The topic of witchcraft is large and diverse. The solution most teachers find is to narrow the field and teach only a small portion of the entire craft. Usually they will allude to 'other traditions' and 'other ways' but those aren't part of what they're teaching. That works well for a lot of people at some point in their journey, but nothing is for everyone at every time in their lives. Instead of closing doors to redirect your focus, this space aims to open doors and let you wander. With such a broad topic, any starting point is arbitrary. With that in mind, the way I've chosen to structure this is based on another arbitrary creation: the modern rainbow colored 7 chakra system. This thought system, or meme, if we're being honest, has been refined in it's current form for a couple centuries. It's no surprise that it's appealing to the western human mind, including mine and maybe yours.
Recognizing that there is no beginning, no one single font of wisdom or authenticity, we start at the root chakra. Colored red for the primal blood of birth, violence, and life. Immediate. Visceral. The experience of the body rooted in the material plane. In the philosophy of Yoga energy is created deep in the bowels and reproductive organs. The parts of the body closest to the earth when seated for meditation.
Put a pin in that thought. We'll get back to it later.
✦ materia ✦
Let's be real. The first thing we think about when we think about witchcraft is things. Crystals, candles, brooms, swirling robes, rare herbs, cauldrons, cards, and corked glass vials. Ok, the last one might just be me. This is where conventional wisdom says I should tell you that none of that stuff matters, but I'm not gonna. In my experience that stuff matters, a lot. Up to a point. What matters more than tables of correspondences for various spell components is knowing which you really need, which you can substitute, and which you can forget. Where do those correspondence charts filling so many witchcraft books and websites come from? Which correspondences are the right ones? For the long term, those questions are more important to your practice than anything about what planets or moon phases go with which components.
While we're on the subject of the material plane, let's consider elemental systems, which end up being about like the history of chakras. Most modern witchcraft books will give some version of the 'Guardians and watchtowers of the North' system, which is originally described by Empedocles, and developed later by Aristotle. But the reasoning for associating the elements with the directions doesn't hold up outside of Europe. In Angola, in the Bakongo faith, a familiar set of 5 elements is described, but the directions associated with fire and air are swapped when they appear in Aristotle's writings. Fellow African faith Bambara, practiced in Mali, uses the same 5 elements without the associations to direction. The Vedas of India describe a similar 5 element system where air is replaced by wind, allowing an association with breath and other bodily winds. Tibetan Buddhists also recognize 5 elements, with spirit appropriately called void instead. Buddhists in other lineages have only 4 elements which match without deriving from Empedocles' original description. But wait there's more! The Japanese Godai derives from the Vedic philosophies of India, but uses void over spirit in alignment with the majority Buddhist faith influencing the development of local culture. The belief in 4 elements of earth, air, fire, and water with varying directions associated with each element are common among the 1st Nations Peoples of North America. In Chinese Taoist philosophy the wuxing has 5 elements: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. The wuxing are fascinating also because all 5 elements have interrelations that can be positive or negative. And if all that's not enough, Hindu philosophy has the trigunas which are usually translated as elements but are more a kind of meta-element that exist in all things that are manifest on the physical plane. So the gunas are present in the 5 elements described in the Vedas.
✦ mudra ✦
The word mudra comes from Sanskrit and is usually translated in English as 'gesture'. Now, we all know how important gestures are in witchcraft. There's gestures for cursing, defense, invoking, evoking, dispelling, blessing, and of course spell-casting. Gestures are even more fundamental than wands! "Isn't that just movie stuff?" I can hear you asking through time and space and the screen and stuff. It is movie stuff! But it's basically a chicken and egg situation, isn't it? Are the gestures used in media as a dramatization of real life magical gestures? Does the consistent portrayal of spell-casting gestures in media make us believe that gestures make our magic more powerful in real life? At this point in history is there even any way to tell? In the practice of witchcraft, does it matter what empowers gestures, or does it simply matter that they are another tool in our arsenal when it comes to our craft? So why does it seem that gestures are mostly absent from modern books on witchcraft?
The word 'gesture' in it's western sense is hardly an appropriate translation for the breadth and depth that the word mudra encompasses. There are mudras that direct the gaze, mudras for the feet and legs, and mudras for the entire body. Any intentional posture is considered mudra, which includes something you probably have encountered: asana, the yoga pose. The practice of asana in hatha yoga is considered a fundamental practice for all other activities in life by the culture that created the discipline. Whether or not yoga asana are your thing, it is true that the preparation for witchcraft begins inside the witch, and some of that is absolutely physical. Taking care of your body's needs, managing your medical conditions, showing some care for your immediate environment. These are step 1 of spellwork. Whether it's Tantra or Wicca or 16th c Welsh 'physicians', care for the body and basic cleanliness are called for before the practice of witchcraft. However, it does not call for a perfect physique, flawless health, or a luxurious magic sanctum. The requirement is subjective to your circumstances and goals. Part of practicing witchcraft is developing the awareness to know when the requirements of your spell have been satisfied.
