Hi! So sorry for the super late reply. Every witch’s path is different. I suggest looking up whatever you’re interested in. Is it astrology? Maybe plant magic, crystals, spirit work, etc. Start with what you’re interested in and use resources like these: 🔮🌙✨⚡️. They will expose you to new areas of witchcraft! And from there, your searches can only yield more results.
Here are some beginning practices that helped me, as well:
Journaling. Writing my intentions (goals, promises to myself).
Cleaning up my space. Clearing my room of bad energies and becoming accustomed to what “energy” feels like.
Tending to my crystals. Researching crystals that would help me with specific areas. Charging them under the sun, meditating with them. Feeling myself connect with them.
Crying. Crying has always been my magic, it allows me to feel the intensity of everything within me. Seeking to know myself is magic.
Using different essential oils during meditation. Sage, lavender and jasmine are my favorites.
Tracking the moon phases 🌕 and hosting New/Full Moon Circles with my closest friends. Writing intentions (New). Burning slips of paper with the things I want to release (Full).
Making my own spells 🌈. Using whatever I had in the house (often basil, salt, lavender from a plant outside, and whatever crystals corresponded with what I wanted to accomplish. Quartz is a good substitute for anything) and meditating with my intentions. Putting those ingredients in jars or hand-sewn pouches and carrying them around with me.
Finally, here is my page with links, masterposts and other resources 🌸
Anything is magic when you are performing it with intention and purity. I hope this helped. Use the resources (linked as emojis) I shared and continue to search for your own! Best of luck.
this is gonna be a resource for y’all. lots of times when you wanna start witchcraft there’s a loooot of info to search through and it can be pretty overwhelming. i want this to be a database for everyone, so that you can have just a broad starting point for your craft. this is long so its under a read more.
I’m a witch and I’m broke! Here are some ways I practise my craft. (Mostly free Internet resources I’ve found helpful, plus a couple of my own ideas chucked in.)
Astrology
Explore astrological birth charts on Cafeastrology! All you need is your birth date, time & location. Diving straight in & doing charts for you & your friends is the best way to learn how to interpret natal charts.
If you are new to astrology and need to get to grips with the basics of the zodiac, you can use sites like iZodiacSigns to give you a basic rundown of the signs & the traits with which they are most commonly associated. I even find Wikipedia’s Astrological sign page useful as a quick reference—it clearly lays out the signs, their associated elements, polarities, & modalities.
Astrolocherry cannot be beaten for her wise, empathetic insights. I would recommend her to anyone, particularly those who feel sceptical re: astrology or struggle to identify with their sun sign, as her analyses are always compassionate & avoid lazy stereotypes.
I highly recommend the Golden Thread app, especially for beginners! It’s simple, beautiful, free, available for both iOS and Android, & all the cards come with neat, accurate explanations.
If you want to delve further into the traditional Rider-Waite card meanings, Biddytarot should be your first port of call. You can copy their quick card descriptions down into a notebook/grimoire to help you learn them better!
Autostraddle has an LGBT+/queer friendly tarot column called Fool’s Journey! A great read, encourages you to interpret the cards in non-traditional, subversive ways, & recommends a variety of more creative/abstract, less heteronormative/white decks for your wishlist.
You can use websites like Free Tarot Reading if you don’t fancy asking one of the thousands of tarot readers looking for practice on tumblr dot com.
Other Forms of Divination
Numerology! I used this site to find basic meanings. You can use numerology to analyse your birth date, the meanings within a plain pack of playing cards, or a set of dice!
Runes! There is a great post going round about different rune meanings. Making your own set of runes is a fun craft activity, and you can use almost anything! I’ve seen DIY runes made from pebbles, bits of porcelain, sea glass, & crystals (fancy). Just use whatever’s cheap and readily available!
You want to make cute, aesthetically pleasing charms like the ones you’ve seen on Tumblr, but you can’t justify spending your grocery money on new crystals, fresh herbs, fancy containers or jewellery making equipment, right?
