Witchcraft Questions

a list of questions based on the major arcana

the fool: whats a mistake you may have made when starting out or something you often see baby witches do that you wish they didnt/wasnt so common?

the magician: whats some advice you might have for people who might be interested in witchcraft?

the high priestess: whats your favourite bit of witchy knowledge or your favourite bit to research?

the empress: whats your relationship like with your guides? (if you have any and are comfortable sharing)

the emperor: would you ever be a mentor witch and why or why not?

the hierophant: is there a set of rules you go by in your craft?

the lovers: thoughts on love magic?

the chariot: how'd you choose your current path/craft practices?

strength: whats a challenge in witchcraft youre determined to overcome?

the hermit: are you a coven or solitary witch? (do you prefer having a group to practice with or prefer doing it all on your own?)

the wheel of fortune: if you do divination, whats your favourite or preferred method/form of divination?

justice: do you believe that what you cast out will come back to you in some way?

the hanged man: do you prefer waiting for moon phases or do you just cast whenever?

death: whats a change you want to happen?

temperance: how adaptable are you to change?

the devil: whats something you should stop but just cant bring yourself to?

the tower: whats something you used to believe but now realize isnt true?

the star: whats something, spell/media/charm etc, that calms you or cheers you up?

the moon: whats a rumor you heard that you arent sure is true or not?

the sun: whats something youre very proud of?

judgement: whats something youre thankful for but wish to "close the book" on?

the world: whats something youre glad is over and why?

March ask game:

1) if your practice was a cologne/perfume what would it smell like?

2) pick a painting that you feel in some way is evocative of your practice

3) what’s something you’ve had to learn the hard way?

4) what’s march look like in your corner of the world?

5) what’s your craft look like this month? Interpret this how you choose

7) what colors are your practice? Interpret this however you like lol

8) what animals come to mind when you think of witchcraft?

9) what plants come to mind?

10) pick a song you feel, in any way, describes or captures your craft

12) what do you think your practice would taste like? If one could taste a magico-religious practice

13) How does your craft feel in the spring vs in the darker months?

14) do you work with stars? Constellations?

These asks are all over the place lmao sorry!

2, 4, 8, and 16 for the most recent ask game :)

2. What draws you to your Gods? What do you like about them? (from here)

I couldn't answer this coherently if I tried. The only thing I can say is that HaShem was always there; it has always been there, and it will always be there.

4. How do you picture the universe? What is your idea of its cosmology?

Theistically speaking, I consider myself an [Ignostic] [Pantheist]. So I fully believe in the Big Bang and other scientific theories of the Universe's creation whole-heartedly. But I also believe that HaShem and the Universe are functionally the same and cannot actually be separated from one another on any kind of coherent or meaningful level- just as HaShem itself cannot truly ever be defined or understood by Humanity on any coherent or meaningful level (though that doesn't stop us from trying, which I believe is part of the point of religion).

I feel like this naturally segways into the idea that HaShem and Science (or, alternatively, Science and Magic) aren't separate entities that are in conflict with one another- but are instead one and the same. Or, rather, are two sides of the exact same coin in much the same way that "Healing / Killing" must be for me as a trained Herbalist ... One cannot exist without the other because they are two sides of the same process; to understand one is, ultimately, to understand the other (and vice versa).

@luminousfire summed it up, in a way, incredibly well when they wrote here: "I think I’m gonna learn about science as an almost devotional act to God. Knowing about the minutiae of creation will only bring me closer to God. Denying the wonder of the world would only alienate me". And Maureen Gilmer, too, when she wrote "Lord […] do not allow fear to close my mind to the discoveries which, in their own time, may benefit [Humankind … For] Rejecting knowledge is rejecting your creations, and this inevitably leads to suffering. Remind me to think over Scientific Discoveries and never [to] simply discount them due to my own ignorance. Amen" in her book 'God in the Garden: Discovering the Spiritual Riches of Gardening - A week by Week Journey Through the Christian Year'.