Ok, so back to that thing about the parts of your body closest to the ground. If you haven't already, it won't be long until you hear about the practice of grounding. It's a common lesson for people new to witchcraft, and a lesson that would be useful for everyone to learn. This practice has roots in Hindu and Yogic philosophies that recommend meditation postures based on maximum contact with the earth. This is why Padmasana, the lotus pose, is preferred to simple crossed legs, as it puts your knees and butt in contact with the ground, rather than just your backside. This is also why many yoga practices begin and end in Shavasana or corpse pose, as this pose offers maximum contact with the earth. You're gonna notice a lot of references to Hinduism and Patanjali's Raja Yoga as we move along. That's because many of the 'core' 'new age' beliefs in the modern English-speaking world were lifted straight out of Hindu scriptures and Yoga sutras under the guise of proselytizing a 'universal religion' that somehow didn't mention that most of the ideas involved were already part of an existing religion. I'm pretty sure race was a factor as the folx who were advocating the universal religion were white westerners who managed to win a great deal of Indians to their cause by praising the Indian culture during a time of colonial oppression.
✦ manner ✦
Notice that's manner not manners. As in 'what is the manner of a witch?', which means who is a witch, how does a witch act, and how does a witch appear. This is worthy of a lot more attention than it gets. Historically, according to legal precedent these things were quite specifically defined, though in practice we can observe other specific characteristics of a witch in those times. A witch was someone denounced for witchcraft by someone in their community. A witch was not well liked by their neighbors. Witches were more likely to be property holders, particularly women of independent means. Conversely, female paupers were often found to be guilty of witchcraft. The legally cited definition became quite flexible in the face of the real factors that were at play in labeling someone a witch. These 'witches' were not part of a secret goddess cult. They weren't guardians of ancient feminine mysteries, as not even all of them were women. The majority of the people killed in witch trials historically were Christians, whether Catholic, Protestant, Byzantine Rite, Gnostic, non-secular, or some small splinter group. When they weren't Christian they were Jews, because who doesn't like hating Jews in the history of Europe? It's something Europeans really could have bonded with their recurrent cultural villains, the Muslims, about- if those cultures were capable of trying to understand each other, which they don't seem to be.
Obviously this is when the cultural image of a witch we know today began to coalesce. A witch is a woman, probably an old one. A witch is opposed to goodness and society (aka the church/religion d'jour). It will probably surprise you to hear that one stereotype of a witch from this time period holds true. A witch is someone who takes more agency than what God has granted them, even at the ultimate cost. Ok, you've probably never heard it phrased like that. I bet you've encountered the ideas like: A witch make pacts with dark powers. A witch practices forbidden arts. A witch knows secrets others do not know. What's the issue with those things? They take power not normally allotted by the Christian God's plan. And thus, the primary sin of witchcraft in a Christian context is pride.
So let's talk about who a witch is. A witch can be any gender. A witch can be any sexuality. A witch can be any race. A witch can be any religious background or any current religion. A witch is defined first and foremost by their witchcraft, and secondarily by their knowledge. Not culture, prestigious friends, or a fancy lineage. There are no documented hidden lineages of witchcraft before 1950, compared to the extensive documentation we have of secret cults of unorthodox Roman deities or early Christianity. It strains credulity to claim a continuous ancient lineage without further evidence. We live in a time when knowledge is more freely available than at any other time in history, in many ways. The biggest barrier to acquire it is gatekeeping behind layers and layers of various agendas, many of which are currently and have been historically, commercial. That makes it more possible than ever for people to become witches on their own, using non-human information sources. A lot of people see this as a negative thing, but I personally think it's great. If you are a practicing witch who knows what you are doing, it does not matter where you learned from.
Witchcraft is and has always been a subversive practice. That is why it is attributed to outsiders living on the fringes of society. It offers unseen powers to the powerless, how could it not be subversive? If there is one commonality between witches other than their practice and knowledge it is that all of us have experienced powerlessness. Witchcraft is a powerful remedy where there is no other.
No matter who you are, how you live, what you worship, who you love, who or what taught you to be a witch: You are a real witch. You are reading this for a reason. This message is for you.
