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Why You Shouldn’t Hex the Moon
When I saw the beginning of this Twitter thread, I thought it was the setup for a joke. Just a couple of days after the new moon, I figured the only answer to “what’s going on with the moon” would be “don’t worry, it didn’t really disappear. It does that every month, it’ll come back.”
No such luck. It seems a group of young people on TikTok decided to cast a spell to hex not only the moon, but also the fairies and the underworld. Some witchcraft practitioners, as a result, now believe that the moon has been spiritually injured and that Apollo, the sun god, is angry on behalf of his sister Artemis. Since Apollo is also associated with medicine and disease, this seems like a uniquely inauspicious moment to pick a fight with him. So, other witches have been working rituals to heal the moon and placate Apollo.
Obviously, all this is not a very good face for Paganism to present to the world. In case it needs repeating: even from a Pagan perspective, the TikTok kids didn’t hurt the moon. No matter what rituals they may have conducted, the moon is just fine. But hexing the moon is still a deeply foolish thing to do — not because it poses any danger to the moon, but because of the character traits it reinforces in the people doing it.