Frankie Anne Castanea (they/them) is a genderfluid Italian Folk Practitioner. They have been making online content regarding witchcraft and spirituality for roughly two years where they have accumulated an incredible following. Their recently published book, Spells for Change, serves as an introduction to their eclectic practice while combining activism with manifestation in the modern era. In this interview, Castanea discusses their own experiences and opinions on TikTok witches, spellcasting, closed practices, and ableism in the occult community.
Evelyn: You have gotten pretty big on TikTok, that’s exciting…
Frankie: I have, yeah.
You have about 1.4 million followers right now?
It’s sitting at 1.4 solidly, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with it not getting any bigger. I’ve been doing more with YouTube and Instagram lately because their algorithms are a bit more reliable. But, yeah. It’s a lot.
[laughter]
It’s certainly exciting. I remember, I believe when you made your YouTube channel in 2020 I was following you on TikTok, so I was there for the creation of your YouTube channel. It’s been a while.
[laughter]
Really? I look back at my old YouTube videos and I‘m like “Why do people watch this, this is so bad”. Some of them are good, some of them are… I was like “Who gave me these opinions?” My opinions have changed so much, so I know that in 2020 I thought “This is my opinion, and this is right”. Now I’m like “Why would you say that!? No!”
It happens, people grow.
Yeah. Do you want me to get started talking about your first question?
Sure! As your popularity began with your work on TikTok, how do you feel that ‘WitchTok’ and social media spiritualists have influenced modern witchcraft?
Perfect. I do think WitchTok and social media spiritualists have influenced modern witchcraft. I would say that more than anything else, they have influenced what I would call “trends” that people do in their practices and what is implemented into their practices. The prime example of that that I often think of is in 2020. We had a lot of people talking about deity work on TikTok, and more and more people began implementing deity work to either the degree of it being harmful or it working for them in their practice. Versus 2021 to 2022, there’s been–at least on my end of TikTok–more of a shift into reconnecting with practices and heritage and more folk magic. That also is based off of my platform and what I post, so I know that when I post something about deity work or ancestors that a lot of people become interested in that.
Is WitchTok more harmful due to the spread of misinformation and details of closed practices?
I did have a conversation at one point where my friend and I were convinced that content that I had made contributed to the worshiping of and working with this particular deity. I posted about my own interactions with the deity so much, and then all of a sudden I thought “Oh my god, there’s a lot more people than before I posted. That’s kind of my understanding of the changes in it, but at the same time it can be harmful and it can be not harmful. When it comes to TikTok, I always argue that social media platforms have the ability to spread harmful misinformation, but not all of them have the ability to do it so quickly. TikTok is just… within hours a video can go from zero views to a million views. Because of that, it’s incredibly easy for misinformation to spread. It’s also incredibly easy for it to go completely unchecked. At the same time, TikTok definitely has… the algorithm has… it loves drama. And it loves very particular types of videos that can incite drama. When I say drama, I do mean it as in getting a lot of reactions out of people. A lot of people are stitching it, a lot of them are commenting, they are saving or sending it to friends. This could be something that a lot of people agree with, or something that a lot of people think is bad. Because of that, especially in regard to closed practices, especially in regard to witchcraft, things just kind of go and go. Another example is hexing the moon, that entire situation that happened.
Yeah…
[laughter]
I did read your blog post about it, and it was [fistbumping] fire. I was reading it on my phone like “This is a good- This is good shit!”
Aw, thank you!
What ended up happening is definitely– as a creator, I contributed to that in 2020. I made posts piggybacking off of other posts that were made with my gut reaction in response to it without fact checking it. That’s when I learned that if I’m going to make videos, I have to fact check things. There ended up not being any information that witches were actually hexing the moon. The only place that I could find anything was Reddit, but a bunch of people on Twitter said that it came from TikTok, but TikTok was like “no we didn’t start this”. It just became something either that someone on TikTok made up, or someone on Reddit made up. Even if someone was hexing the moon… I mean…I didn’t notice anything?
Yeah, I don’t think it worked very well…
[laughter]
Is WitchTok beneficial to the acceptance of occultism in modern culture? Is one able to say it has been for the better or for the worse?
I do think that in a lot of ways, WitchTok can be beneficial to the acceptance of occultism in modern culture. I’ve talked to–and this is, of course, in my personal opinion– I’ve talked to a lot of people who felt more comfortable being out as witches, or practicing, or more comfortable practicing things like folk magic that their ancestors did, after seeing my content and seeing that it isn’t full of fear. It isn’t about worshiping the devil–although, if someone does do that it’s not my business.