8. What are some of your stronger UPG’s?

Genesis 2-3 (the story of Adam and Chava's creation, their installment in, and then their subsequent exile from, Gan Eden) is a story about the purest form of love- and no one can change my mind about it; I could literally go on full out rants about Genesis 2-3 and how people have incredibly, obscenely shitty takes about Adam and Chava, and I'm so very tired of them (and have, actually).

16. How do you communicate with your deities the best?

Controversial take, but I don't. There's prayer, of course- and it's very much an integral cornerstone of my practice. And there's Invocation and Evocation (which also has its place in certain rituals at times) ... But ultimately I don't believe in 2-Way Deital or Spirit communication in the same way that Tumblr (or Social Media in general) frequently promotes the common ideology of.

We all know I’m a lazy witch. Of course in a perfect world I would spend every moment planting lavender around my garden, perfecting my tea blends, and staying warm in my cozy cabin by the fire. But in reality I have barely enough time to get in the shower before I start my day. And I don't own a cabin so…. So in reality is that really lazy? Or has capitalism made us all squish out every second out of our day getting stuff done just so we can do in all over tomorrow? Yes. Yes it has. So when I say I’m a lazy witch, maybe I’m just an exhausted witch. Either way, here are my favorite lazy witch hacks for when you are out of time, or just don’t have the energy to put in a full two hour ritual every full moon. 

Visualize your circles around you and forgo placing crystals or items in an actual circle. Magic is metaphorically speaking so just imagining yourself in a big bubble will do just fine. 

Keep your crystals on your windowsill so you don’t have to remember to charge them with the moonlight. 

Every candle is a magic candle. 

A shower anytime makes a great cleansing ritual. 

5 minute meditations for releasing stress works wonders when you’re feeling over it. 

Pull a single tarot card when you have a question that needs guidance. 

Step outside barefoot to ground yourself and just stand in th dirt for a few minutes. 

Leve a portion of your dinner uneaten for ancestors. 

Keep witchy spell notes on your phone. 

Use moon tracking apps so you don’t have to keep checking the moon phase. 

Use white tea light candles for everything because sometimes it really just doesn’t matter. 

Stir things clockwise (coffee, tea, cake mixes) to bring towards you and counterclockwise to let go or release. 

Line your front door with salt for protection. 

Place rose quartz in your room to remind yourself to self-love

Make meals with intention, think about health or happiness next time your microwave your mac and cheese. 

Light a match and blow it out to suck up any bad vibes in a room. 

Wear blue to manifest passing a test or getting a new job. 

Walk outside during a full moon and spend a few minutes recharging under the moon light. 

Spend a few minutes every morning writing down your intentions for manifesting your life and visualizing what you want daily.

Remember that you are a badass witch and don’t forget it. 

Witchcraft asks #104 and #105

104. Which of your five senses would you say is your strongest?

Probably hearing. I often find myself hearing things on the other end of the house or picking up on noises that other people around me do not. But at the same time, I have auditory processing issues, so I don't always retain information that is told to me and if someone is mumbling or facing away from me while talking, I can't always understand them.

105. What is a pagan or witchcraft rule that you preach but don’t practice?

Exercises. 😅

I've written a handful of them, and I do recommend them for growing one's practice, but I don't often do them myself. This is largely due to time constraints or feeling like I'm at a point in my practice where I don't necessarily need to "build" my skills, since I'm comfortable in my current place. Of course, that may change in the future....

Ask me witchy things!

Witchcraft Ask Game - April

I'm bored and I want asks so I'm starting an ask game. Feel free to send questions or reblog! I'll try to post one of these every month.

1. What's your moral stance on love spells?

2. Have you ever had a "paranormal" experience? If so, please describe it.

3. Share your favorite plant and some of your personal correspondences associated with it.

4. Share your favorite animal and some of your personal correspondences associated with it.

5. Share your favorite gemstone/crystal/rock and some of your personal correspondences associated with it.

6. Would you ever consider charging money for a working or spell (aside from divination readings)? Why or why not?

7. Have you ever had a "psychic" experience? If so, please describe.

8. Do you consider yourself initiated, by either group, self, or spirit initiation? Share your experience if you're comfortable doing so.

