sarahlyons

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One of the notable participants in Magick Show, who you’ll see a lot of, is the author/political activist/witch and now film director, Sarah Lyons. In fact,  the first thing anyone says in Magick Show is Sarah’s answer to the question “What is magick.” I won’t give it away here, but as soon as she said it, I knew for certain that I was going to use it.

I first noticed Sarah Lyons in a Vice video about witches. I was immediately impressed by her on-camera poise and by how articulate she is. And she looks like a witch. Perfect for a project like Magick Show. She wrote a really great book called Revolutionary Witchcraft. When I read it, I could tell that her politics and mine (go socialism!) were very sympathetic. Sarah’s also a real go-getter, too, which I appreciate. She’s one of those people where you just know she’ll go far in life.

I asked Sarah Lyons a few questions over email.

How do you think you naturally came to have an aptitude for witchcraft? Was there something about you as a child that, in retrospect, had a big influence on you in that way?
Some people struggle with religion and God when they are young, and mark adulthood as a time when they don’t have to put up with that stuff anymore. I was never like that. I’ve always found religion, mythology, and the Gods infinitely more relatable and easy to understand and love than most people. I struggle with choosing one path to follow or thing to believe, not believing in anything at all. When I was very young I wanted to be a priest, but being a Catholic girl, that wasn’t a career path that was open to me. So, I did the next logical thing and got into witchcraft.

At what point did you start to fully identify as a witch? To yourself and to family members and others around you?
I was privately identifying as a witch from about the age of 14, but around 2017 when I started working with Vice and doing online content relating to the occult it went from the last thing people knew about me, to the first thing, almost overnight. It’s something I still struggle with, to be honest. My spirituality is a very private and intimate part of my life that I don’t always feel comfortable sharing and monetizing in the surveillance culture that is social media. When you are a public spiritual figure, people want you to fix all their problems for them, and tell them what to do with their lives. I can’t do that, and I don’t believe that is a healthy way to look at witchcraft in general.

You’ve written a great book called Revolutionary Witchcraft. How is witchcraft political?
The word “witch” isn’t like other labels in occultism, because it has, historically, been something you got called, not something you called yourself. It was a word that often carried a death sentence or social ostracisation with it and was, in many ways, a legal term, which makes it an inherently political label. It’s a great privilege to call yourself a witch today and not feel an immediate risk to your life or livelihood (though we will see if that changes), and I believe that if you call yourself one you should stand with oppressed people all over the world who are being subjected to similar persecution that historical “witches” were.

Tell me about your film project.
The Woods is my first feature film, and my first film of any sort, that will be released to festivals starting this Fall. It’s a horror movie about four hikers recreating a trip they took years ago, with mysterious and deadly consequences. I thoroughly believe my history in witchcraft and the occult helped me make this movie, not just practically (kids reading this at home asking ‘how did she do that?’ The answer is: magic.) but psychologically. People want to gatekeep film and say there is one way to get into it and be successful. This is usually some variation on: “spend a bunch of money on a short that, sorry, no one will see, send it to my expensive festival where we dangle the chance to meet “important” people over you, and maybe if we like you will keep you held up in meetings for year about the opportunity to direct an episode of the Legally Blonde spin-off show that’s been in development hell for years for a platform called Spurt that no one is subscribed to.”

Magic has taught me there’s no one path to success, and people claiming so want to control your reality in a way that is totally illusory so that they can maintain power. There’s also no such thing as impossible. I practice fucking witchcraft, how could I believe anything is really impossible? I made a great feature film on a micro-micro budget, with an entirely female-run set, and barely over two weeks of shooting, having never made any sort of film before. That’s supposed to be impossible, but it’s just not. We live in a time of great destruction and I believe we need to spiritually answer that with creation. I hope people like The Woods, but more than that I hope it inspires them to question narratives around what they are “allowed” to create and just go make something.

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