Containers: old jam or coffee jars, medicine bottles, wine or beer bottles, mini spirit bottles, lotion bottles, old lipstick tubes, jewellery boxes. If you don’t have a bunch of these lying around the house, somebody you know will, & they’ll grateful for you to take them off their hands. Upcycle!
Kitchen herbs (salt, pepper, rosemary, sage, garlic, mint, cinnamon, coriander/cilantro, etc. – obvious but effective & all available from your local supermarket)
Materials: beads, ribbons, glitter, sequins or buttons according to colour correspondence (old things you’ve been hoarding for years may carry magickal energies of their own!), rocks/pebbles with sigils painted on (I’ve even used nail polish!), glass, sea glass, & mirrors (good for curse protection).
You can make your own mini ‘altar’ out of anything: jewellery boxes, a shoebox covered in wrapping paper, etc. Old Altoid boxes are popular on Tumblr among USians. Draw or print out pictures or symbols you find soothing or invigorating & tape them on the inside; spray some perfume or essential oils. Use it to store a few special magickal items for luck, and/or your grimoire.
Speaking of which—a grimoire can be anything. My first one was an A5 notebook & it was very scribbly. Now I have a jumbo binder covered in Buffy stickers.
Candles—whatever you have to hand works, including LED. I use tea lights because you can get a giant bag from the pound shop. You can add essential oils to them if you want more of one specific type of energy.
Also easy & free to do: making moon water (by leaving a cup of water to charge by the light of the moon), & collecting rain or storm water. These can be used in spells. I personally dab moon water on my wrists every day like it’s perfume, & I believe it gives me inspiration, creative energy, & keeps me in touch with my intuition.
If you’re reading this, you probably know how to make sigils, but here is a good post anyhow. Powerful, effective, fun & cheap.
Sprinkle salt water around your room/apartment/whatever and chant your intent to protect it from negative energies. Bam, you’ve just put up some magickal wards.
Make playlists on Spotify, YouTube etc., of music to evoke the mood you wish to create for the rituals you are doing.
REMEMBER:
Intent really is everything. We as witches have the power to give items magickal significance. You can pick up an old stick & call it a wand, & that’s equally as valid as using a masterpiece special fancy wand for £100 off Etsy. You are not less of a witch because you can’t afford certain materials.
It can be easy to feel super overwhelmed when you’re first starting off. This post is for very new witches who have limited knowledge and would like a broad overview! These are my opinions, feel free to disagree but be polite about it.
Please note: Some sections contain information from other posts. All are sourced and linked both within the post and at the bottom!
Coven vs. Solitary?
It is a common belief that you must join a coven to be a witch, but that is not always true.
Many witches are solitary, meaning they primarily do witchcraft on their own. They may however do it with a friend or two on occasion! I am a solitary witch myself.
“Covens are a group of practitioners with like minded interests, ethics, and beliefs. They gather together to perform rituals, to connect, and to learn. They often celebrate sabbats and create their own traditions.” [source]
There are benefits to being solitary, and to being in a coven. It is often a matter of personal preference!
Secular vs. Religious?
Another common belief is that witchcraft = religion.
Witchcraft certainly CAN be a religion for you.
It also can be tied into whatever religion you are already practicing.
However, witchcraft is not inherently religious, and you can keep witchcraft and your religion separate.
Additionally, witchcraft isn’t inherently spiritual, and that also falls under the category of secular.
You can practice witchcraft without worshiping or believing in deities!
Paganism vs. Wicca vs. Witchcraft?
Trust me, this is about as simplified as I can make it while trying to keep it accurate and informative! Basically, people may identify under one of these categories alone, or multiple. They are all valid.
Paganism. Was used as a blanket term for everything that didn’t fit into a tidy box of “main world” religions (anything pre/non-Christian). The phrase paganism is now used to describe anyone who follows ancient religions.