9. What's a skill that you want to learn but haven't gotten around to yet?

10. What are you currently reading and/or what's next on your reading list?

11. Share a photo of your favorite tool(s) and describe what you use them for.

12. In relation to your practice, would you ever consider taking on a teaching role? Why or why not?

13. Do you have any ongoing projects? Please describe.

14. Has an acquaintance or stranger in real life ever asked you if you're a witch?

15. What do you consider to be your greatest skill?

16. Is there a common practice or skill that you're really interested in but have trouble with? Please describe.

17. What's your opinion on treating household pets as familiars?

18. How open are you with friends, family, colleagues/acquaintances, etc. when it comes to your practice?

19. Is there a part of your practice that you perform daily or very often? If so, please describe.

20. What's your favorite holiday and how do you celebrate?

I just realized I didn't have the ask button on, so if you have any questions about cooking, baking, or kitchen magick, feel free to ask and hopefully I can help!

- Erika, The Clumsy Witch

wildcard- answer whichever three question still open that you'd be interested in talking about.

I'm terribly indecisive when it comes to as many options as the prompt list had, so I tried to choose a few that wouldn't turn into mini-essays.

5. Do you work with a Pantheon? I have a mini-pantheon that makes up the Luciferian and dual faith side of my practice. It's a bit of a spectrum, with Lucifer, Azazel, and the Serpent solidly on the Luciferian side of things, Eve toeing the line as someone I venerate in a Luciferian context but who is still viewed as a very Christian figure by most, and then St Expedite, St Cyprian, and St Justina as more traditional saints. While I consider my saint magic to be a step removed from my Luciferian practice, they're still essentially all from the same "pantheon" in that all figures involve come from Christianity, the folk beliefs that have come from it, or the broader apocryphal texts.

On the Dionysian side of things, he is currently the only Greek god I have any sort of relationship with. There are others I have an interest in investigating further, but for the time being I'm focusing on the spirits and deities I work with and venerate already.

13. Do you have a magical name? I have a craft name in the flavour of it being a pen name of sorts… I value my privacy online, even in occult communities, so it adds an extra layer of separation for me. When I was Wiccan I was given a magic name meant to be used in a ritual/magic setting, but for a number of reasons it doesn't really suit me anymore. Since I don't currently do anything that would require additional names beyond the aforementioned craft pen name, I haven't chosen another to replace it.

84. What real life witch most inspires your practice? I'm going to get a bit sappy here and say it's probably @tyetknot. Don't get me wrong, there are a number of incredible practitioners whose writing and work I respect deeply and find very inspiring. Honourable mentions go to Sarah Anne Lawless for how formative her old blog was to me, @graveyarddirt for the incredible glimpses into her devotional traditions that she allows and for nudging me towards investigating Amanita Muscaria as a plant ally, and @lailoken as someone who writes about their own personalized practice and makes incredible tools for both their craft and others. Still, Tyet has been a good friend since the start of my journey into magic and the occult. He helped me find my footing in Wicca, and he was supportive when it turned out to not be the right fit for my path. Though our beliefs and practices are very different these days, I have such deep respect for both his experience and his depth of knowledge about magical topics and history. I could write a long list of little things he's inspired me to pursue, from my dabbling in ceremonial magic to my interest in creating one's own incense. He has also always tried to navigate magical/pagan communities with integrity, and strives to hold bad actors accountable. This has actively damaged his place in communities where those in positions of power were far too willing to be complacent, but he went on to help create and support new ones that are thriving in ways that the stubborn old guard never will. His altars to the goddess Isis also have immeasurable drip.

witchcraft ask game

just a handful of questions you could have sent to your inbox about your craft, feel free to reblog! /nf

when did you first get into witchcraft?

what drew you to witchcraft?

how long have you been into witchcraft or how long have you considered yourself a witch?

whats your favourite spell?

favourite herb/plant to work with if any?

if you have one whats your path?

favourite thing about being a witch?

sigils or runes?

do you have a guide? if so who?

thoughts on familiars?

favourite witch in media?

most hated misconception about witches?

something that confuses you about magic?

something that amazes you about magic?

favourite tool to work with if any?

favourite holiday and why if you have one?

favourite colour to work with?

a rumor or misconception about witches you find funny?

favourite number(s)?

free space!

