˚₊✩ 𝔠𝔶𝔟𝔢𝔯 𝔴𝔦𝔱𝔠𝔥 ✩₊˚

HAHAHAHAHA

The most common question I get asked when I tell someone that I’m a witch/pagan, is what is paganism? What is witchcraft? What’s the difference between someone who claims themselves to be a witch and someone who does not? Can anyone be a witch or do you have to be born a witch?

As someone who has declared themselves as such since the age of 12, having been raised Christian, I’ve had a lot of time to understand what it means to me, and I feel like I can better explain it these days fairly well to someone with no real knowledge on the subject. I figured I’d share some small yet effective examples of everyday magic that is based on my own interpretation for anyone that wants to use it :)

Witchcraft: What it is

Since humanity’s beginning, we held the belief that there is “spirit,” a collective essence present in all living things, including plants. Animism and shamanism were the first forms of religion, which eventually evolved into polytheism, monotheism, and other ideologies. If you look into the different belief systems of ancient civilizations and different cultures, you’ll notice that despite geological separation and wide gaps of time (and I will note here that some cultures did steal from one another as the world became more connected via trade [ex. the creation stories from Egypt became incorporated into the Greek belief, like Enki and Enlil and the flood story], though some were entirely removed from one another), lots of things repeat. Polytheistic systems throughout cultures have a lot of similar deities or figures that represent the same concepts, a lot of them have a flood creation story, and a lot of them believe in “commandments” or natural law, which is defined as “a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.” You could take the principle of natural law/commandments and compare it loosely to the idea of karma--the common denominator is that to live more in accordance with “good,” with natural law, it has positive consequences and to deviate from these rules breeds negative consequences... neither carried out by a human justice system, but some cosmic force holds us accountable (which I suppose would bleed into divine law).

On the topic of figures repeating, the most common figure found almost universally is the idea of a “sun child,” a holy child, a sun God figure. The Celts revolved their calendar around this principle, Yule being the holy child’s birth as the sun returns. There are so many religious holidays around the winter solstice for this reason, because for thousands of years we still carry out the practice of sun worship! We’ve largely removed ourselves from the reason for the traditions built around these holidays and the real reason for celebration in the first place, but they are still there nonetheless... we just don’t have the same appreciation for the natural cycle as we don’t have the same survival and agricultural struggles as a pre-technological society had. We’ve taken Samhain, a Celtic festival where you dressed up to avoid being kidnapped by the fae folk while the veil between worlds was thin, and turned it into Halloween. A lot of Christmas traditions (like presents beneath trees, stockings, reindeer imagery, the very colors of red and white) actually come from the Shamanic practices of the Siberian and Arctic regions, where a Shaman would give amanita muscaria, the holy mushroom, as gifts. So yes, Santa is a modern psychedelic-loving Shaman counterpart, made family-friendly.

SO, the point? We really aren’t that different from our pagan ancestors, and regardless of what set of laws or Gods you believe in (or even if you don’t believe in them), you can still practice magic as magic is practically built into our DNA and in and of itself is somewhat secular and neutral (though, much of it IS tied to the basic belief that we have a spirit).

THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA BEHIND “SPELLS” AND “RITUALS”: using physical objects that we have attached meaning to, like symbols, crystals, and herbs, to focus our energy on an intent, as we want to bring this intent which is only mental and make a ritual out of manifesting this intent into the physical world. In truth, you don't need ANY tools in order to manifest an intent. 

Another important side note is that a symbol only has power if you charge it with power. Be aware of what you are charging with your energy! Desire charges them, fear charges them. Old armies had divine beasts like the dragon as a symbol on their flag to represent the way the divine was supporting their cause into battle and also to instill their enemy with fear. Same basic principle with sigil magic, you are creating a symbol that represents a personal meaning so that when you see it, you will think about its meaning/purpose.

With that in mind, let’s talk about HOW MAGIC WORKS. Witchcraft ISN’T “abra cadabra, make a sandwich appear,” and boom, there’s a f***ing sandwich! How it works is really up to personal interpretation based on experience, perspective, religious beliefs, but whether or not you believe you have personal power or that you are living in accordance with the divine and it is lending you its power... EVERYTHING MANIFESTS. EVERYTHING. A word is a spell. Curse words? How did you think they got their name? It’s a curse. The “evil eye?” You probably get that every time from the older generation when you’re doing something socially unacceptable in public, or when someone is envying you, or when you make someone mad. Those looks and those words were charged with energy. Be careful what you think, because while nobody is hearing them, you ACT on your thoughts! Simple cause and effect: you have energy, you used that energy to create or react to a situation through the man-made art of language, and that led to an outcome. That’s just an example of magic on a minuscule level. And, it serves as an example of how your magic interacts with other people’s magic. 

