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No force can stop her on her quest. Our Boss in feature personifies this Badassness! Introducing Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, a self-declared witch and India’s most famous practitioner of the Wiccan craft. She’s the world’s most “Beloved Witch”, founder of the Wiccan Brigade, an author, healer, and activist. Ipsita exemplifies the strength of being a woman. In an exclusive interview with BeBadass, Ipsita discusses how she first got introduced to the Wiccan way of life, why Wiccanism is the first feminist movement of the world and how she deals with prejudices with respect to witchcraft in India.
How were you drawn into the Wiccan way of life?
The really important moments in life happen by destiny, not design. I have no doubt in my mind that my life as a Wiccan was preordained by a Higher Power. Else, as we say, if the Goddess did not walk with me, I would not have made such a success of my calling—the way of the witch.
At the chalet in the Laurentians, my guide Carlotta had asked me whether I realised how I would be looked upon in my country if I said I was a witch. And even then, I had known there was no other path I would choose. Within me, I knew it with a deep conviction, powerful and so strong. My time with my guides was a period of transformation, where the portals which normally separate various dimensions were opened. The many parts of that essence of I, Ipsita, which has always been, were coalesced together. The past, the present, and the future perhaps, all became one.
What is the most powerful aspect of observing the Wiccan way of life?
Wicca, as I have learned and as I teach my students, is a way of life. It involves study and prayer. We are not ritualistic. We are not rigid. The main thing is the will and the attitude. Our Path is one of detachment. Of stoicism. Nothing should overwhelm us, good or bad. We believe in strength in oneself and in aligning with a Higher Power. Perhaps that is why we steer clear of fortune-telling, for we believe that breaks the backbone.
What have been the differences for you in your Wiccan identity, living in both the USA and in India in terms of how the practice differs in both the countries and the level of and acceptance in society?
When I learned and practiced it in Canada, it was very different. Ours was a more academic, esoteric movement. It was research and scholarship. Today, Wicca in the US has joined with the New Age movement, and it not of the same mettle. In India, when I started I had to contend with superstition and politics. There was also ignorance about it. However, in the time that I have been working in India, I feel I have changed things enormously. Here in India too, much of the old scholarship which belongs to our yogini tradition and Shaktism has degenerated. People are mainly after money.
Perhaps that is why I say, ' you don’t choose Wicca – Wicca chooses you.’
In your observations, what are the stigmas and misconceptions associated with the term 'witch' in India?
Our society associates witchcraft with black magic and cheap gimmicks. They do not know the depth and scholarship behind it.
Our society is characterized by a fear of what they cannot perceive. They are afraid to open their minds and look and research beyond what is pure nuts and bolts. This is sad because some of the greatest mystics and thinkers from past times have been from our country. Sri Aurobindo who talked of the physic Vitale, Jagadish Bose who researched consciousness in the plant kingdom. But their way of thinking and advancement of knowledge is not there anymore.
In the West, scientists and writers have always delved with great success in research of the supernatural. They have not been limited. There was Edison’s very controversial experiment with his Spirit Machine, something like a telephone to contact the other side. There was Conan Doyle, and his work in spiritualism. In later times, universities in Scotland have researched into psychic phenomena and how they can become trapped into the very fabric of what is around us. Even today, universities in Berlin and in the UK are carrying out research into the survival of the spirit, of consciousness. Well known medical schools in the US are talking of parallel dimensions and how the human consciousness doesn’t extinguish but simply moves from one to the other after physical death.
In our country, we have only superstition, ignorance, and fear of the unknown.
An intent to conceal identities has been widely associated with witches as there are people trying to burn or lynch someone they believe to be a witch. This is especially widespread in remote villages. How did you personally breakthrough this association?
Be it villages or cities, the desire to brand and malign an unorthodox woman is ever prevalent. In villages, the crimes are more heinous. Innocent women are still beaten, stripped, and battered to death. Their fault? Perhaps she did not have a male 'protector'. Perhaps she rebuffed the advances of the local goon. Maybe she had a piece of land to her name and no husband to own it.
The truth is that our society is afraid of powerful, independent women. They cannot stand them. So, if such women are successful, they are called black magic workers and witches. Credit of any other sort is not allowed to them !
When I returned to India and saw how witch hunts were rising in the districts, I spoke out and said, I am a witch. To those who battered our innocent village women as daayans, I said, if you have the courage come and deal with me. I am a daayan. Come and face me. They slunk away with their tails tucked between their legs. That’s how one deals with ignorance and cowardice.
Why is Wicca considered as the foremost feminist movement in the world?
