Letter to Beginner Witches, Occultists, and Magick Practitioners
Let’s get into it.
Welcome! Glad to have you.
Okay, two things need to be addressed right up top:
This letter is meant for people who are starting to practice or study magick.
My hope is that this letter will be relevant and useful for most people interested in practicing magick or studying occultism. It’s meant to be a bit broad. Even if I chose to address one specific group alone, such as chaos magicians, I still wouldn’t know the ins and outs of each individual’s practice, belief set, values or experience. Therefore, my recommendation for readers is to take what is useful and disregard the rest.
2. I’m not qualified to welcome you to anything (even if I want to).
I’m probably not exactly in your magick tradition or subculture (there are so so many!), so I can’t actually welcome you into your particular tradition or practice. Nevertheless, I want to welcome you to the path of the spiritual seeker and novice magick practitioner, as someone who has practiced for a few years. It might be a bit presumptuous, but I want to invite you into the idea of a magick community — where we can share ideas that have value to many, if not all.
So, let’s get into it.
When I first learned that magick “existed” beyond the world of stage magic and fantasy, I was curious. Simply that. No lightning strikes, howling of winds, or sudden shock occurred (these came later). In fact, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing — innocuously looking for a podcast to listen to before stepping out on a run. When I asked my husband for some new recommendations, he hesitantly shared the one he had cued up saying, “I’m not sure if you’ll like it. It’s about real magick.”
Real magick? What does that even mean? I must have thought these things; although truthfully, I don’t really remember outside of being intrigued. I just know that I ended up listening to that podcast and I loved it. Turns out that discussing magick, culture, philosophy, and history is pretty fascinating — you probably know this. And although this wasn’t the true beginning of my spiritual path (I don’t think they do have beginnings), this ended up being my gateway into occultism and real magick.
Since then, my life (along with my husband’s) has been increasingly strange. If you know anything about us, we’ve dedicated most of our career to magick practice and education. The other parts of it are artistic or otherwise too weird to describe. Now after hosting séances and teaching at the School of Occult Arts for years, we are approaching a period in which we may have even more opportunity to speak to and dialogue with people interested in magick in a variety of traditions, backgrounds, and belief sets.
And we find that we do have some thoughts to offer!
Mercifully, I’ve narrowed down a much-longer initial list to ten points of advice to new practitioners. Maybe they won’t all apply to you! Remember: take what is useful, what you needed to hear affirmed.
The list is as follows:
Don’t be scared; be respectful.
Everything in and out of this world is varying degrees of dangerous. It doesn’t mean you should live in fear or constantly warn others about the most drastic outcomes vaguely possible. In magick discourse there are frequent warnings about things from tarot card usage to scrying to working with certain entities, but less on how one might safely proceed.
In most magickal operations, it is best to do your research: how have others safely navigated this before? Should I just decide that this is not something to attempt? In all things, an approach of respect to the very real powers that be and your own power to effect change will help guide your practice.
Don’t put off the inner work.
The work to know yourself, to work through limiting beliefs and ways you are holding yourself back, is deeply important in order to live up to your highest potential in this life. To be an effective magician, inner work is required. How can you manifest what you desire if you don’t really know what that is? How can you do this if you aren’t aware of what’s holding you back?
You can frame this as shadow work, therapy, health journeys, binding inner demons — whatever you are able to undertake now, in this moment. You are welcome to do inner work in both magickal and mundane ways, alone or with trusted others, but don’t push it aside and expect magick to be able to help you like it could.
You don’t have to defend your beliefs to anyone.
Your practice and beliefs are your own — you don’t owe anyone an explanation. Those who hold counter-cultural views and beliefs are often asked to accurately describe and justify these. This task is much more difficult than people think, because you often have to talk about philosophy, metaphysics, spirituality, and science without necessarily having the shared language and terms to do so.
You should always interrogate your own beliefs, know that you (we) could be wrong on virtually any point, and be flexible in entertaining alternate viewpoints, but you don’t have to be the defense of any specific viewpoint.
Don’t neglect protections and energy clearing.