I’m gonna say this reallll loud for the people in the back:

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOMEONE WHO CLAIMS THEY ARE A WITCH AND SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT, IS THAT A WITCH IS SOMEONE AWARE OF THEIR PERSONAL POWER.

What about larger goals than just short term communication? What about a wider time scale in terms of getting that desired outcome? What about WHITE VS BLACK magic? How does the Divine come in to play if magic can be secular and that simple?

This is something I’ve experimented with many, many, many times in my 8 years of practice... so here is where my own subjective ideas on the matter really come into play, you don’t have to agree! But how I’d answer all those questions? Simple: THE MORE ENERGY YOU PUT INTO AN INTENT, THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT IT AND ACT ON THOSE THOUGHTS in order to bring that intent into the physical, the faster it manifests. YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE. You have to think in terms of, “I am this/I already have this/this is happening” rather than “I want this/I will have this/I am no longer this.” Avoid negatives or projecting what you want too far into the future. Think in terms of NOW, and truly believe in your own power to manifest. WHY is belief so important? Take the principle of the placebo effect: mind over matter. The mind is so incredibly powerful. I’ll give a pretty decent example of this: 

If you sell a man a magically charged talisman and claim if he wears it it will bring him good fortune, and he truly believes it and goes about his life and positive changes come about, whether or not the talisman was actually “magically charged” is completely moot: HE manifested positive changes in his life because he BELIEVED in the power of a symbol, which he charged every day the more and more he began to believe in its power. It was really HIS OWN power all along, though he removed himself from the process and instead attributed it all to an object. His own patterns of thought he formulated impacted his physical environment.

Thus, magic cannot be white nor black, because magic itself is neutral. If you the user are giving your energy to focus on projecting negative energy towards someone, in my opinion you’re really robbing yourself when you could be focusing on using that same energy to positively affect your own life... though I must say, we’re human and we ALL do it! A lot actually! But what about this principle of “good,” “bad,” “negative,” “positive,”? Where do I draw the line with spells vs curses? Will a curse really come back threefold on me? Again, simple cause and effect. By focusing on negative emotions or using self defeating phrases, or wanting to hurt somebody, YOU are allowing yourself to feel bad! I have depression and anxiety, not unlike a lot of people unfortunately, and so it can sometimes be hard to avoid unintentionally manifesting negative things in our daily lives. It’s completely human to want to hurt someone for wronging you, to want to see justice... but sometimes, you can be harming yourself just by allowing yourself to become a medium for this energy. You might not be so in control of how those thoughts and feelings manifest and they could affect YOU more than a hypothetical target here. If you truly believe you were in the right in a situation, the person that wronged you will ultimately wrong someone else and things will eventually catch up to them, regardless of a principle of karma: you can’t be a giant asshole, or worse, for the rest of your life without dealing with the consequences. And even if it doesn’t happen on YOUR timeline, even if you don’t believe in a cosmic sense of justice, it’s not really your place to try to “make karma happen faster.” It’s best in that case to focus on taking your life and your energy back by not feeding those fantasies, as the best revenge is self improvement anyways. You’re still giving that person power if you’re focusing on them.

So, the Divine. My personal belief is that WITCHCRAFT IS A WAY OF LIFE. You are always using magic, always manifesting, always creating. The way you treat your environment (animals, plants, other people) as well as YOURSELF is important! You can't be a horrible, disrespectful person without that energy catching up to you! You can’t control other people but you ARE responsible for you. I think that the more you live in accordance with natural/divine law (which, at the very root of most systems, the most important law is to LOVE THY NEIGHBOR. Be a good fucking person. LOVE. Love manifests. Respect your environment, respect the things that provide you with nourishment, with laughter, with love, with comfort, with abundance. Love those even when they have wronged you, because we are reflections of Self. We exist relative to one another. Set an example. Be the change you want to see in the world. YOU GET THE PICTURE), the faster and stronger things manifest because you have fewer obstacles! Ask and you shall receive. More often than not, good deeds are NOT punished! You can’t always see the way your kindness creates a chain of cause and effect relationships, but I promise, it has its ways of coming back to you even in a very selfish world. You don’t have to be a good person to be a witch, but I mean... don’t feel obligated or forced into being kind for the sake of a higher power or because you expect to receive something in return (be it this life or the next), it’s just like... some good f***ing advice? Avoid ego traps? You shouldn’t have to think about doing good, it should really just be a natural consequence of increasing your awareness and shedding a few ego attachments.