Spirit Companion Asks #1-5

I thought the "whispers and shadows: spirit worker/keeper ask game" is also a great idea! The credit for these questions go to @windvexer .

Spirit "Keeping" was mostly the tie that got me into the whole witchcraft journey, and I actually have been doing this for a long while before I was completely aware. I want to share it but this is a good starter. --- 1. How did you learn about spirits? I have been physically seeing and hearing spirits since I was a toddler. I had always sensed and had known they were there, and even communicated with them in dreams or in random times, and before I sleep. It actually wasn't an idealistic start to be honest. Since I was three, I was seeing a lot of malicious or unnerving types with smiles too wide for my liking, or figures that look like shadow people watching me in the darkness. Or seeing trickster energies around the house trying to give me nightmares back to back...but even angelic figures around and about in strange movements across the scene. It all was surreal and it felt like a dream, but I know they weren't. I just remembered being scared almost all the time. It doesn't help that I had my history of living in some haunted houses. To this day, I can still see them in larger and larger glimpses as I delve into my craft. On the better parts, I interacted with some entities and spirits whom turns out to be my Family members today. (I am happy to say that I don't see those early type of spirits even bothering me again so far) ---

2. What made you choose to work with spirits?

I grew up into it to be honest, since I was around five? I remember my very first "offering" as a child where I baked cookies to leave them in locations where they want to eat the energy. Later I had dreams of them eating malicious energies wandering around the house... when I usually have constant nightmares. I didn't want to work with spirits for a long while even then, I was kind of traumatized from the things I saw, so I tried to just ignore them all growing up. Later in my teen years, I started thinking spirituality and witchcraft were all just delusional fantasies. All fake. Despite still seeing them in my long, thorough skeptic years, I would make sure to tell myself it's just my imagination. Then I was thrusted back into spirit work when someone told me about spirit-"keeping" in the middle of my job. Seriously, it just happened like that, but I thought the lady was delusional too. (She was also explaining it where she described them as slaves, so that didn't help) I just ignored it, but I decided to start off with meditations to calm myself down in my times of low. Let's just say something happened in that session and it made me into a spirit worker immediately. It was then that I slowly started to reconnect with the Family that has been around and about too.

---

3. What do you primarily get out of spirit work?

A happy Family; Just relaxation and good people to hang out with. Though, they are very generous and some manifest touching gifts.

---

4. What do the spirits primarily get out of working with you?

That is a good question. Other than my company, my attention, and my opinions and some food gifts...that's all I got. I sometimes wonder why they want to stick around but I am happy that they seem happy around me. I don't know how to truly repay them, but I hope what I do is enough. ---

5. People use words like "court," "keep," and "circle" to refer to the groups of spirits they are close with. Do you use any terms like this?

We call each other Family, and yes, we capitalized the F to signal the importance of being Family oriented. It just encourages us to keep each other close when we want to do so.

Any advice for what to do with a poppet after casting? I know that discarding it is go-to for curses, but if I’m casting a positive spell, should I do something else with it? Thanks :)

I don't often use poppets, but it would make sense to me to treat the poppet nicely. Symbolically the poppet represents the person you're casting the spell on and is a link to them.

Typically if you're cursing a poppet you want to get ride of it because that person is beneath you, so you toss them in the trash. You don't want that negativity around you and they don't deserve to be in the same space as you. That's not always the case, you might want to keep your enemies close and there's plenty of situations where you'd want to keep that cursed target in eye sight. It's all about symbolic gestures.