Wicca is the first feminist movement in history because it was women centric and advocated strength for the woman. It was a tradition embraced by independent, free thinking women who wanted to stand apart from the diktats of a society riddled with distorted norms and conditions. Wicca aligned with that power we call the Goddess and inculcated that same strength in women. In her book, the Beloved Witch, Ipsita writes that "The witches of olden times were learned women. They were goddess worshippers. They were doctors and wiser than the panchayat men."
“The distortions came later instigated by organized religion or by a male dominated society who perhaps felt that women were getting too powerful. Instilling fear was never one of the motives. Maybe fear of Wicca was drummed into people in order to satisfy various lobbies with vested interests." — says Chakraverti in an interview with IBN Live.
On how Wicca can empower women..
Wicca has always stood for knowledge, strength and women's empowerment. That was the original Wicca. In an interview with Life Positive, Ipsita writes that “[..] a witch is the total woman. Strong daring women who have dared to live their own life, whatever it is. Jacqueline Kennedy, Indira Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Namita Gokhale, Kiran Bedi—all of them could count as witches."
Ipsita believes that Wicca can be used to enable and empower women. In connection with the Nirbhaya case, Ipsita was quoted saying that “The Delhi gang-rape was a turning point. Women need to speak out and after the incident, we have seen how they have spoken up. In a small way, Wicca can give women that confidence and ability to speak out. It is a strong woman’s craft. Every strong woman is a witch.”
On how the male gaze differs from the female gaze with respect to Wicca?
“Actually we shouldn't go so much by men and women. We should go by individuals. Empowering the individual. As we gradually arrive at the age of the unisex, we should take the human personality. Let it be strong. Wicca is not so gender obsessed that it is going to say that we are of a kind and we keep to our kind. We are of everybody; we are of human soul, human strength. It is not as it we are aggressive women on the warpath”, says Ipsita during her interview with Life Positive.
Do you have a certain clairvoyance about what’s in store for the feminist movement?
In times to come I think we will see a society which is driven purely by the intellect. Perhaps alien influences will play a part. There will be no gender. It will start from the western part of the world.
Being a witch has a sense of Badassness associated with it. What quality do you think being a witch and a badass woman have in common?
Both are dangerous. You cannot mess with them.
Who are some Badass women in your life?
What do you want people to remember you for?
I would like to be remembered for the fact that I was ‘bad’ by society’s rules, I was ‘beautiful’ by what my mirror told me, I was a ‘bitch’ when I needed to be, but—I was there, a witch, by anybody’s side whom God had forgotten.
No force can stop her on her quest. Our Boss in feature personifies this Badassness! Introducing Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, a self-declared witch and India’s most famous practitioner of the Wiccan craft. She’s the world’s most “Beloved Witch”, founder of the Wiccan Brigade, an author, healer, and activist. Ipsita exemplifies the strength of being a woman. In an exclusive interview with BeBadass, Ipsita discusses how she first got introduced to the Wiccan way of life, why Wiccanism is the first feminist movement of the world and how she deals with prejudices with respect to witchcraft in India.
How were you drawn into the Wiccan way of life?
The really important moments in life happen by destiny, not design. I have no doubt in my mind that my life as a Wiccan was preordained by a Higher Power. Else, as we say, if the Goddess did not walk with me, I would not have made such a success of my calling—the way of the witch.
At the chalet in the Laurentians, my guide Carlotta had asked me whether I realised how I would be looked upon in my country if I said I was a witch. And even then, I had known there was no other path I would choose. Within me, I knew it with a deep conviction, powerful and so strong. My time with my guides was a period of transformation, where the portals which normally separate various dimensions were opened. The many parts of that essence of I, Ipsita, which has always been, were coalesced together. The past, the present, and the future perhaps, all became one.
What is the most powerful aspect of observing the Wiccan way of life?
Wicca, as I have learned and as I teach my students, is a way of life. It involves study and prayer. We are not ritualistic. We are not rigid. The main thing is the will and the attitude. Our Path is one of detachment. Of stoicism. Nothing should overwhelm us, good or bad. We believe in strength in oneself and in aligning with a Higher Power. Perhaps that is why we steer clear of fortune-telling, for we believe that breaks the backbone.
What have been the differences for you in your Wiccan identity, living in both the USA and in India in terms of how the practice differs in both the countries and the level of and acceptance in society?
When I learned and practiced it in Canada, it was very different. Ours was a more academic, esoteric movement. It was research and scholarship. Today, Wicca in the US has joined with the New Age movement, and it not of the same mettle. In India, when I started I had to contend with superstition and politics. There was also ignorance about it. However, in the time that I have been working in India, I feel I have changed things enormously. Here in India too, much of the old scholarship which belongs to our yogini tradition and Shaktism has degenerated. People are mainly after money.
Perhaps that is why I say, ' you don’t choose Wicca – Wicca chooses you.’
