iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Thorn Mooney

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The number of Amazon reviews a book has is not the true measure of a book's success. Neither is the number of celebrities talking publicly about a book. Awards are not a true measure of a book’s success. How people feel after writing the book or reading it is the true measure of a book's success.

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Reposted by Thorn Mooney

Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You can hear my band, Loyal Sparrow, do an interview and play some songs for a local radio show here in NC! youtu.be/JMhc1LDjYXU?...

youtu.be

Bella G & Loyal Sparrow, The MAKSBeat Music Radio Show on JoCo Radio 09/29/2026

YouTube video by Maria Kinney Blanchard

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Reposted by Thorn Mooney

CatLady Lil @catladylil.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Hey #witchsky and pagans generally, this is a very good book. I wish I'd had it 15 years ago.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I realize you're not okay, but I'm thinking about you and rooting for you right now.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I was at the vet with my babe this morning, too. Hope yours is feeling better quickly and it's nothing to worry about!

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

You can hear my band, Loyal Sparrow, do an interview and play some songs for a local radio show here in NC! youtu.be/JMhc1LDjYXU?...

youtu.be

Bella G & Loyal Sparrow, The MAKSBeat Music Radio Show on JoCo Radio 09/29/2026

YouTube video by Maria Kinney Blanchard

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It’s a gamble to meet a man seeking witchcraft who’s reached out to my coven. It’s a gamble having a man come to office hours. It’s a gamble going to a show alone. Every day, a gamble. And it’s so mundane we don’t always realize we’re even putting energy into it. It’s just how we live.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

And I hope that the climate makes it abundantly clear why. I have personally been harassed and assaulted, in each community I’ve been a part of: Pagan, music, academic. And so have many (most, I would wager) of the other women in your life.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Men feeling confident about being witches and leading covens and criticizing women publicly without being called sexist and worrying about being perceived as entitled in the metaphysical publishing industry…that‘s just not where I’m putting my energy.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I have been accused, on many occasion, of “hating men” in occult spaces. When what I’m really doing is not centering them, and pushing back at many of their narratives of disenfranchisement.

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Reposted by Thorn Mooney

Trish Anderton @trishanderton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Men do not understand how much the threat of male violence has taken from us

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’m taking a beat making class that focuses on being able to reproduce sounds and rhythms from multiple genres in Ableton. The other class (that uses pro tools) is focused on capturing live recordings (performances on campus and around town, mostly).

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

New witches, be instantly more grounded and confident than everyone relying on social media.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Witches, If you’re still recommending “The Truth About Witchcraft Today” please god try this instead.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Journalists and religious studies/anthropology undergrads, do not interview a witch without reading this first. You’re welcome.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Give it to your mom. Read it to understand wtf your crystal-hoarding girlfriend is into. If you’re a therapist it’s actually mandatory.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And everyone makes those pennies as the video circulates.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And we can never really know who we’re engaging with behind a screen, so it’s always just our best guess. But grains of salt all around.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Additionally: ”Is it fair to make a sweeping statement about how members of a particular tradition behave and think based on what literal children say on TikTok?” Which we do to Wiccans all the time.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It’s fair to ask, “Are the people saying the misinformed thing on Reddit/tiktok/Amazon reviews/etc even people?” Does this actually need me to refute it in a serious way?

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

In an age where ragebait is a thing, comments are produced by bots, and clicks=money, I don’t think it’s wise to treat comments on a TikTok video as either sincere or necessarily reflective of wider trends.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Oh, and more thoughts: I dont dispute that the misinfo is out there or that there are still people on the internet saying wrong things. Of course there are. But I do think we have to consider who those people are and how seriously to engage with it.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

