Practice: An Overview
Everything in the Craft section is what we think. Everything in this section is what we do. You can read about witchcraft for twenty years and learn less than you will in one evening of actually casting a circle in your kitchen with a tea light and a bowl of salt.
Where to start
Begin with grounding and centering. It is the one skill every other skill depends on, it costs nothing, and it is useful on a bus. Then read Casting a Circle and do it once, badly, alone. Then try the simple full moon ritual at the next full moon. By then you will have questions, and the rest of this section will start to make sense.
The pages
- The Altar and the Tools
- What goes on a witch's altar and why, what each tool is for, and why you need almost none of them to begin.
- Casting a Circle
- How we make sacred space: cleansing, casting, calling the quarters, invoking, working, and opening again.
- Grounding and Centering
- The tree meditation and why no witch should skip it.
- The Book of Shadows
- Your own record of your practice: what to put in it, how to organise it, and why the mess is the point.
- Candle Magic
- The simplest and most reliable spellcraft there is: choosing, dressing, timing, burning, and not setting fire to the curtains.
- Herbs of the Hearth
- The plants we actually use, with their elements, planets and purposes, and a frank column about which ones can hurt you.
- Tables of Correspondence
- Colours, days, elements, directions and moon phases, for building your own workings.
- A Simple Full Moon Ritual
- A complete, gentle Esbat for one person, written out in full, that you can do tonight.
A note on ethics
Everything here is offered under the Rede: harm none. We do not publish spells to compel, bind or harm other people, and we do not publish love spells aimed at a particular person, because that is compulsion with flowers on. Work on yourself, work for those who have asked you to, work for the world. There is more than enough to do.
A note on safety
Fire burns. Herbs are drugs. Trance states are not for driving. Nothing here is medical advice, and no spell is a substitute for a doctor, a lawyer, a locksmith or a friend. If you are in crisis, the first magic is to pick up the phone.