Wicca. “A form of Neo-Paganism. The practice of Wicca places religion and magic together. They are linked together and cannot be separated. If you practice traditional Wicca, you cannot do magic without attaching religious reference to it, usually in the form of calling on their Goddess and/or God. There is also a set of rules that many practitioners follow.” [source]
Traditional witchcraft. “Often serves as a reconstruction of what we believe, from the sources of folklore and history we have, witches did and the roles they served. It is based in and inspired by the lore of witches in the Early Modern Period.” [source]
Witchcraft. Is a bit of a blanket term. Although by definition it falls under paganism, not all witches identify as being pagan. There is a diverse group who chooses this label, and some may follow certain rules and guidelines, while others do not.
Curses vs. Hexes vs. Jinxes?
You do not have to do these if you don’t want to. I personally don’t, but fully support those who do perform curses/hexes/jinxes.
Curses. Curses are long-term, potentially life ruining things. They hold the power to do a lot of harm.
Hexes. Often considered a weaker version of a curse, designed to make all the little things go wrong, and are long-term.
Jinxes. More of a momentary, short-term thing. Designed for the target to have all the little things go wrong or have a touch of bad luck.
Enchantments vs. Charms?
The terms can be interchangeable and it is a matter of personal preference. My personal opinion is….
An enchantment is what you DO to an item. It can also be done to a person.
A charm is the end result (an item being enchanted).
Blessings vs. Spells?
Blessings are typically short term and nice little things. A blessing could be “may every light be green for you today”.
To bless something with certain intent is kind of a mix between a blessing and a spell, and can last a long time.
Spells can range in length and intent, and are basically everything not already covered in this post!
Where to start? This is the most common question i receive. I understand how overwhelming the craft can be! There are so many different components, and you can rest knowing your education will NEVER be complete. You will continue to learn new things all the time, and there is no rush to the order in which you learn! Cool down, and take some time to really fall into theory before jumping into practice. Its very important to read as much as you can, from as many sources as possible. Here are some of the many things you can research:
Crystals & their uses
Color correspondences
Different kinds of Magic
Different kinds of witches
Tools
Moon Phases
Planets/Celestial Bodies
Witch History
Herbs & their uses
Plants that are naturally abundant in your area that you can use in magick
Energy
Meditation and Visualisation
Astral Projection
Deities
Tarot cards and other forms of divination
Symbols (runes, sigils)
Theban alphabet
Incense and Oils
Animals and what they represent
Sabbats
Cleansing, charging and consecration of tools
making mundane things magical
There are so many more things, so feel free to add in anything I missed or that you personally find important.
Witchlings, please ask me any questions you may have as i am happy to answer to the best of my knowledge. I will be putting up more educational posts over the next few weeks, so please ask or message me if theres anything specific you’d like me to cover. I’ll more than likely have a post for each of the bullet points above.
The question I receive the most in regards to witchcraft is, “Where do I start?” so I decided to make a quick guide on the most helpful areas to me as a beginner.
Visualization – Learn to use and work with your imagination. Visualization is used in pretty much every aspect of witchcraft.
Intent – Learn how to formulate a well-constructed goal for your spell work.
Grounding and Centering – Learn to ground to release energy; Center to focus and bring yourself back to reality.
Channeling – Learn the various energies you can channel or draw from and how they can correspond with your intent.
Protection – Learn about shields and wards, from putting them up and taking them down to the different methods of protection – this can involve the use of various magickal components such as herbs or crystals. A method of protection should be employed before all acts of spell work, in my opinion.
Different types of magick – Learn about the different types of magick and make note of what your interests are – there are SO many paths to choose from.
Divination – If it’s something you’re interested in, research different methods of divination: some good starter methods IMO include scrying, pendulum, runes, and tarot cards.
After you’ve got some idea of your witchy interests, do some further research! See what path is right for you, and expand on it.
teakepp 