We don't teach witchcraft . . .

We presuppose it

Some of you have asked me how the practice of witchcraft even comes up at a State University in a humanities class. We all understand that it comes up in a history class where one is covering events that include people who practiced witchcraft. However, I have posted about events at the Honors College where witchcraft is presented as part of feminism.

A reading that is often included in philosophy readers might help illustrate the answer. It is an essay by Rita C. Manning titled “Just Caring.” The Ethics of Care is often a section in contemporary ethics readers. The idea is that caring should be a value we have and should inform the way we relate to others. So far, so good. But look at what this author says in the first paragraph of the reading: “I see this disposition to care as nourished by a spiritual awareness similar to the awareness argued for by proponents of the women’s spirituality movement. As Starhawk describes this awareness: “Immanent justice rests on the first principle of magic: All things are interconnected. All is relationship. Perhaps the ultimate ethics of immanence is to choose to make that relationship one of love . . .; love for all the eternally self-creating world.”

Starhawk is a proponent of neopaganism and ecofeminism. Using her ideas and advancing them as true is like using any other religion in a secular university. They can be mentioned but not taught as true.

Notice that Manning sees how her ethic of care presupposes the ideas of magic and an eternally self-creating world. Her ethical theory is only true if it is indeed true that the world is eternally self-creating. Magic and feminist spirituality, according to Manning, presuppose that it is. That is the real question. She sees that it is opposed, at the fundamental level, to God the Creator.

Parents, students, donors, and state legislators, should a secular university teach spirituality? Should it teach a spirituality that is tied to the belief that the world is self-creating? Itis important to know where these ideas come from.