I've been through a lot of different "phases" in my Witchcraft practice. I started off in the consumerist appropriation hellscape of the Internet in the late '90s, practiced solitary Wicca for a while, and after a few years I decided Wicca was "fluffy" and went through many years of, essentially, spiritual seeking with the intent to be as unfluffy as possible. I was a hardcore Reconstructionist for a while—anything else wasn't worshiping the Gods right!!—and also floated between different types of Witchcraft and magic that I decided were unfluffy.
And I was really annoying about it, too. For those who knew me during this time... I sincerely apologize. I was truly obnoxious.
Nowadays I'm older, I hope I'm wiser, and I have begun to adopt a more tolerant attitude toward Pagans and Witches who don't practice the same as me. This doesn't mean I don't think there are things people should and shouldn't do—half this site is dedicated to that—but that I think it's important to focus on things that have the potential to cause actual, concrete harm rather than just yelling about anything people don't do the way I personally prefer to.
Anyway, this essay is about fluffy bunnies, what they are, why people don't like them, and weeding out whether or these distinctions really make a difference.
In a nutshell, a "fluffy bunny" or somebody described as "fluffy" is somebody who practices a very sanitized, good-vibes-only type of Witchcraft. Some common "fluffy" traits include:
Basically, a fluffy Witch is somebody who doesn't like acknowledging anything "dark sided." They are often also called "whitelighters."
Over time, "fluffy" kind of lost this specificity, and developed into kind of a catch-all term for "Witch who does things I don't like." You may find the following behaviors and paths called "fluffy," even though they aren't necessarily related to that sanitization:
I would personally argue that these aren't inherently "fluffy" (I'd also argue some of them aren't even bad) unless they're being used to sanitize Witchcraft, but you may hear the term used to describe people who fit into those categories.
Like many other long-term Witches, I have a bit of a disdain for obvious misinformation. We all make mistakes—it feels like at least once a year I revisit some assumption I'd made about Witchcraft that turned out to be wrong—but there are a number of myths being perpetuated by Witches with the goal of sanitizing it that are just... obviously false, and people should know better in the Age of Information that to continue spreading them.
You should know better than to think no Witches curse or cast love spells. You should know better than to think no Pagans in the history of humanity practiced animal—or human!—sacrifice. You should know better than to think Satanic Witches don't exist, or that there are no legitimate Witches who identify as Warlocks. These are all things you should pick up with like... any long-term interaction with the Pagan and Witch community. Witches who don't know better, and especially who refuse to reassess those beliefs when corrected, are being "fluffy," because they are spreading misinformation with the goal of portraying as Witchcraft more palatable and "safe" for people outside of the Witch and Pagan community.
This ultimately is harmful to the Pagan and Witch community. Those of us who don't fit this sanitized version of Witchcraft and Paganism wind up misrepresented and pushed out of certain spaces, and frankly, it makes us collectively look either stupid or manipulative, because any anti-Pagan/anti-Witch only needs like two seconds of research to find Witches selling curses, to find instances of animal sacrifice in both ancient and modern Pagan religions, or to find guidebooks written for Satanic Witches. I remember, long ago, reading a forum discussion between a Pagan and a Christian in which the Pagan said none of us do animal sacrifices and the Christian was immediately able to refute it. While this Christian seemed to understand that this particular Pagan was uneducated, this same discussion could have gone in a different direction, as many Christians salivate over the opportunity to claim we all do these things in secret and then lie about it to the public.
This, in my opinion, is the problem that can arise with "fluffy" Witches and Pagans. Some of them are very ready to say "nuh-uh" to factual statements about Paganism and Witchcraft if those statements might make outsiders uncomfortable, but outsiders have every resource in the world to call bullshit.
...some people really need to lay off the fluffy policing.
Yes, you should correct misinformation about what Witches and Pagans do and believe, because it is misinformation. Where I think people have gone too far is in deciding every Witch and Pagan has to think every other Witch or Pagan's behavior is morally OK, or even to engage in harmful magic themselves to be a legitimate Witch. One of the retorts people use when the subject of cursing comes up is "a Witch who can't curse, can't heal."
My question here, as a Warlock-identified Witch who does curse, who regards most animal sacrifice as on par with the meat industry ethically, who thinks "Satan's pretty cool, huh?" is... why? Why would the ability to harm somebody be a necessary prerequisite to healing them? It just doesn't make any sense that every Witch would need to curse people to be taken seriously as Witches, and those Witches have the right to have an opinion about the ethics of cursing in general, even if it's not the same opinion I have. There are some Witches out there who think I shouldn't be doing harmful magic. As long as they aren't misrepresenting me or trying to take away my right to practice Witchcraft my own way, why would that even be any of my concern?
I feel too many Witches and Pagans have rebelled against a few Wiccans being annoying about the Wiccan Rede by doing a complete 180° turn into an almost enforced amorality, an expectation that there's something wrong with people who choose not to engage in any and all behavior that might benefit them. It is actually a good thing for Pagans and Witches to have moral values we actually live by that supercede our personal interests sometimes.
And where it comes to other personal areas of practice... the majority of things "fluffy" Witches and Pagans do, and especially how they worship the Gods, are not my responsibility. There are Pagans who get extremely serious about Gods and Goddesses who are rumored, whether in antiquity or today, to put people in harm's way or demand extreme obedience under the threat of severe punishment, and who may even get angry if somebody doesn't interpret them the same way. People like talking about them wielding a "Cosmic 2x4," as if this deity is so vindictive they will bludgeon you with a big hunk of wood if you disobey. The thing is, people worship these Gods in different ways all the time, not to mention all the non-polytheists who have treated them like funny fictional characters for thousands of years. I just don't feel there's a real rash of people getting their asses kicked by these "darker" Gods, not enough to concern myself too much with "correcting" people whose experiences with them are on the "fluffier" side.
Anyway, in conclusion, yes, there are problems with being "fluffy." But "fluffy" is not really the base problem in most cases, misinformation is.
Happy Trails,
Wolfpeach