How to Become a Witch by Amber K. (large ebook reader txt) 📗

Imagination helps to see,

Faith to know that it will be.

Silence knows what’s best to hide,

Love will fill the space inside.

Spirit binds them all as one,

Now the magick has begun.[1]

The base of the pyramid is knowledge, the inside is love, and the four sides correspond to air, fire, water, and earth. Each of these four elements has a corresponding witchy tool associated with it, and so does knowledge. There is no tool specifically associated with love, but ideally all of a Witch’s actions flow from the heart and love, so a separate tool is hardly necessary. We will begin with the pyramid’s base, and then go around the sides in the order that they are most often used in performing magick—east (air/imagination), then south (fire/will), then west (water/silence), and north (earth/faith), finally followed by love at the center. (We covered spirit in the last chapter.) We will explore both the internal qualities of the Witch and the tool and element that correspond to each one.

The Base

Knowledge, Book of Shadows

The base of the Witches’ Pyramid is knowledge: knowledge from this book, other books, teachers, nature, your own experiences, the Internet—anywhere you can gain knowledge about yourself, other people, and the world around you. Because Witchcraft will take you to anywhere/when/who you can imagine, the Witch needs to be well read, with a wide variety of interests and a lively curiosity to know more and more and more.

So, to become a Witch, begin by taking an inventory of your knowledge. What is your background, and more importantly, what have you learned along the way about yourself and others? About the world outside your door, halfway around this planet, or beyond this planet? What do you know a lot about; what would you like to know more about? And where do you record all this knowledge? In your Book of Shadows.

The Witches’ Pyramid

The witches’ alphabet

A magickal alphabet popular in the Craft is called Theban Script, or the Runes of Honorius. It may have been first published in 1518, in a book called Polygraphia by Johannes Trithemius. He suggested that it was created by the legendary magician Honorius of Thebes. Today, it is used by some Witches for their Books of Shadows, as a simple cipher to protect their material from any curious muggle. Some of the fantasy Elvish alphabets look vaguely similar and may have been based on Theban.

The Book of Shadows may live on your altar, or beneath it, or elsewhere—just make sure for ease of use that it is convenient to get to.

Begin gathering more witchy knowledge from books, the Internet, and workshops. We have included an appendix of recommended readings and another of resources, including some of the hundreds of Internet sites for Witch/Wiccan/Pagan information—these make up just a fraction of the witchy knowledge available today. Once there were only a handful of books on the Craft; today dozens are published each year on Witchcraft and related subjects, and new Internet sites pop up daily. Take a stroll through the bookshelves of your local metaphysical shop, and pull volumes off the shelf that catch your eye. Buy some—support your local Pagan merchant—and start your own library.

Don’t buy too many at first, though. Start with just a few, and practice what is in them before buying more, or it can get overwhelming. Eventually you will move beyond strictly Craft books to explore related subjects. You can read up on other spiritual paths, find the similarities and differences, and perhaps try practices from other faiths. Mythology is always useful for finding deities to work with, both in ritual and to walk with through life. Ancient history can give you a sense of our roots, psychology an understanding of how we think, and ecology a hope for a bright future. Grow your library carefully and tend it well, as you would a beloved garden, for it will feed your mind and soul, giving nourishment with each new book.

Search the Internet using Witch words (see the index or the glossary), and peek into some of the thousands of sites that pop up. Take workshops at Pagan festivals, online through Cherry Hill and other schools, or in person at Ardantane. Record your most interesting findings in your Book of Shadows. Then get up and do something. Witchcraft begins with knowledge, then is built on through experiences.

East

Imagination, Athame

Once you have a good start on your base of knowledge and the willingness to continue learning throughout your life, you can begin to build the sides of your pyramid. The first side is air, or imagination. If you can’t imagine something, you can never attain it; imagination is the first step in creation, the first step in magick. Imagination and inspiration are closely linked—it’s rare to find one without the other. Inspiration comes from dreams, daydreams, and things you see, hear, or feel; it is that sudden light, that spark of “I wonder…” or “I’d like to see what would happen if…” So, to begin to become a Witch, think, “What do I want?”—then imagine you have it.

Using all your senses, imagine an animal or a piece of food. What would it look like, smell like, feel, taste, and sound like? Vivid imagination includes all your senses plus your emotions. How do you feel about it—does it thrill you, scare you, make you feel all warm and fuzzy? Write it in your Book of Shadows.

The tool most often associated with air is the athame, a black-handled, double-edged knife that is used to cut through nonphysical energies. It is considered an air tool partly because air is the realm of the intellect and the imagination, and the athame can cut through illusion to get to truth. The athame helps cut through the fibs we tell ourselves and the webs of misinformation in which others want to spin us. We will talk more about how the athame is used, and about cleansing and dedicating it before use,