There’s a level of mainstream media, and I’ve talked about this in an interview that I did recently, mainstream media is never going to be able to represent witchcraft fully and well. It’s honestly why, I think, we see a lot of people making content about it because the content creator 100% has the ability to control and talk about things from their personal experience. Mainstream media always has… I did an interview for the BBC and they posted it on Halloween so… I’m like [exasperated shrugging] “Alright”. Even when there is an attempt from someone to understand witchcraft more, and really learn about it, there’s still a level to… mainstream media is going to accept it at certain times of the year. Witches go with Halloween, so there’s Halloween things.
I also mention this too, there’s so many traditions that take facets of witchcraft and occultism that I don’t think that everyone will ever accept it wholeheartedly. I think that a lot of people accepted Wicca, but they accepted Wicca because it was “love and light” and they didn’t hex people, they believed in peace and love and harmony, and then when witches come out and say “Well, I don’t believe in that and I’m a witch” then people say “Well, I don’t like what you do, so I guess I don’t like witches. I just like Wiccans”. Even if–because witchcraft has been a sort of “trend” over the past couple of years–a lot of it is beneficial. But I also think there are limits to which mainstream media will allow witchcraft to be widely accepted. I mean that not in the case of “People don’t want witches. People hate witchcraft”. It’s that anti-Semitism is super rooted in mainstream culture, white supremacy is super rooted in mainstream culture, misogyny, anti-Indigenous sentiment. Oftentimes, those four things are what are associated with witchcraft, historically, so, by default, as long as those four things exist, people are going to associate witchcraft with that. It will not be widely accepted.
Then there’s a whole other issue of people still going “white magic” and “black magic”, and it’s difficult. I sit here in my circle and think “A lot of people… the majority of people in my circle understand that ‘white magic’ and ‘black magic’ are racialized terms”, and then I see publishers still publishing things written by white authors called “white magic”. People are associating “black magic” with harmful magic, or writing about it, and I’m saying “I thought we were past this”, but nope. No, we are not past it.
In your book, you mention that you use spellcasting as a last-ditch effort for when you feel that a system has failed someone. Obviously, you are making physical and concrete actions to help the situation outside of spirituality. Do you view witchcraft and spirituality as something done for peace of mind when the physical world fails?
Ah, that’s such a good question!
Thank you, I came up with it myself.
[laughter]
It’s so good! I would say yes and no. And I say no because I know a lot of people that… I think… [sigh] I don’t know how to… I know a lot of people where witchcraft is more to them than that, more than a last-ditch effort. I don’t want to invalidate that mode of practice. I don’t mean like when we get to full blown Spiritual Psychosis of “I’m the son of a demon” type of thing, I mean that witchcraft is more reliable for them than it is for me. And that’s fine! I genuinely think that… depending on the religious group or depending on the tradition, there are areas where folk magic has been more heavily ingrained in the traditions for longer in that practice. So of course it’s going to work for someone who has had that in their family for twenty decades versus me, doing a spell that I got out of a book written in 2020. There’s a level to… returning to Italian Folk Magic, I have always found that those spells work better and they’re more reliable for me. I tend to use them for more, I guess, mundane things than I used to. I did a nine day prayer to help me and my partner find a house– it worked! I was like “Nice!”. I think that there are modes of witchcraft that are older, or modes of magic in general, that are more reliable. I would even say that the newer traditions that were just created from a white man are going to be less reliable than someone who has been doing Brujeria as part of the family lineage since before colonizers came. That’s always been my thing. I think that the older the tradition, the more power lies in these actions, especially when they’ve been done again and again.
Is this similar to other religious groups in activities like praying and attending services?
I do think that in some ways witchcraft can be similar to religious groups praying and attending mass. I find that the mindset behind a lot of witches is less “God is going to heal everything” and more “I’m going to do this myself”. That’s the distinguishing point that I make. Witches, a lot of the time, are taking things into their own hands. They’re not praying and waiting for something to happen. When I do my workings with Saints, when I do my prayers, I am doing something that isn’t necessarily done in the Catholic church which is I’m giving an offering at the end of it. I am saying “If you help me, I will give you this” which is very much part of my spirit work. It’s transactional. I mean, we could argue that Catholic church has transactions through prayer and attending mass, but there’s more… I have found that more people decide “I’m just going to deal with this myself”. A lot of people that I have talked to who have come out of the Christian church– I was not raised in the church, my mother was, which is why I don’t have holy water yet. She was like “You can’t take holy water from the church!” and I’m like “Why not? Why can’t I?”—but a lot of Christians that I have talked to have said that praying is the answer to everything in lieu of action. I do not think that every Christian or Catholic behaves that way—and I say Catholic because in my head, that is what I understand the most because I do folk Catholicism. I was having a chronic illness flare up, and they said that I should pray to god. Or there is this mindset that god gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers, so everything that you experience either as a byproduct of being in the Christian church or as a byproduct of life, whether it’s trauma or bad things that happen, they are written off as “meant to be”. I don’t think that. I know that some witches follow that school of thought, but most of the people that I talk to do not have that mindset.
