Foundations of Witchcraft

Protect your name. Guard your craft. Keep your workings close.

We are Witches, and we know the power of silence.

We know the long memory of the internet, and how quickly the world forgets context.

What is sacred today can be twisted tomorrow.
We work in the shadows.
We know the cold weight of despair, the dark corners where violence begins to feel like an answer.
But we also know how to alchemize rage into vision.

Do the work — within and without — to keep other paths open.

To make sure there is still light to walk toward.
This is an hour of escalation.
Do not let political violence become our Franz Ferdinand —
a spark that turns grief and fury into war.

Protect Witchcraft.

These traditions live in the margins, where they have always been hunted, misread, and mocked.
We survive not through spectacle, but through care. Through kinship. Through the unseen.

Condemn the violence — and the systems that birth it,and the hopelessness that feeds it.
Love is powerful magic.
Care for yourself.
Care for those you love.
Hold each other in the quiet.
We are needed. We are watching. We are not alone.

“I’m no longer interested in any forms of spirituality, self mastery programs, success mentors, coaches, healers, spiritual thinkers, or activists that don’t ultimately lead their communities back to responsible association to tending the Earth.

The never-ending quest for self-realization, personal brand mastery, self-success “soul”-partnership all strike me as bypasses that have only served to keep us disassociated from what’s actually going on here.

Which requires us to exit the cult of individual success, whether seen through foggy spiritualized goggles or not, and get our hands dirty in the immediacy of our grounded environmental issues around us.

The world dies while we buy in to yet another charismatic voice telling us how to heal some yet unmastered part of ourselves even more deeply into narcissistic individual “success.”

The world dies while charismatics make millions on their self help platforms. Sure.. and for that matter. Please: do your personal healing.

But if my healing only keeps looping back to myself, and doesn’t ultimately lead to reassociation with the Earth and my work to be part of it, then I’m just a casualty of healing-themed consumerism. And still contributing to the problems that are destroying the planet.”
— Adrianne Tamar Arachne

"Mother Earth is just that, our mother, who offers help, food, medicine, shelter and so much more. Spirituality goes hand in hand with deepening our understanding of our role in her care and the care of our relatives in nature and the four sacred guardians of life: Air, Water, Fire, Earth. We must do our part, individually and together." --Maestra Grace Sesma

Art: Mother Earth, Madre Tierra by Enzo Nardi (Argentina)

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There seems to be a bit of confusion lately on whether Paganism or Wicca or even black or dark magic has anything to do with Satanism or Devil worship. The answer to this is absolutely NO.

Paganism pre-dates Christianity, Judaism, Islam and almost all modern religions by thousands of years. Pagans and Wiccans do not believe in the Devil. The Devil is a Christian concept. We cannot worship something we do not even believe in. Devil worshipers must first be Christian to believe in the Devil, then turn against their God to worship his fallen angel.

Wiccans are Pagans who practice Witchcraft as part of their religion. A Pagan is an umbrella term for a person who worships nature. A Pagan will have many Gods, or they will not have any Gods at all and just worship nature. They do not have a sole God as in the Christian God or the Devil.

When Wiccans use magic we use it along with nature, we are not greedy and use it for what we need, we try to keep a balance in all things and realize that what we give out will come back on us good or bad, we recognize our dark and our light, our good and our bad.

Black magic or dark magic goes against nature, it is usually used for personal gain or power at the expense of others and is not something Wiccans encourage, but even black magic is not in any way Devil worship or a part of any Satanic workings. Wiccans live by a code which says 'Do what ye will, but harm none'.

The Devil or Satan does not come into any aspect of Wicca; we do not even recognize the Devil as being real. Wiccans don't believe in the idea of Hell or Satan as they can take away accountability of one's own actions. How many times have you heard someone say "The Devil made me do it"? Or worse a murderer, ra**st, terrorist, child abuser or other evil person confide in a clergyman in prison, ask for forgiveness, "convert" to Christianity and are given absolution and presumably a key to Heaven? In Wicca, there is no go between, your actions are your own and you do NOT escape paying your debts, whether you do so in this life, in the Shadow World or in the next life.

Wicca is a peaceful religion that works with the balance of nature and the Great Wheel Of Life. There are no demons at all in Wicca. So if anyone tells you any different, a priest, a shaman, a parent, a friend, a teacher, a partner. They are wrong.

