(Note: there are times in this post where I address women only just because that’s primarily who I work with in my own Priestessing, and I am very Divine Feminine centric in my approach, but that obviously doesn’t mean only women can be witches, that every Swiftie is female, or that people who aren’t women can’t experience the Divine Feminine).

I saw a review for an Edinburgh Eras Tour show which described it (positively) as a ‘mass ecstatic ritual’. Many of the typical crowd (evangelical Christians and those adjacent) view this as a bad thing, because they hate anything slightly resembling witchcraft or paganism, but to me I see it as something extraordinarily positive and powerful.

I was at Liverpool Night 1, and it really solidified my theory that Taylor is a priestess of the Goddess leading us in ritual. Perhaps she is conscious of this, perhaps she isn’t, but it lies within her.

The purpose of ritual, as well as to worship, is to create the conditions to allow us to experience the Divine through our emotional bodies and our spiritual bodies alike. This can be a huge catalyst for healing, processing, letting go, or revelation and epiphany. The purpose of a priestess/priest is to lead us through that, by acting as a mediator between Goddess/God/the Divine/Gods/Sprit and the ritual attendees. As much as I cringe when people call Swiftieism a religion and call Taylor their god, there is truth in the idea that a concert, especially one as emotionally charged as the Eras Tour thanks to the emotional resonance of Taylor’s music, is a ritual. In Rome, once a year women would attend a festival for Bona Dea (meaning Good Goddess) that was exclusively women only. We don’t know exactly what went down there but if similar mystery cults are an indicator we can assume it was an ecstatic ritual. Without the outright religious element and the women only element I feel as though the Eras Tour functions somewhat as a modern version of what I imagine the Bona Dea festival was like.

The Divine Feminine, unlike the Patriarchal Masculine (not the true Divine Masculine who is the Goddess’s lover) is all about accepting all emotions as part of life. We do not separate things into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emotions or experiences, we seek to integrate the dark, hysterical, messy parts of ourselves and love them as much as we love our fun, happy, loving parts because it’s only when we shed light on our darkness that we can utilise it for good. We know that female rage is a sacred thing. We know that when our heart breaks, it opens us up to let more love in. Divine Feminine-oriented women love our sensuality and sexuality, and take pleasure in our own bodies, rather than view it as something that exists solely to please our husband who is seen in patriarchy as our sexual master and us as private property, or men in general when we are seen as public property. We see other women as our sisters and allies, and not competition. We know women and femininity aren’t just one thing but a diverse range of archetypes that can coexist at once. All of that is very much in alignment with Swiftian values. A Taylor concert then becomes a ritual or ceremony that brings all of that into coalescence.

When Taylor and her dancers performed Lover, Enchanted or Love Story, I felt the presence of the Goddess of Love (duh). When she sang Don’t Blame Me, Ready For It? and I Can See You, I felt the Lover again, but this time in a more sexy and erotic way. When she sang Shake It Off, But Daddy I Love Him, Fearless and You Belong With Me, I felt the presence of the unbothered, playful Maiden. When she and her dancers performed Willow, an obvious one, I felt the earthy, mystical Goddess of the Witches. When she performed Look What You Made Me Do or Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?, I felt the presence of the angry and vengeful Goddess. When she sang The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived and Illicit Affairs, I felt the presence of the Goddess of Grief. When she performed marjorie, I felt the love of all of our beloved ancestors present in the stadium, pouring their love onto us.

Beyond the Eras Tour, Taylor has always used Divine Feminine imagery and symbolism in her writing and visuals, either consciously or subconsciously. From the ’13’ on the back of her hand, to her Inanna-esque declaration that ‘I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time’ and the snake imagery from that same era, to her usage of the images of Classical goddesses Diana/Artemis, Venus/Aphrodite and Themis to convey themes in her work.

Taylor is not a goddess, and it makes me cringe to hear people say so. But I think what the Swifties who say that are trying to express is that Taylor is a priestess, whether this is intentional or not (personally I think she is clued into this stuff, as certain lyrics in her last album and other things she’s said/done would lead me to believe). There’s nuance here and I don’t want to take it too far or too literally, because after all, it isn’t actually a religious ceremony and there is no Deity being literally and overtly invoked. But the Goddess/Divine Feminine has always hidden in plain sight ever since She was suppressed in Western civilisation. You can find echoes of her in art, fairytales, other literature, even in the patriarchal religions themselves (Virgin Mary etc). To quote other incredible female singer-songwriters The Indigo Girls: “Pushed under by the main press, buried under a code of dress / Relegated by the Vatican / But you can’t keep a spirit down that wants to get up again.” The Eras Tour is about Taylor on one level, but on the spiritual level there’s more going on here. She is mediating Divine Feminine energies to her fans. She is acting as a Priestess.

As a pagan and specifically a Goddess-centric one, I truly believe many Swifties, especially atheist ones, would find even more Swift-esque joy in Goddess religion and Divine Feminine spirituality, but it’s up to them to make that jump if they want to, as we do not evangelise.

People, especially women but not exclusively, all over the world have been consciously remembering the Goddess for the past century or so. But I believe just as many are remembering Her subconsciously. She doesn’t stop touching us and healing us and loving us just because we don’t consciously acknowledge or worship Her. She is always there, leading every single person who allows themselves to surrender to their emotions and heart through their healing. And despite what anyone says, I know what I felt in that room on Thursday night. I know that I felt a strong energetic shift unlike anything I’ve ever experienced outside of actual dedicated pagan, Goddess and Divine Feminine centred spaces. And I’m not the only one who felt it, either. Several of my friends who attended messaged me to tell me the same thing. Traumas they’ve been unable to let go of are suddenly gone, as are limiting beliefs and fears and self-loathing.

So yes, Satanic panic conspiracy theorists, the Eras Tour is a ritual.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

~ Rhianwen