If someone was traumatized, if someone was sexually assaulted, it wasn’t because god wanted it to happen. It was because that person was an asshole, and the victim didn’t deserve it. There is power in prayer and attending services—I always think there is because Christianity is old, so those prayers have been used how many times—but I don’t think that there is as much real-world change that happens. There’s a lot more prayer. I know that it’s operating off of a stereotype of what I’ve seen from radical Christians… and I do know Christians that are witches who are great… That is how I see them as different.
I fully understand. I was raised Catholic as well, but I’m not Catholic anymore, obviously.
[laughter]
But, yeah that’s definitely something that I noticed too. It actually caused me to leave it. I’m not comfortable leaving everything up to just “Oh, if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen”.
“If it’s in my highest good”... This isn’t in my highest good, but I know I still want it! Even if it isn’t in my highest good!
[laughter]
A section of your book is dedicated to mentioning the dangers of cultural appropriation. In the past, you have discussed activism regarding Appalachia, and even run a podcast, Book and Broomsticks, alongside Indigenous creator MattHatterPlays.
Books and Broomsticks, wooo! [Frankie does a celebratory dance]
What began your advocacy for Indigenous spirituality?
That’s a great question. I think it started… and I say this… I mean I probably had a jumpstart in 2020. I was suddenly online in a space that appropriates so heavily from Indigenous cultures. When I was by myself, as a solitary witch, there were definitely times—I don’t think I ever… I picked up clary sage and the only thing I had was white sage incense, and then I got rid of it because I was like “I don’t know if this actually uses white sage or it just smells like? I don’t know?”—but realizing how easy it was to stop using something. To say “This is not for me, so I’m not going to use it”.
Or to just find a substitute.
Yeah! And watching how many people just continued to use it, I was like “We’re just gonna… I don’t like that so I’m gonna tell them I don’t like that and why it’s wrong”. There were a few videos where—I think Matt and I initially became friends because Matt… yelled at me on the Internet and I went [Frankie nods in agreement]. That’s how a lot of my friends start, they call me out for something and I go “I’m gonna follow you”. Then, we just end up being friends.
Seeing how many spiritual people just continued doing things that Indigenous tribes… specific members of Indigenous tribes were saying “Hey, this is wrong, please don’t do this. Here’s why you shouldn’t do this”... It was literally like… I was like “Why the fuck would you just not? Why don’t you listen?”. It didn’t make sense to me. I decided “Alright, I’m just going to start telling people why they shouldn’t do it”. Now, I do a lot less “call-out videos” and I oftentimes will stitch or repost Indigenous creators talking about things. Back in 2020, we didn’t have reposting on TikTok. I can now repost, and I know that everyone that follows me will see it.
Do you believe the critique that Wicca and Euro-centric paganism borrows too heavily from the teachings of Indigenous cultures?
Yeah… Yeah, a lot of them do. Not all of them… but when you have something that has become so commercialized like white sage, and the terms like “spirit animal”... sacred terms to Indigenous tribes become so commercialized through capitalism, and so tied to spirituality. It is impossible to have all traditions not use it. Because what happens is people are like “I don’t have anything, what do I do? Oh, I can use this thing that’s sacred to Native Americans!”. And of course, there’s stereotypes around Indigenous people that definitely play into that. Wicca, itself… I honestly think that Matt would be a better person to ask about Wicca because he would go on a tangent about it… But Wicca was conceptualized by a white man and there’s colonizing behavior in it.
A lot of Eurocentric Paganism was revived by white people connecting with heritage. And then it makes room for white supremacy and anti-Indigenous sentiment. I mean, I think of all the people online who say they’re Norse Pagan, Greek Pagan, etcetera, and pull out something that never would have been used in that Paganism. Part of that is that people are looking for what they have easy access to. Like right now, white sage is something that people have easy access to, but that doesn’t mean that they can use it. It’s put in stores, it’s put on Amazon, but a lot of Indigenous people don’t have access to it. It has to be gathered in a very specific way and commercialized white sage is not gathered in that way.
It’s the same with Sweetgrass as well. I’ve noticed that it’s showing up more and more. Before, I never really saw it about a year ago. Now, I’ll go to some sort of Expo that they’re having and it’s just there… I’m like “Well…”
Like “Have you guys even read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer?”
