Karma will handle it.”
“Bad vibes come back threefold.”

Neat, tidy, and utterly divorced from the sacred philosophies it was stolen from. In its true roots—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism—karma is not punishment. It’s an intricate, multigenerational unfolding of cause and effect tied to dharma and rebirth. It’s a mystery, not a transaction.

Western pop spirituality reduced it to:

Be good, and the universe sends cupcakes. Be bad, and you’ll break a toe.

This warped version serves to justify privilege, dismiss suffering, and shame those who dare take direct action to balance the scales.
Witches?
We don’t wait for the cosmos to fix what’s unjust.
We fix it ourselves.

The Lie of “Magic as a Last Resort”

Who decided magic was supposed to be your final fallback, after all else fails?

“Try everything else first. Then, if you absolutely must… maybe do a spell.”

Nonsense.

Does a carpenter avoid their hammer until it’s the only option left?
Does a surgeon wait to wield the scalpel until the last second?

Magic is a tool.
One among many—but never lesser.
Witchcraft is strategy. It is medicine. It is force of will made manifest.

Stop treating your power like an apology. You are a Witch.
Act like it.

Virtue Signalers, White-Washed Witches & Colonial Shadows

And what of the virtue signalers? Those who must parade their goodness, their docility, their moral sparkle for all to see?

They weep for hexes but feed on passive aggression.
They chant “harm none” while thriving in a world built on harm.
They call baneful workings “dark” while ignoring the very systems that keep them safe and unchallenged.

This sanitization of Witchcraft—this push for a Craft without claws—is not new. It’s the latest evolution of colonialist rot. A Witchcraft that doesn’t bite is a Witchcraft that doesn’t threaten. And who does that serve?

The same powers that have always sought to silence us.

This is why so many turn their backs on ancestral practices: blood rites, bone work, sacrifice, necromancy. Practices rooted in Black, Indigenous, and other non-Western traditions are swiftly labeled “too dark,” “too primitive,” “too wrong.” Meanwhile, easy spells for promotions or hexing your ex’s love life (but calling it “shadow work”) are perfectly palatable.

That hypocrisy reeks.

Witchcraft Is Not a Morality Contest

This path is not about being good or bad. It’s about being honest—about yourself, your needs, your thresholds, and the raw, roaring lineage that pulses through your veins.

I don’t want a Witchcraft of whispered apologies.
I don’t want a Craft that’s been neutered, scrubbed clean, defanged until all that remains is moon water and mood boards.

I want a Witchcraft that stands unapologetically in its power.
That remembers the scent of blood and the taste of iron.
That holds both the healing salve and the knife.

If that makes me “too intense”? Good.
If it means I am labeled “dark”? I’ll wear it proudly.

Because what I will not do—what I refuse to do—is stand idle while the Craft I love is diluted beyond recognition.

So Tell Me — Where Do You Stand?

This is more than aesthetics. More than the likes on a post.
This is about power, truth, balance, and the absolute sacred right to protect, hex, heal, or sever as needed.

We are Witches.
We are not here to be liked.
We are here to be.