I was sitting with my new friend on her living room couch, and I say to her, “you’re not a witch.”
Yes I am, she says.
You’re not a witch, I say.
If someone can be a Christian or Muslim or Jew, why can’t I be a witch?
Good point.
Maybe you are a witch. Nah, you’re not a witch.
And so it goes for awhile until we agree that she’s a Jewess practicing witchcraft. We also talk about her attraction to “the mystery,” and I agree that it is very attractive. But the mystery also obscures. It obfuscates. It’s beautiful in many ways — who isn’t drawn in to mystery? — but it also eviscerates the search for truth. As objective as it can be, which, as we know, is mostly subjective. But the mystery really can throw a smokescreen over what might otherwise be visible, and for that reason alone, I’m also repelled by it.