Witches on Social Media Joined Forces to Hex The Taliban. They Got Trolled.
An online community dedicated to “the use of magick for the betterment of Afghanistan” may have started off genuine, but its 2.4 thousand user base is now largely far-right trolls.
This article has been updated to include comment from the online community’s creator.
Content warning: references to violence, hate speech
A Subreddit created on Tuesday has grown to host a clash between modern witches and pro-Taliban internet trolls.
Described as “a group of magickal practitioners who have taken up the use of magick for the betterment of Afghanistan whether by blessing those in need or by the hexing of an oppressive regime [sic]”, early posts and comments appear at first glance to be a discussion of planning to use witchcraft as a tool to fight the Taliban.
“Is everyone supposed to cast their own spell that they think will help or will everyone channel together just one big spell and if so what spell in particular? [sic]” one Redditor asks.
The Subreddit is one of two communities created by the same witch to help the Afghan people, the first of which did not lock submissions to the public. It was immediately occupied by far-right Redditors and the top post is currently a close-up photograph of someone’s anus posted by a user with an anti-black slur in their username.
A partnered Discord server was also created, but it has since been shut down.
Anti-Taliban efforts on larger online witchcraft communities have gone smoother. In one online community of over 250,000 witches, a small group has been organizing recurring mass protection spells for the Afghan people.
Since the Subreddit for hexing The Taliban’s creation, approved posts look on the surface to be either legitimate or over-the-top satire, including posts bragging about making “voodoo dolls” and a poll asking who’s done more to fight the Taliban: witches, or the United States military (witches are winning with 3.5 thousand votes, in case you were wondering).
A closer look reveals that while some posts may actually be well-intentioned discussions about organizing incantations and rituals from people with histories of discussing witchcraft on Reddit (as well as some disguised satire at their expense) a significant portion are pro-Taliban accounts succeeding at infiltrating the community.
Some of the bad actors are easier to spot than others. One user frequenting the comments uses “N’Wah” to describe others —a that onlookers could assume is unfamiliar, but harmless, jargon. In reality, it’s a coded slur: A word used to describe ethnic foreigners to a fictional province in the Elders Scrolls video game series.
The subtlety that far-right social media purveyors use to infiltrate online communities like this is cause for concern. Because this particular community is one created by witchcraft enthusiasts, people are likely to dismiss that concern.
In this case, jokes at the expense of self-described witches and Wicca can largely appear to be apolitical to onlookers. An assumption that’s being made by many swarming the community is that so long jokes are poking fun at witchcraft enthusiasts for their witchcraft rather than making fun of them for expressing sympathy for Afghan people, it’s okay.
To be blunt, it’s a trap. And if you’re giving the trolls the benefit of the doubt, you might be falling for it. The modern ultra-far-right is really, really good at getting out-of-the-loop onlookers to join in on their jokes without realizing it. Because of the willingness of the general public to dunk on it, the witches vs. Taliban conversation be can be easily controlled by those who put any effort into controlling it. And although the admiration is nothing new, recent discourse has made it clear that the modern far-right really, really, like The Taliban.
Extreme far-right takeovers of occultist communities also serve to co-opt language and recruit for an emerging revival of Nazi occultism. Last year, a suspect in a Toronto murder was linked to a cult that takes inspiration from Nazism and occult practises like satanism. Another follower of the same cult, a U.S. soldier, planned to murder his own army unit.
The BBC described “the youngest person to be convicted of planning a terror attack in the UK” as “an adherent of ‘occult neo-Nazism’”.
Between this morning and the time of publication, membership to the Subreddit has grown exponentially. The vast majority of upvoted posts on its front page are now created by mock accounts run by Fascists, many of which are being shared without context on Twitter.
One such post, captured in a screenshot shared widely on Twitter, asks if the Taliban have their own witches “casting protection and defence spells”, with comments treating the post as a serious inquiry.
In reality, the user who created the post also posted memes with Swastikas, made antisemitic comments, and mocked a 13-year-old boy who’s mother died in a car crash.
The Subreddit’s creator posted on Wednesday that they had received multiple threats and implied they were done with the project.
Update: After a hiatus, the Subreddit’s creator has been allowing new posts and engaging with other users of the now 5.4 thousand member community.
When asked if they were concerned about allowing submissions from users with histories of hate speech, including by one who went by “Genocide Denialist”, they stated they “don’t really care”. The creator later admitted to posting since-deleted conspiracy theory content about Israel, but refused to provide any details beyond saying one of their posts was “an Israel Covid shitpost”.