So, if you're using a poppet as a way to sympathetically link to someone you want to help, then how would you like to treat that person. Just because the spell has been cast doesn't mean that the spell is over. Maybe you'll put the poppet in a place of veneration, let it hang out of an altar, if you have one, for your deities or spirits to work with it, maybe stick it on a shelf a with some stuffed animals or something. You can do whatever you want with it, but you can keep working that spell continuously until it works by taking care of the poppet.

Now, when you're done with the spell completely you can always undo the poppet's connection to the person, and then you can reuse it for someone else if you ever need to. People do this for curses too, and sometimes they'll keep one poppet for a long time, and that poppet will absorb that negativity and become an ingredient to the spell on it's own. No reason you can't do the same with positivity, or just cleans it after use for a fresh start. A poppet is just a tool for making a symbolic link to someone so there's no real absolute right or wrong way to do these things, so long as you're not trying to follow a specific tradition, and you keep in mind what it is and what it's for.

Hopefully that helps give you some direction and ideas of what you can do.

42, 43, and 53!

42. What is your favourite type of candle to use? Seven day prayer/vigil candles! I really love big pillar candles and those massive 4-wick things but for practical use, I've found nothing better than the seven day. They last me a long time, and I can easily carry them around while lit when I do anything that involves needing to move through rooms (blessing, saining, etc). 43. What is your favorite witchy tool? Cords and hagstone - I learned to use a lucet fork to craft two cords, one red and one blue for beneficent and malefic workings. The hagstone is a staple of my magical practice, I have used it for nearly everything at this point. 53. Do you like incense? If so what’s your favorite scent?

I do! There's a couple of favorites that I'm having a hard time deciding between at the moment. It's a toss up between elderberry, pine resin, and Tyet's rose incense lol!

Just wanted to ask how do you astral travel that is if you have done it and is there any experience with a deity you had while astral traveling?

I know a couple different methods to "do it", but I outright don't even believe in the Astral's existence at all, personally. And so sadly I am legitimately the exact wrong person to ask this question (or any question related to Astral anything). That being said: @thegodthief may be one to ask? Or, possibly, @thetwistedrope- who travels quite a lot if I remember correctly. Good luck, hun!

I threatened to work my way through these witchcraft asks, and then you thought I forgot, didn’t you?  I never forget.  (That’s a lie, I have ADHD, I forget things constantly.  But then sometimes I remember them later!)

1. Are you solitary or in a coven?

I am in a coven!  We formed officially in early 2019, so we've been through phases of meeting more actively vs a long pandemic-era phase of just staying in contact to support each other while not having in-person meetings or doing complex Work. We have four members and one dedicant, which is kind of a fiction because our dedicant recently passed her year-and-a-day and is pretty much doing everything everyone else is, so functionally we have five members, we just haven't quite settled on The Moment to start planning her initiation.  You can probably tell by how vague and disorganized that sounds that we are pretty, uh, spontaneous, as covens go – we have an egalitarian structure and there are a lot of things (like adding a new member) that we haven't done before, so we always end up kind of circling around and discussing things for a long time before we make decisions and then actually execute them.  I can easily see how that would not be a sustainable situation for every group, and if we eventually grow larger than this, it might not be sustainable for us forever, but right now it works.

This is my first coven, but I've never really been a natural “solitary,” so at pretty much any point in my journey, I've been involved with student groups and regional groups and other kinds of affiliations, from formally organized open and public circles to more drop-in discussion or book-club kind of formats.  In fact, our coven cohered because all of us had ended up doing leadership and organizing work and putting on public ritual together, so we had a good working relationship and a lot of trust built up, and we all just wanted a space where we weren't constantly managing the whole project of outreach and question-answering and drama-wrangling on behalf of The Community.  We wanted to be doing less leadership and more of the focused magical work that would push our own practices forward, things like politically minded magic and heavier spirit-contact and astral or ecstatic work – things that with all due respect, you can't expect everyone in a large group to be equally ready for.  So that's what coven is for – we can try out things that feel riskier or that impact our lives in more personal ways, because we have that level of friendship and trust (both in each other as people and in each other's skills) built over doing other kinds of community projects together for years.