I am guilty of loving minerals, gems and crystals, but knowing about the supply chain makes it really difficult to continue to buy or collect them. This is just one way in which the industry is damaging.

The Painful Truth About ‘Healing’ Crystals A global celebrity-driven craze for quartz has caused a rush to dig in backyards and hillsides in rural South Africa.

Working on this book really changed my perspectives on so much of what is found in contemporary Pagan Witchcraft and specifically initiatory Wicca. There was a lot more that could have been said, or included - and if it was done today I would be a lot more brave with what to include based on some of the additional knowledge and evidence that has come to light in more recent years - but I am proud of this one. So much so that I made the entire book available, broken into short blogs, on my website soritadeste.com.

This is the blurb from 2008:
The origins of the Wiccan Tradition have long been a subject of debate amongst practitioners and scholars alike. Did Gerald Gardner invent the tradition? Is Wicca a survival of a British folk magick system? Could it be a continuation of a European tradition of Pagan Witchcraft? Might it be that it evolved from Victorian ceremonial magick, or perhaps it is the modern manifestation of the medieval Grimoire Tradition?

In this book the authors explore the possible beginnings of the tradition by examining the practices in the context of magickal and spiritual thought spanning thousands of years. Through setting aside the endless debates about initiatory lineages, they look beyond the personalities of the people and instead focus on what they consider to be at the heart of the tradition - the practices. Evidence from many previously uncredited and unconsidered sources is examined. This clearly shows how all the significant component parts of Wiccan ritual and practice have roots reaching back, in some instances thousands of years, before its public emergence at the hands of Gerald Gardner in 1950's England. They explore the sometimes surprising antecedents for key practices such as initiation, magick circles, ritual tools, the invocation of the Guardians of the Watchtowers, Drawing Down the Moon and The Great Rite. The precedents for the Book of Shadows, Wiccan Rede and Charge of the Goddess are also considered as part of this groundbreaking work.

Wicca Magickal Beginnings may well answer as many questions as it creates about the true origins and nature of what is probably the most influential of the Western Esoteric Traditions today. Through combining scholarly research with practical knowledge, the authors clearly illustrate that the future of the tradition lies in utilising the rich diversity of its past, through the appreciation of its magickal origins and the untapped potential inherent in it.

This book will be invaluable to anyone with an interest in the history, practices and beliefs of the Wiccan Tradition - and its links to Paganism, Witchcraft, the British Folk Traditions and Ceremonial Magick."

The book is available from - and also as a Kindle eBook - and book from Amazon. I shall set myself the task of posting about a book I have authored, co-authored, contributed to or edited daily for the next few days :-) Some of them really feel like it was a life time ago!

NO WORDS could ever recount the immense impact Doreen Valiente had within the magical community. With her extensive writings, her enigmatic poetry and her belief In liberty, Doreen revolutionised the craft by giving us core ritual structure and emphasis upon forming connections with nature. This has, and continues to form, the basis of many Pagan and Witchcraft movements.

Today, on the day of her birth, we celebrate the miraculous woman that she was in life and still continues to be within the modern day.

She was the Witch who birthed the beautiful religious faith of Wicca beyond the writings of Gardner; she was the strong willed woman who pursued her own truths within the esoteric. But most Importantly she is and always will be the mother of modern day Witchcraft.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOREEN

"They who before In days of yore Were even such as we Out of the past Shall come at last To wish us blessed be"

Is November for you an extension of Samhain/Halloween or a warm-up for Yule/Christmas? 🤔

There seems to be quite a debate about it 😄 I'm already setting up some cozy winter decor, what about you? 🤎

Illustrations from my Wheel of the Year series. I hope you like them!

Mexican Dia de Mu***os has roots in Indigenous cosmology, philosophy, and spirituality, and since the 1900s, La Calavera Garbancera, known today as La Catrina, has formed an important part of calls for social justice reforms in Mexico.

Dia de Mu***os is not Halloween.

Mexican Dia de Mu***os encompasses all the days celebrated, which depend on one's family's beliefs, tribal affiliation, and region and can range from October 1 through November 2.

Read, https://www.facebook.com/CuranderismoHealing/posts/719975573505258

Maestra Grace
Curanderismo, the Healing Art of Mexico

***os