Exactly!
“Do you even know how to gather Sweetgrass? If you don’t, put it down!”. Ugh, I don’t know.
Do you think that such practices can fit alongside Indigenous ones, or are they too deeply rooted in a colonizer perspective?
Hmm, such a good question. Personally, I’m probably not the best person to answer this because I don’t know the extent to which they have colonized. I am not colonized, I only know about it from hearing about it second-hand. The response that I think a lot of my Indigenous friends would have is that they can’t. Decolonizing means removing the elements of colonization. If an entire practice is based off of stolen traditions and stolen sacred items, and was made through the lens of a colonizer, how can you decolonize that? I realized that I think my Neo-Paganism was one of those things where I went “I don’t know how I’m going to decolonize this” because I don’t have access to a lot of these older age things, but when I realized that decolonizing is often getting in touch with your own roots or your heritage, I was like “Oh, that’s… I can… I can do that”.
You have openly discussed your experience living with chronic pain online. In some spiritual circles, it is believed that individuals should not cast spells or use divination techniques when they are feeling unwell due to the need for energy in rituals. Do you follow this line of thinking? Or do you think that this is rooted in ableist ideology? How do you navigate this as someone who struggles with their health?
Aw, chronic pain question!
[Frankie dances in celebration]
Do I follow that line of thinking? Nooo.
[laughter]
I do not. I genuinely think that comes—and this is my hot take—I feel like that comes from Christianity. It’s watered down into New Age Spirituality.
Interesting, how so?
This is my opinion, but I feel that a lot of New Age Spirituality is just re-packaged Christianity with the ideas of ascension, with the—and I say that too because it completely operates off of anti-Semetic conspiracy theories, like I got into an argument about reptiles today…
Yeah, the different planets and starseeds… That’s… Interesting?
Which was literally made by a Nazi! The whole starseed thing was made by a racist. It’s half re-packaged Christianity… I saw someone the other day say that people with Lyme’s Disease are transmitting intergalactic light codes from other planets?
…Oh?
Then! They followed up saying that Lyme’s is only given to the most spiritual people. That is just Christianity. That is literally what they say—god gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers—but not referencing god.
Yeah. My dog has Lyme’s Disease. Does that mean that my dog is… Of a higher power?
[laughter]
Your dog is transmitting intergalactic light codes!? (sarcastically)
Apparently… (sarcastically)
I mean, if you’re using chronic illness and something about aliens in the same sentence… Back it up. The other part of it is obviously ableism, the idea that people with chronic illness are less able to do things than other people, or that their illness makes them less than human. Like, I think about the ways in which people with disabilities with other people have been treated as less than humans. There’s someone who does content—I forget her name, she’s great—and she talks about the way ableism interacts with our society in miniscule ways.
[Benji grumbles in agreeance]
Sorry, that’s my dog.
[laughter]
The way that I navigate it, I really try not to follow people who subscribe to the ideology. I really can’t for my mental health. The thing about me and all—because most of my friends, we are all chronically disabled and like “Yaaaaay”—I’m not able to do my practice every day. I have an energy limit every day, so I have to cater to that limit. And that’s really different than saying “If you are chronically ill, you can’t do this” or “If you are depressed, you can’t do this”. It’s different than a chronically ill person saying “I don’t have the energy for this, so I’m not going to do this” versus someone saying “Oh, you can’t because you are chronically ill”. I try to keep that energy and those ideas out of my space and inner circle, but also by having really strong boundaries with the Internet. I’ve had people straight up tell me… Once someone said “I’m not too sure about that whole gluten thing” and I’m thinking “What the f-”... they go “I’m not sure that you can’t actually eat it”.
Like, they accuse you of lying?
Yeah, I’m like “Why would I lie about this!?”
[laughter]
I was in the middle of a flare up, I lost ten pounds, and I just stared at him. Like “Do you even see what I look like right now? It’s because of the gluten!”. I think I realized early on in spiritual circles that, especially within the Queer community, POC and Disabled People are the first to go when it comes to Queer activism. I’ll tell you this story, but I’ve buried it because it was so… Ugh!
When I moved to Colorado with my family, we ate at Chick-Fil-A once. We were in a town in Indiana where there weren’t any options. When we got to Colorado, someone had eaten at Chick-Fil-A the day before and put their cup in the freezer. I opened it on TikTok, and people saw the cup, so I had to explain to people… I said “I am chronically ill, I don’t have a kitchen, we just moved, and we have been between hotels for two weeks. Sometimes there aren’t a lot of options, especially when you are in the middle of a Conservative place that isn’t catering to dietary needs”. And I remember, someone—another content creator—said “I don’t like Frankie because they eat at Chick-Fil-A”. There’s a difference between “I ate at Chick-Fil-A once because we had no other options and my entire family is disabled” and “I go to Chick-Fil-A often”, which I do not. I don’t even like their food that much.
