White Magic

This is a fiercely intelligent collection of essays on topics of witchcraft, addiction, trauma, and popular culture. The title essay offers an unflinching critique into how whiteness has plundered witchcraft from its Indigenous roots. Washuta’s voice is smart and compelling; an enrolled member of the Cowitz tribe, she tackles the Instagram witch aesthetic that has proliferated over the past couple years. In doing so, she draws our attention to the capitalist roots of selling sacred herbs such as sage to question what is at stake in the industry of self-healing, and what we are really being sold. In other pieces, Washuta delves into her personal history of addiction and PTSD, as well as the after-effects of colonialism and settler violence to explore the ways intergenerational trauma still lingers. Other essays intertwine Washuta’s personal story with the emergence of alcoholism in Indigenous communities amidst colonialism, and the soundtrack to a half-remembered DARE commercial from the late 80s. Her essay on the Oregon Trail video game is another stand-out and one of the few essays to make good use of the second person. These are essays rooted in place and landscape, intersectional, and virtuosic. Washuta is an essential new voice to be cherished and WHITE MAGIC is collection not to be missed.

This is a gorgeous, incantatory bonfire of a memoir. I adored Washuta's original essay in Guernica "White Witchery" & was incredibly excited to see where her work would go. Washuta writes with a spiraling and unrelenting ferocity; there is no room to feel constricted or to lull, to let your eyes drift from the page. This isn't a passive reading experience. You can't necessarily "sink" into the work—and that's why it's so good. You have to engage, to reckon with the beauty and rigor and forcefulness of the language & the inventive, spell-like forms. And complicity is expertly rendered here—how the construct of whiteness itself is the most vile & haunted source of possession there is, and how magic has been co-opted & weaponized by whiteness' jaws. The grip of colonialism & violence is not simply a snare here, though—it's an indictment, but there's also the fact of the body, in all its burnings and desires and turbulent memories of history—and, most of all, how we can become incited to push back, to envision a magic that is not white people stealing from Indigenous and Black traditions. A beautiful, incendiary forest of flames, this book.

On the surface, White Magic is seemingly a cathartic collection of essays that reflect Elissa Washuta’s highly introspective, extremely personal (and quite revealing) experiences surrounding her battles with alcoholism, abusive relationships ending in heartbreak and pain, and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). With the help of counselors and therapists, she shares the results of their recommendations, their correct and incorrect conclusions, and subsequently the positive and negative effects it had on her life and mental health. However, at its core, she examines the tumultuous trials and tribulations experienced in her lifelong quest for help, healing, and peace. She is officially a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe but has ancestral ties to various other tribes and shares the evolution of her personal belief system which is rooted in Native American spiritualism and bolstered with blended doctrines, spells, and prayer.

The book’s title lends itself to her years of self-study on the subject and her fascination with witchcraft from childhood to adulthood. She pulls examples from pop culture (music, television, movies, icons, etc), literary anecdotes, and academic citations to craft her fascinating critiques of White Magic, Wiccan principles, and the negative influence of commercialization and Westernized (non-Indigenous) influences on the practice of witchcraft. I loved the inclusion of historical snippets and how she weaved her commentary on colonization’s destructive aftereffects and the systemic disenfranchisement of Native Americans throughout a majority of the essays; not to mention her insightful exploration of generational/hereditary trauma.

This book is rich and heavy - I needed to pause after each essay to digest what was presented. Not being familiar with her previous work, I opened this book with an open mind and no expectations and was not disappointed.

What an absolutely dazzling book! Having read several of Elissa Washuta's essays, I had much anticipation to read White Magic, and even then it went beyond my expectations. White Magic is expertly crafted set of essays that ultimately culminate into something truly magical. There is so much happening on these pages. I am simultaneously learning so much, in great admiration for Washuta's writing and mind blowing essay structure - weaving together the personal, historical, cultural, psychological, etc. and utilizing a wealth of sources, for example, from Twin Peaks to Carl Jung to Red Dead Redemption (I must also give credit to Washuta for being able to explain Twin Peaks in a way I can both understand and care about).

This was such an intriguing read. I picked this up because of the topics referenced in the description and expected something similar to Hanif Abdurraqib's work, but from a different point of view. I was so delightfully surprised at the way each individual essay braids into the others to build a more powerful whole. There's some great investigation here of identity, race and colonization, pop culture, and I'm going to be digesting it all for at least a few weeks.