In your observations, what are the stigmas and misconceptions associated with the term 'witch' in India?
Our society associates witchcraft with black magic and cheap gimmicks. They do not know the depth and scholarship behind it.
Our society is characterized by a fear of what they cannot perceive. They are afraid to open their minds and look and research beyond what is pure nuts and bolts. This is sad because some of the greatest mystics and thinkers from past times have been from our country. Sri Aurobindo who talked of the physic Vitale, Jagadish Bose who researched consciousness in the plant kingdom. But their way of thinking and advancement of knowledge is not there anymore.
In the West, scientists and writers have always delved with great success in research of the supernatural. They have not been limited. There was Edison’s very controversial experiment with his Spirit Machine, something like a telephone to contact the other side. There was Conan Doyle, and his work in spiritualism. In later times, universities in Scotland have researched into psychic phenomena and how they can become trapped into the very fabric of what is around us. Even today, universities in Berlin and in the UK are carrying out research into the survival of the spirit, of consciousness. Well known medical schools in the US are talking of parallel dimensions and how the human consciousness doesn’t extinguish but simply moves from one to the other after physical death.
In our country, we have only superstition, ignorance, and fear of the unknown.
An intent to conceal identities has been widely associated with witches as there are people trying to burn or lynch someone they believe to be a witch. This is especially widespread in remote villages. How did you personally breakthrough this association?
Be it villages or cities, the desire to brand and malign an unorthodox woman is ever prevalent. In villages, the crimes are more heinous. Innocent women are still beaten, stripped, and battered to death. Their fault? Perhaps she did not have a male 'protector'. Perhaps she rebuffed the advances of the local goon. Maybe she had a piece of land to her name and no husband to own it.
The truth is that our society is afraid of powerful, independent women. They cannot stand them. So, if such women are successful, they are called black magic workers and witches. Credit of any other sort is not allowed to them !
When I returned to India and saw how witch hunts were rising in the districts, I spoke out and said, I am a witch. To those who battered our innocent village women as daayans, I said, if you have the courage come and deal with me. I am a daayan. Come and face me. They slunk away with their tails tucked between their legs. That’s how one deals with ignorance and cowardice.
Why is Wicca considered as the foremost feminist movement in the world?
Wicca is the first feminist movement in history because it was women centric and advocated strength for the woman. It was a tradition embraced by independent, free thinking women who wanted to stand apart from the diktats of a society riddled with distorted norms and conditions. Wicca aligned with that power we call the Goddess and inculcated that same strength in women. In her book, the Beloved Witch, Ipsita writes that "The witches of olden times were learned women. They were goddess worshippers. They were doctors and wiser than the panchayat men."
“The distortions came later instigated by organized religion or by a male dominated society who perhaps felt that women were getting too powerful. Instilling fear was never one of the motives. Maybe fear of Wicca was drummed into people in order to satisfy various lobbies with vested interests." — says Chakraverti in an interview with IBN Live.
On how Wicca can empower women..
Wicca has always stood for knowledge, strength and women's empowerment. That was the original Wicca. In an interview with Life Positive, Ipsita writes that “[..] a witch is the total woman. Strong daring women who have dared to live their own life, whatever it is. Jacqueline Kennedy, Indira Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Namita Gokhale, Kiran Bedi—all of them could count as witches."
Ipsita believes that Wicca can be used to enable and empower women. In connection with the Nirbhaya case, Ipsita was quoted saying that “The Delhi gang-rape was a turning point. Women need to speak out and after the incident, we have seen how they have spoken up. In a small way, Wicca can give women that confidence and ability to speak out. It is a strong woman’s craft. Every strong woman is a witch.”
On how the male gaze differs from the female gaze with respect to Wicca?
“Actually we shouldn't go so much by men and women. We should go by individuals. Empowering the individual. As we gradually arrive at the age of the unisex, we should take the human personality. Let it be strong. Wicca is not so gender obsessed that it is going to say that we are of a kind and we keep to our kind. We are of everybody; we are of human soul, human strength. It is not as it we are aggressive women on the warpath”, says Ipsita during her interview with Life Positive.
Do you have a certain clairvoyance about what’s in store for the feminist movement?
In times to come I think we will see a society which is driven purely by the intellect. Perhaps alien influences will play a part. There will be no gender. It will start from the western part of the world.
Being a witch has a sense of Badassness associated with it. What quality do you think being a witch and a badass woman have in common?
Both are dangerous. You cannot mess with them.
Who are some Badass women in your life?
What do you want people to remember you for?
I would like to be remembered for the fact that I was ‘bad’ by society’s rules, I was ‘beautiful’ by what my mirror told me, I was a ‘bitch’ when I needed to be, but—I was there, a witch, by anybody’s side whom God had forgotten.
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