Vaccines can be scary, and there should be no shame in admitting that. It’s not unusual to have a fear of clinical needles or to be worried about what’s inside of the vaccines themselves. However, vaccines have saved countless lives over the course of the past few hundred years — including the lives of religious people, and those who otherwise rely on spiritual and natural medicine. The Covid 19 pandemic hasn’t shown much sign of giving up easily, and global vaccination efforts are aiming to fight this virus much like humanity fought measles, cow pox, polio and other fatal illnesses. Sadly, the witchcraft community is sharing a lot of similarities with the conservative antimask community — by way of being antivaxxers.
Hesitancy is understandable, but misinformation is not
It’s one thing to be hesitant of taking a new vaccine, but what is not okay is the level of misinformation being shared and absorbed — especially when this is impacting whole communities of people. Antivax sentiments within the witchcraft community are not only coming from a place of ignorance, but they are dangerous. Sources like this one highlight the growing problem with antivax belief among spiritual communities — in particular, witchcraft communities. We are being painted, largely, as a group of people who do not trust science. This is something that is intellectually insulting to those of us in the community that do value science as well as human life.
There should be no mistrust in science among witches. After all, medical science itself is heavily rooted in the ancient herbal practices of our foremothers and forefathers. Vaccines are just the evolution of these ancient practices. Both natural medicine and modern medicine are designed to combat disease — and we are currently living in a pandemic that is killing people.