As a not-shopkeeper I have the luxury of letting people be wrong and rarely engaging. I salute you.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yeah, I would guess a shopkeeper would bear the brunt of it! I wish there was a way to survey folks about where they’re getting that misinfo. I bet there would be some surprises for us.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We also have to be experts in accommodation, and speak for identities and experiences that we couldn’t possibly have. It makes failure inevitable. None of this works unless we’re in community and can direct people to other sources.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And maybe the solution is that we stop asking individual teachers to be the sole supports. I feel like we’re living in a moment where we need witch gurus who know everything and have to be “unproblematic” all at the same time. No wonder we’re constantly disappointed in people.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

To me “learning styles” is also often really just a lack of support or scaffolding. ”Learning styles” are not an objective thing in education—we know people need multiple strategies and do best with several working together. But we act like person A needs pictures and person B needs a lecture.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Absolutely! That’s one of my own pet issues. A lot of the best materials are just not accessible. Even if people get them, they often don’t have the training to understand what the text actually argues (which is why people insist scholars like Hutton or Puca have said things they just haven’t).

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I hear all the time that I tell readers they have to be initiated. I also don’t know that not all witches are Wiccan, and I need to learn my history. My worry is that people actually *are* reading, but aren’t understanding. The literacy crisis is so real.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

lol I need to just be a blogger again

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Bitching about the correct things is how we signal belonging, whether we’re trying to be taken seriously as witches, joining a profession, or picking up a new hobby. It’s a fast, low impact way to signal we know the lingo and are part of the in crowd.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Which is why we now have folks who insist that Gerald Gardner made up Wicca in the 60s in between wiping out white sage and abusing women. The stories get wilder because no one is actually looking at the original arguments, texts, or people. They’re just using them to signal seriousness & belonging.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Today, newcomers learn very quickly that the way to insidership is to understand that Wicca is problematic, unserious, for beginners, or otherwise not real witchcraft. Regardless of whether or not it was sincerely shoved in their face by a “love and lighter.”

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But the argument that Wiccans are everywhere, running the show, and ruining things for everyone else persists. A big part of that is a collective investment in “real” and “serious” witchcraft being “not Wicca” that took hold in the early days of social media.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The complaint that everyone is Wiccan and there are other kinds of witchcraft is similarly bizarre because Wicca hasn’t been trendy in more than a decade. We know that based on publishing trends. We know that based on social media hashtags.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

So it made sense for men to be like, “Wait do I belong here.” Asserting as a man that you could be a witch signaled confidence and also familiarity with the community. People didn’t necessarily know! But today? Come on.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

And so much of that earlier literature was about empowering women specifically (it was written at a time when we couldn’t have credit cards or take our loans without husbands, for fuck’s sake, nevermind birth control and glass ceilings and blah blah blah).

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But earlier in our collective movements, that concern made more sense. You weren’t seeing every book laid out before you and you didn’t have social media or conferences. You went to your local moot and you saw tons of women.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Good god. Look at any festival presenter roster or B&N shelf. Look at our various movement instigators! Gardner, Sanders, Cochrane, Buckland, Cunningham. And that’s before we’re even touching the 21st century. Thats just not a legitimate complaint.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Other very similar complaints exist, that also made more sense decades ago. One of those is the “men can be witches too” issue. With the most visible (and highest paid) teachers and writers and speakers in witchcraft communities being men, you’d have to be out of touch to think men aren’t witches.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But the complaint persists—despite people not reading it anymore—because it’s such a catchy, culturally significant, dare I say nostalgic complaint in our spaces. How you felt about Teen Witch signaled how “real” you were in the early 2000s. And all of that survives, independent of the actual text.

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

But the reality is that book is not On shelves anymore. Who is reading it? I was told years ago that it was on its final print run. In the age of AI slop, short form video, and every problem in the world, is Teen Witch really such a hot issue in witchcraft spaces?

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Thorn Mooney @thornthewitch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I was on here ranting a few days ago about how people complain about the book Teen Witch, for example. People have been saying the exact same things about that book for almost three decades, as though it’s a fresh take and a legitimate concern.

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