The coven itself isn't A Tradition, although it is developing its own traditions and building relationships with its own specific guardian spirits.  A couple of us are formally initiated Wiccans, one person came up through a very animist Green Witchcraft sort of tradition, and the other two have a little bit of a heathen slant to their magic and have their own thing going with runework and more of a northern-influenced polytheist witchcraft, and I really enjoy that pooling of ideas, I think it makes the work we do feel very flexible and creative, very Fusion Cuisine.  We meet twice a month, once for check-ins and discussion and planning, once to do ritual work;  typically there's soup afterwards.  We really like soup, and my partner likes making soup, so that works out great.  Our standard ritual structure is lightly adapted from Thista Minai's book Casting a Queer Circle: Non-Binary Witchcraft, which we really like because it relies on a three-ritualist model of Anchor, Builder, and Caster, suitable for a group where we prefer to distribute leadership as broadly as possible and we really didn't want to duplicate a cishet HP/HPS Wiccan model within our very not cishet and mostly not Wiccan group.  We've gotten a lot of inspiration out of that book and the tradition that it describes, and I'm always hopeful that there will be sequels and updates to it – I assume much of their practice has changed since the book's 2017 publication.  What hasn't changed, since 2017?

Witchy Ask: 12, 23, 31, 49, 61

12) Do you believe in Karma or Reincarnation?

In a broad sense, yes. I believe that souls are in a cycle like everything else, and that they come back around to learn a different lesson in each lifetime. I also believe that sometimes love brings souls back together in new cycles. (These souls are not necessarily human ones. I firmly believe Havoc has a little bit of my boy Rusty in him. One more life with his favorite human.)

23) What is your preferred element?

Earth. I'm always reaching for plants to work my spells with and I'm always happiest when I'm up to my wrists in garden dirt or standing among big tall trees in the mountains. I always feel better when I have old stones under my feet, as opposed to plains or shoreline sand.

Fire, though, is a close second. I'm always lighting a candle or burning incense or casting herbs into a fire for magical purposes, especially around the holidays.

31) What is something you wish someone had told you when you first started?

Oh I could fill a BOOK with all the stuff I wish someone had told me. (And as a matter of fact, I did.)

But at the top of the list is this - I wish someone had told me there was more than one way to be a witch. I started in the early 2000s, so there was still a pretty heavy emphasis on All Things Wicca, and that was a hard mode to break out of with regard to finding information and figuring out how to build my practices.

49) Do you believe in predestination or fate?

Not really. I don't like the idea that my life (or anyone else's) will turn out a certain way regardless of what anyone does. I believe in predisposition and I believe that our actions (and the consequences thereof) create our personal destinies. There are always outside factors and there will always be things we can't possibly hope to change, control, or influence, but I don't think that we're born with our lives already written in stone.

61) What is something witch related that you want right now?

BOOKS. Always books.

Also I need to restock my herbs. I threw out a lot of expired stuff when I moved, so now I need to rebuild my component stores.

Witchcraft Asks

From 105 Witchcraft Asks

1. Are you solitary or in a coven?

Why are these the only two options?

I'm not in a coven but I have people in my life with whom I've experienced profound and life changing spiritual encounters.

I keep in contact with those who have shared in such an experience with me through group message and we continue to share anything that feels like a continuation of our Shared Personal Gnosis. The spiritual bonds formed without the formality of an organized group bring me greater fulfillment and peace knowing that my experiences weren't orchestrated.

I also have a Hof, which is for community-oriented spiritual practice. We gather to celebrate holidays, recognize rites of passage, and participate in projects to support our city/town.

Each are a different type of community experience- but equally important to my sense of belonging.