How does that affect me if I don’t believe in a higher power? How should I see the “Gods” if I’m interested in a pantheon? How can I practice around this, or how can I incorporate this?

DO RESEARCH. DO YOUR GOT DANG RESEARCH. Some cultures have a CLOSED SYSTEM! Some religions outright say witches go to Hell; I’ve known some Christian witches that struggled with this concept. Yes, witchcraft technically contradicts the teachings of Christianity despite its own roots in Egyptian and Sumerian sun worship and they stole pagan holidays and traditions, but I'm not going to get into all that! In truth, YOU CAN BELIEVE WHATEVER THE F*** YOU WANT. Maybe you can’t technically call yourself a Christian because your beliefs go against the teachings, but guess what? You can still call yourself a Christian witch if you want to incorporate the fundamental principles of Christianity. Its not really stealing cause they stole from us anyway! Maybe you don’t vibe with any Gods, that’s okay!! A lot of witches tend to be drawn to the belief system of their primary heritage, but you don't have to feel obligated to get into the Celtic system just because you’re hella Irish/Welsh. Be respectful of closed systems, but if you feel like you’ve been reached out to in a dream or a meditation by a deity and you feel like you know their name, that might be your patron deity and maybe they are from the Roman pantheon or the Greek or the Egyptian! It doesn’t really matter how you interpret these figures, because they kind of function as archetypal figures that represent the spectrum of life, death, the human condition. I personally blend the ideas of spirit guides, Gods, and ancestor worship all into one, but it isn’t wrong or right to see them in any one way!

That’s the beautiful thing about witchcraft:  NO ONE IS WRONG, NO WAY IS WRONG: IF IT FEELS RIGHT, ITS RIGHT!

Effective Ways to Incorporate Witchcraft

If we take the above philosophy (and forgive me for writing a whole ass book on the subject, I could honestly go into SOO many things if I wouldn’t bore my hypothetical future audience to death), we can create very powerful CYCLES OF THOUGHT. Create our own powerful patterns, slowly thought programming OURSELVES for the better.

Maybe you want to manifest something big, but it’s SO big and somewhat far-fetched (or, maybe only in a relative way) that you don’t really believe it’s possible, and this self doubt makes it difficult to know where to begin. START SMALL! Baby steps. HERE’S A TIP:

Sometimes sensory triggers are the MOST POWERFUL TOOL on the planet in witchcraft. When you hear a song that you listened to a lot during a good point in your life, you have good memories rush to the surface, very potently, and you can re-experience those thoughts, emotions, and visuals through a nostalgic trigger. Have you ever considered INTENTIONALLY programming yourself to react to a song in a certain way? Pick a song that you really like at the moment, or have liked (try not to pick one that already has a lot of old thoughts or memories attached to it, it’ll be harder to rewrite those, OR use a song that ALREADY triggers a response in you that you want [ex. a song you listened to that PUMPED YOU UP at the gym. You want to lose weight but you’re never motivated: start playing that song again on speaker, and make yourself get back into it! Positive habit forming can take a while, so don’t be too hard on yourself in the process!]) and when you listen to it, think about and/or act on what you want to manifest! Try this with other activities that stimulate the senses!

Another small, very basic example of “magic” that helps you reaffirm your own belief in the power of your mind: before you go to bed at night, maybe there’s a time you want to wake up in the morning (or maybe you want to test it by waking up in the middle of the night at a specific hour). Think about this time in your head before you fall asleep. You’d be surprised at how exact you can be at waking up at this hour, like ON THE HOUR, just from thinking about that time before bed.

Another example? Try “dressing like a witch.” More likely than not, you’ve incorporated something “witchy” into your personal style anyway. WEAR PERSONAL SYMBOLS ON YOURSELF. TATTOO THEM. WEAR A COLOR YOU ASSOCIATE WITH YOUR POWER ON YOUR EYELIDS, ON YOUR BODY, whatever. Wear a pentagram, the 7 pointed star, a sigil, a simple moon necklace. It doesn’t matter if you come off as a witch to other people, but if YOU feel like YOU look like a witch, you feel more powerful. Other people DO notice this too!! You know how many people could actually tell I was a witch upon first meeting me when I do not actually wear any symbols that traditionally represent witches like the pentagram/pentacle? You don’t have to wear all black and buy KILLSTAR clothing, nor do you have to come across as a “hippie witch.” YOU SET THE MOOD! YOU MAKE THE RULES! CREATE YOUR OWN WITCH AESTHETIC! Maybe you’re a pink witch. A preppy witch. A retro wave witch. When you look in the mirror, you should be able to immediately think, “that looks like a powerful woman/man right there.”