What even is witchcraft?

An easy question, right? Yet what kind of question guarantees such diverse responses depending on whom one asks? A subjective question rather than a factual one, perhaps?

If you think that’s a stretch, consider this: Say I asked a child what witchcraft is. They’d say “magic”, or “flying on a broomstick”, or something naïve of the sort. Now say I asked my imaginary and devoutly Christian grandmother. Chances are, I’d get a response along the lines of “a sin”, or “evil”, along with an optional description of said “sinful” activities, such as tarot readings or summoning spirits or whatever else people think witches do. (more on that later, I promise!)

In case you’re not bored yet, which I hope you aren’t, here’s the last hypothetical: if I asked a layperson (someone who doesn’t know anything about it), I’d likely get the same answer as the child’s, plus the distinction that witches and wizards aren’t real.

A logical statement at first glance, yet what if I asked a real witch? Yes, yes, PSA, witchcraft is genuinely a real thing. And if you’re a witch reading this, or someone who’s been thinking of getting into witchcraft, hey! You’ve found your people.

As my favourite witchy content creator, whose channel name on Youtube is That Divination Witch (and whom I’m totally promoting in exchange for quoting her) defines it, “Witchcraft is energy. Ultimately, it is the concentration of [spiritual] energy into something for an outcome.” Now whether that ‘something’ is a spell in the traditional sense (more on that in a later post), a ritual, a complex manifestation routine or a simple wish, is up to the practitioner to decide. This attempt to use the spiritual energy around us to cause a certain outcome or event is what all of the practices that fall under the umbrella of witchcraft have in common. Whether divination, deity work, herbal magic, or others, you won’t find a single practice that falls under the umbrella of witchcraft that doesn’t also attempt to use the metaphysical qualities of what’s being done to achieve a certain outcome.

Whether or not someone wants to practice witchcraft and how they do it is also uniquely their choice. Witchcraft, contrary to popular belief, is not a religion or an ideology, nor indeed a sign of someone’s morals (or lack therof). It’s simply a practice, an attempt to discover something more about the world than just its physical properties, to venture into the unknown — the unexplained and the unexplainable.

On a personal note, although I myself was very skeptical of the idea of any sort of “magic” working throughout most of my practice (yes, even people who are skeptical of witchcraft can practice it, and vice versa), it worked out wonderfully for me, and I hope to keep demystifying and de-villifying witchcraft on my platform/blog in the future.