You do not need to believe in a God or Goddess to be a witch. You do not need to believe in the Threefold Law. You do not need to belong to a coven, and you do not need anyone else’s approval.
And what you define as witchcraft is up to you as well!
I dislike this.
This is an attempt to take all substance from witchcraft, the word becomes meaningless and empty. If a person comes to me and says ‘so your a witch huh? What do you do?’ and I explained myself by saying ‘I just call myself a witch’ then… what is witchcraft? It would be dead, it would be a fandom and a scene.
The idea that you can do anything you want and call it witchcraft is cute and empowering to people who need that. A lot of damaged people become interested in the craft and they need all the support they can get. Shits like me are bad for folks who just need acceptance – I mistakenly believe they actually want to become good at magik – So I have learnt to shut up and let people play their little pat each other on the back game.
This is too far though, it is hard enough to convince people that witchcraft is a legitimate belief and I am not role playing harry potter without this abuse, this assault on my faith. It is an attack. You are attempting to invalidate The Craft.
Why invalidate me, my faith and the title I use for myself?It isn’t a belief, it’s a practice, and I’ve seen huge debates on how to define it by some of the most respected witches on this site so feel free to try and come up with one definition that everyone agrees on?
I run a writers’ group with about 200 members. Only about thirty of them have ever showed up for even one critique meeting, and only about a dozen of them attend on a regular basis. There’s probably many reasons for this, but I would bet a thousand dollars this story gets played out hundreds of times the world over. A person gets up one Sunday and decides they want to be a writer. They have a story to tell, personal or fictional. They join the writer’s group, but they never get around to doing the actual writing, because that’s hard work.
I don’t care if these people go to parties and call themselves writers. It doesn’t take anything away from me. I don’t need to validate myself in any way other than the words I put down on a page.
But when someone actually wants to read or learn how to write, they don’t turn to those people. They turn to me.
Your witchcraft is your actions, not who you claim to be. Do what you do, and don’t worry about the other people who use the title.