It can be so superficial too because, a lot of the time, no matter where you are purchasing from, in some way, that is going to link back to an organization that is Conservative or that is colonizing. There aren’t many ways to win. Chick-Fil-A is just so known for their stance on the Queer community.
It was just one of those things. And I said “If you guys want to speak out against eating there, you need to start advocating for dietary issues elsewhere”. The fact of the matter is that Chick-Fil-A accommodates those with dietary needs. If someone doesn’t have the ability to go somewhere else, that’s where they are going to go. That was just lost completely over people’s heads. I think I literally told someone that we had the choice of not eating that day because we were halfway through a drive in Indiana and this was our only choice or eating at Chick-Fil-A. My family chose to eat at Chick-Fil-A. And they were like… I think they said “Obviously I don’t want you to starve, but I am going to care about trans… I care more about trans kids”. And I said “Do you understand that I am a queer, disabled person? I am someone who is genderfluid, I am bi, and I am also disabled”. How quickly people said “I don’t really care that you’re gay, you must be a self-hating gay”. No, I just have limited options when I am driving across the country, which is why I don’t travel often.
They also said “Well, my dad has Celiac and here’s a list of places you can eat at” and I’m like “So, fun fact. Just because you know someone with the same disability, it doesn’t mean that you get to tell me how my body works”. How quickly people resort to ableism when it comes to online spaces. I had a moment of “Wow, y'all really do not care about disabled people. You do not care”. That made me realize that I stopped talking about it as much after that. I didn’t want to deal with people telling me that they think that I shouldn’t eat because I don’t have choices. Or telling me that they know more about my body than I do or telling me that they know how my disability works just because they know someone with it.
Obviously, if one person with a disability can do it, that must mean that everyone with that disability can do it too because that’s exactly how it works! (sarcastically)
Of course! (sarcastically)
But I think that ableism, a lot, is transferred across the spiritual community. I am always so surprised to find it in Queer spaces and witchy spaces because “Wow, y’all do realize that I am part of this community and I wouldn’t eat here if I had a choice”. I didn’t have a choice because I am fucking disabled! My mom always asks me why I say “disabled”, but that’s really the only way to get the message across. People don’t get it otherwise. That’s just something that I think is in society, but also in spirituality when we talk about starseeds, indigo children, all of these things are rooted in ableism and racism. I, personally, don’t think that there’s a way to fight that ideology if you are going to take the route of education because even if you explain things, people will still tell you that you’re wrong.
A lot of what you have been saying… I completely agree. I was actually in Ireland to study abroad this past summer, and there are so many instances where Catholisicm tried to cover up Celtic Pagan myths. If you look closely at some of the architecture and paintings in their churches, they will feature these grotesque faces that don't have any correlation to Catholicism. When you know to look for those moments of erasure, it gets interesting.
I love that. That’s cool. In Italy, there are temples for Roman gods that were transferred into Saint temples. A lot of times, apparitions of Mary, or more specifically epithets, are very similar to older Roman gods. For example, there’s Our Lady of the Woods near Diana’s original temple site, and I’m like “That doesn’t make any sense! Mary doesn’t have any dominion over the woods”. Syncretism or the sneaking-in of things is always a little… you have to really look. When you find it you go “Ohhh!”, but it’s always really interesting to me.
Yeah, it’s like a scavenger hunt.
Oh my god! Yes! I wish we had little tallies, or something, like PokemonGO! where you could grab it and go “Look what I found!”.
Someone needs to make that app. We could just go scanning for them.
Also, if you’re interested in talking to Matt at all, being an Indigenous creator—he does more folklore—I can definitely talk to him and see if I can get him nailed down for you. I can give you his email because I think about Books and Broomsticks and he has so many amazing opinions. Whenever I talk to people they’re like “Oh yeah, we’ll talk to Matt!” and then they never do.
I’ll talk to Matt! I’ll write it down. I’m going to write “Talk to Matt” really big.
I mean more journalists than researchers. Journalists will reference “Books and Broomsticks with chaoticwitchaunt” and I go “AND MATT? Matthatterplays. I have a co host. There’s just a whole other person right here".
Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me and finding the time to talk.
Of course! I will get Matt’s email for you.
And I will talk to Matt.
Sounds good.
Thank you so much!
Bye!
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