As an operant witch or wizard, you are working with forces somewhat known and entirely unknown. It’s possible that you are like one of the many nascent mediums we’ve spoken with — highly sensitive to the energies of others and environments. By now, you’ve probably heard that you should prioritize protections — but may not yet have gotten into the habit of daily protections. This should be a daily practice at a minimum!
There are many ways to clear energies and set boundaries against things you don’t want. Find the ways that work best for you and your lifestyle, and implement them as you would a standard hygienic practice such as brushing your teeth. I like to do the Kundalini-inspired white light protection exercise, and I pair this daily practice with several other “always on” protective magickal objects.
You don’t have to avoid Christianity, unless you want to.
Some witches believe that witchcraft is diametrically opposed to orthodox Christianity and a practice which ultimately should seek to undermine the religion. But beliefs are up to the individual practitioner and this is not a rule you must follow to practice magick. I respect this belief and understand the reasoning, but I don’t hold to it myself.
A magician doesn’t have to avoid the Bible, praying, working with saints, using holy water etc., unless that is their desire. There is a long, long tradition of both folk and ceremonial practitioners blending religions (and Christianity specifically) with heathen magick practice. There are plenty of necromantic and other magick grimoires that use the name of the Abrahamic God to bind demons or work spells. You don’t have to separate them unless you decide this is for your highest good.
The Rule of Three is not a rule-rule.
In fact, I’m not sure there are truly universal rules in magick at all. Perhaps the other most popular rule is a non-rule, which is Aleister Crowley’s well-known declaration that “There is no law beyond do what thou wilt.” Even the most broad of wiccan morality (as articulated by Doreen Valiente in the Wiccan Rede) suggests that practitioners do what they will, so long as it harms none. The Rule of Three or Law of Threefold Return is held by some, but not all magick users, and we need not take for granted that it governs our moral code.
Most spiritual and religious traditions have a set of moral codes which adherents should strive to follow. As an unaligned magickal practitioner, you should determine what your ethics are with great discernment and thought. Just be aware that many magickal acts do infringe upon the will or freedoms of another, and cursing is not the only spell you should think about before performing.
Never sacrifice your sovereignty to someone else.
Find a few teachers that you trust and learn magick from them, but don’t imagine that they are infallible or flawless. When following the teachings of any leader or guide, it is best to “keep your thinking brain on” and not accept everything you are told without thinking. It may seem slightly patronizing to say, but it is truly difficult to not put your whole trust in some people that have helped so much. It seems like certain teachers can do no wrong!
But we are only human, and even if we are not only human (including spiritual teachers here as well) — you should still never give up your authority, power, and sovereignty to another. You must discern for yourself always.
Learn to trust your intuition.
Know that you have the inner knowledge to discern your best path. This one is simple, and goes along with the previous piece. Trusting your intuition can take time and practice, but people can learn how to listen to and correctly follow the inner voice of their highest self (or that which is connected to the generative universe).
This doesn’t mean you ignore other helpful teachers! Just know that you can foster a deep sense of trust and knowing around the best path for you.
Expect more from magick than manifestation.
Don’t just focus on result-oriented work such as manifestation or dwelling in the aesthetic alone. Engage with magick as a set of tools for relating to the world on a different level. Engage with magick as a set of spiritual practices that describes psi and paranormal experiences. Allow doing magick to bring you into a deeper connection with the spiritual and material, mundane and sacred, natural and man-made, self and other.
Much of magick is connecting and enlightening, generative and deeply strange. You can ask for more, you can seek more, and you should.
Explore in magic not only what is popular and straightforward, but what is truly subversive, counter-subcultural, and profoundly “Other”.
There is great value in perspective shifting, in entertaining new beliefs, and continuing to explore “the question”. Seeking other ways of being in the world brings in the awareness of more freedom of choice and creativity of how we all express ourselves.
And a major goal of magickal practice can be to grant greater freedom and creativity.
I sincerely hope your journey into magick is a joyful one — full of exploration, newfound freedoms, and meaning-filled adventures. I believe it can be. It has been for me.
