(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Yale University’s Divinity School showed once again that there’s little “divine” left there when it coerced students to read from a “spell” written by a “witch” as part of its Before the Fall Orientation.
The College Fix reported that the three-day orientation, which took place between Aug. 21, 2024, and Aug. 23, 2024, included a series of talks and activities interspersed with small group discussions, preparing incoming students for the year ahead.
“Participating as an incoming student in one of these circles, I saw how the discussion opened with a set of ‘Restorative Circle Rules.’ These rules boiled down to a warning to be open-minded: all viewpoints were expected to be heard, and you only had to take what you wanted from the circle and participate as wanted—at least nominally,” the article’s author wrote.
After this, the students were led to read aloud, line by line and one by one, from Adrienne Brown’s “Radical Gratitude Spell.”
Meeting of Minds has described Brown as a “mixed-race Black queer American writer, community organizer, facilitator, witch and — may I say — goddess.”
Brown uses witchcraft, describing herself on her website as someone who “grows healing ideas in public” through “her writing, which includes short- and long-form fiction, nonfiction, spells, tarot” and “her music, which includes songwriting, singing and immersive musical rituals.”
Students were not informed about this context of Brown, her work and her pagan beliefs before participating in the reading.
“As such, the group reading of the spell took on an undeniable coven-like feeling, with students unable to fully consent to the pseudo-ritual knowingly despite the Circle Rules,” the author wrote.
An anonymous second-year student told the Fix about one’s deep concern over this act by the orientation staff, calling the provided spell “bizarre” and “gross,” especially for students to not be told of the author or intentions behind the spell before being led to participate.
Other recent Yale College graduates and members of the campus Catholic community told the news source, simultaneously tongue-in-cheek yet serious, that “the very campus of the Divinity School needed prayer.”
