Witch

Why Training Matters in Witchcraft

Intuition Is Not Enough

There is a phrase that circulates often in modern witchcraft spaces: “Just follow your intuition.”

It is usually said with good intentions. It is meant to reassure, to empower, and to remove fear or self doubt from the equation. And intuition does matter. It is often where the path begins. But when intuition is treated as the whole of the work rather than the place where the work starts, something essential is missing.

Intuition by itself is perception. It tells you that something is happening. It does not automatically tell you what that something is, how it functions, or what it requires of you over time.

In every other discipline that we take seriously, we understand this without much argument. A musician may have a remarkable ear, but they still study theory, technique, and form. A gifted actor still trains breath, timing, and language. A talented artist still learns anatomy, composition, and how materials behave under stress. Skill develops because talent is given structure, repetition, and accountability.

Witchcraft is no different.

It is a practice that works with power, symbolism, altered states, and perception. Those things carry weight. They shape how a practitioner understands themselves and the world around them. Feeling can guide someone toward the work, but feeling alone does not teach how to interpret experiences, how to contain what is opened, or how to live responsibly with the results.

This is where training enters the picture, and it is important to be clear about what that means. Training does not automatically imply a coven, a formal initiation, or a single mentor. Many witches develop their practice independently, and self directed training can be real and effective work. But self training still requires discipline. It requires study, repetition, reflection, and a willingness to question one’s own conclusions. It asks for commitment to learning, rather than reliance on whatever happens to arise in the moment.

Without that commitment, it becomes very easy to mistake emotional intensity for insight, imagination for contact, or desire for meaning for meaning itself. That confusion is common, and it is understandable. It is also preventable.

Training gives intuition context. It gives experience a framework. It allows perception to deepen into understanding, rather than remaining a series of powerful but unexamined moments.

Feeling Is Where Most Witches Begin

Most witches come to the Craft through feeling first. A sense of recognition. A pull toward symbols, seasons, ritual, or the unseen. Something resonates before it can be explained, and that resonance matters. It is often the doorway.

That initial sensitivity is not a flaw. It is the reason many people find their way to witchcraft at all.

But feeling, on its own, is only the beginning of perception. It alerts you that something is present. It does not automatically tell you what that presence is, where it comes from, or how it behaves once engaged.

Without training, experiences tend to blur together. Everything feels significant. Everything feels charged. Over time, that lack of distinction can make it difficult to tell whether an experience is symbolic, psychological, energetic, spiritual, or some combination of all of the above. The work becomes intense, but not necessarily clear.

This is where many practitioners get stuck.

They have experiences, sometimes very powerful ones, but no reliable way to interpret them. They feel movement, emotion, or presence, but they do not yet have the tools to understand what kind of movement they are sensing, or what to do with it once it arises.

Training slows this process down in a useful way. It teaches you to observe rather than immediately conclude. It encourages you to revisit experiences instead of building identity around them. It creates space between perception and meaning, which is where discernment develops.

Over time, that space becomes invaluable.

It allows a practitioner to notice patterns rather than isolated moments. It helps separate imagination from trance, emotional release from energetic shift, symbolism from contact. None of these distinctions diminish the experience. They deepen it.

Feeling does not disappear with training. It refines. It becomes quieter, steadier, and more trustworthy. Instead of pulling you in every direction at once, it begins to point with greater precision.

This is how perception matures into practice.

What Training Actually Provides

Training in witchcraft does not arrive all at once. It accumulates slowly, often quietly, through repetition, study, reflection, and lived experience. Its effects are not always dramatic, but they are stabilizing. Over time, training changes how a practitioner relates to their own perceptions and to the work itself.

One of the first things training offers is language.

When experiences can be named, they can be examined. Vocabulary does not reduce mystery. It gives the practitioner a way to think clearly about what is happening without immediately turning it into myth, identity, or belief. Naming creates a small but crucial distance, and within that distance, understanding can begin to form.

Training also provides containment.

Containment is one of the most overlooked aspects of magical practice. Grounding, boundary setting, and energetic hygiene are not embellishments or optional habits. They are foundational skills that allow the work to remain sustainable over time.

Containment allows a practitioner to open and close deliberately. It teaches how to enter altered states without becoming lost inside them, and how to return fully present afterward. This is about stability. Stability is what allows power to be engaged repeatedly without eroding the practitioner’s sense of self or balance in daily life.

Another gift of training is discernment.

Discernment develops when a practitioner learns to pause before drawing conclusions. It encourages revisiting experiences rather than immediately assigning meaning to them. Over time, this practice sharpens perception.

Discernment helps a witch recognize:

when something is symbolic rather than literal
when an experience arises from the psyche rather than from external contact
when emotion is moving through the body versus when energy is shifting
when imagination is active versus when trance is deepening

These distinctions are not rigid categories. They are points of orientation. They allow the practitioner to work with what arises rather than being carried by it.

Training also deepens ethical awareness.

Ethics in witchcraft are not abstract rules imposed from outside the practice. They arise through relationship. Relationship to oneself, to others, to spirits, to land, and to the unseen. Training encourages reflection on impact and responsibility, to notice how actions ripple outward rather than stopping at intention.

Ethical training asks difficult questions. It asks not only what can be done, but what should be done, and why. It also asks at what point action itself becomes the wrong choice. Learning when to leave something untouched requires clarity.

Perhaps most importantly, training builds reliability.

A trained practitioner learns how they respond under pressure, fatigue, emotional stress, and uncertainty. They learn what their strengths are and where their blind spots tend to appear. This self knowledge is not glamorous, but it is invaluable.

Reliability is what allows intuition to be trusted. It becomes steadier and more consistent. It can be tested against experience. It can be returned to. It can be questioned without collapsing.

This is how practice matures.

The Myth of the Natural Witch

There is a persistent idea in modern witchcraft that some people are simply born knowing how to do the work. The natural witch is often described as intuitive, sensitive, gifted, and immediately capable. Experiences come easily. Perception feels effortless. The work feels familiar rather than learned.

Sensitivity does exist. