This is a question I get asked a lot, especially by Christians who don’t understand what they are asking. The question is usually why witchcraft? Why not focus on herbal prayers or just using more candles and incense in you’re prayers? I get asked this by people who don’t know what witchcraft is. They get caught up in the biblical reprimand to avoid sorcery and assume it’s all the same. They think anything of the occult is not of God and therefore must be evil.
I am not framing this from the Christian perspective but I will address those concerns so-called Christians may have, at least from a crisis of faith perspective. I want to first separate what it means to be a witch, as in someone who practices witchcraft, verses a Wiccan or a Pagan, as those are something else entirely.
Let’s start with a basic understanding of what witchcraft is and how it relates to other religions, including Christianity. Put it simply magik (spelled that way in witch circles to differentiate it from the art of illusion “magicians” use) is about manipulating energy. That’s it. The widely accepted trope in scientific academic circles is explained that any science that is sufficiently advanced but not understood well can be considered witchcraft. Basically medicine is alchemy. Chemistry is potion brewing, astronomy is astrology and physics is akin to sorcery in a way.
News flash, Christian, YOU are doing witchcraft every time you turn your cell phone on or use the internet. Magic (using English spelling now for simplicity’s sake) is science. They are interchangeable. In this respects your closest adherents to your own narrow minded interpretation of the Bible are the Amish as they are the only ones who shun science as it is magic. But that’s it. This is why so many witches believe in or support science. The idea that magic is just science we don’t understand is close but I take it a step further. Science, to me, is just magic we DO understand. The terms are in fact synonyms. Medicine is a prime example. Witches use potions and herbs to heal themselves. Some of those potions once concocted are merely the exact recipe for aspirin. Aspirin is a common house-hold “potion” most Christians have in their home, without realizing it! Of course they get caught up in the spiritual aspect without knowing most, as in 90 percent or more, of all witches don’t believe in “magic” at all, they believe in science, they see science as magic.
So then what is witchcraft? Or what are spells? Here we go. Spells are rituals. That’s it. Incantations are prayers. Spells are recipes. Nothing more. A computer program, written by a computer scientist or software engineer, is a spell or instruction set telling the forces of nature how to behave in a certain set of circumstances. That is all witchcraft is. It is the manipulating of the forces of nature, something Christians do daily whenever they put fossil fuel (fire potions) into their automobiles (self propelled chariots) and drive them on roads directed by traffic lights using electricity (magic) to get them safely to their jobs where they will use more magic to conduct business using their computers (tablets) that contain spells pre-written and fully cast once the user (spell caster) hits enter on the keyboard.
I have a friend who is a technomancer. This friend is fully aware how science and magic are interchangeable. Now that we’ve established that then why practice magic? Because simply put we’re already doing it from birth! I was fascinated by science, technology and computers at an early age. I was encouraged by my Christian parents to pursue these interests knowing full well I was fascinated also by the spiritual side of things. The sciences I found most fascinating included geology, astronomy, paleontology, chemistry, biochemistry and computer science. You will notice these correspond perfectly to the magical paths or witchy paths I have followed. Necromancy is talking to the dead. Paleontology is studying (learning from/talking to the dead), astronomy and physics including metaphysics includes manipulating light energy and electromagnetism. As humans our current mastery of electromagnetism exceeds the power of most gods of ancient mythologies.
The reality that even our own nuclear program exceeds the destructive power most gods represent in ancient times is a testament to the triumphs of science. Now of course it is easy to scare dark ages minded Christians into thinking vaccines are evil or that the climate sciences are hokum for lack of a better word, it’s harder to reinforce in their minds their very cell phones are a form a witchcraft!
That’s it that’s all it is. I am drawn to witchcraft because I am fascinated by science. You can be a Christian and use magic. It is perfectly okay. The stuff the Bible forbids is drawing power from Demons, which is what MOST Christians mistakenly confuse other forms of magic for. They are falsely told thus falsely claim using spells in any capacity requires using demonic forces. This is blatantly false. Yes there are people who work with demons. There are people who use the power of demons to further their own dark arts. Those people rarely have long productive lives as it is understood even in witch and pagan circles if you commune with monsters there are consequences.
This s a glossing over of why magic is important to me. Any person, Christian or otherwise, who uses a cell phone, the internet, or drives a car and proclaims magic is evil is themselves a hypocrite for using said magic in their daily lives. Oh but hypocrisy is the Christians rule 1 in their playbook so we have to side step that for a second.
Now let’s dig into Wicca and Paganism while we dig into the Occult at the same time.
We talked science as in our understanding of the natural world. Magic and sorcery (not interchangeable but related fields) are forms of pseudoscience. This means they fall under the purview of the supernatural. The super natural is the forces of nature we can’t fully understand. This makes sense as science uses testable methods to prove conclusively theories regarding the forces of nature. It stands to reason you cannot test supernatural forces because they exist in a plane natural science cannot cross. We can get into things like alternate dimensions, multiple universe, worm holes, etc., but let’s focus on exploring the supernatural now that we’ve laid the groundwork.
Wicca first. Wicca is a religion. Plain and simple it is a religious path some witches choose to follow. That’s it. Simply put some witches follow the teachings of Wicca and call them selves Wiccan. Their rituals, spells and practices are no different than the same rituals you, Christian, do when you are sick or when you pray for clairvoyance (what you call inspiration from the Holy Ghost) it’s the same. You are going to get caught up in semantics (which you will ignorantly and falsely refer to as “Biblical hermeneutics) but I will sidestep that pack of lies and dismiss the narrow-minded manipulating of twisting words to mean things they never meant to fit your beliefs. Instead know this Wicca is a religion on par with Christianity n that it has a book that spells out it’s beliefs and followers meet in places to perform rituals not that different from your church practices in many ways.
Then there is paganism. Paganism means folk religion. That’s it. Country people who practice religion are pagans. Christians who live in the country and have “church” on their front porch ARE PAGANS. That’s it that is the definition of pagan. It does not MEAN you are Wiccan, Satanist, a devil worshiper or follow a “false” religion, it just means you have your religion in the country or outside of a structured church building. It can be in a temple. It can be in a city. But the simplest definition means many so-called Christians, and I don’t mean Catholics but Baptists and Presbyterians in particular, are basically pagan in that sense. Just like those same Christians using modern medicine or technology are witches! Ha gotcha now you are sinning according to our very own religion, that is if you follow the false interpretation of the words you use, especially if you read the very FALSE KJV version that was written specifically to control Christians in England so they would become Anglican soldiers to the crown. That’s another story for another day but tell a Baptist their version of the Bible was used by Satan to control people and keep them from experiencing true Biblical Christianity and they lose their minds, and tempers, so let’s move on.
There is another aspect to paganism. It can, and often does include a worship, reverence or respect of deities outside of the Christian God, we’ll call him Elohim for now. Elohim has a rule in his own law stating he wants no “other” Gods “before” him. This is easy to pick apart. As Elohim is quite legalistic you can skirt this by placing him first in your pantheon, he can’t get upset, you can also have “other” gods by revering them or honoring them without worshiping them. Now it says not to “have” other gods it doesn’t clarify what that means. You can also skirt this by following goddesses as the male pronoun is used and we all know Elohim is very male-centric, misogynist so we can use that to our advantage also.
But you don’t have to play with words. Pagans don’t have to worship their deities. Many in fact only work with them for spell work, others only celebrate their holidays, which the Bible even declares is acceptable and forbids others from Judging those who do! So yet again Christians have no basis for judging a pagan. It’s that simple!
The reality is many pagans only identify the deities that work well with their intensions. A farmer might call to a god or goddess known to care for crops to help them during a dry sell. They might do some lucky superstitious ritual to bring more rain even while proclaiming they don’t actually believe in it. They might also pray to Elohim and his son Joshua, or they might pick a Saint to request prayer from. At the end of the day Pagans, Wiccans and Witches are not devil worshipers following a false religion, they are just practicing often the same beliefs you have in a different way.
My sister lives in the country, performs rituals on her front porch every Sunday declaring it Sunday church and does in fact use herbs and home remedies in place of modern medicine. That makes her a pagan witch whether she will admit to it or not!
Stephanie Bri 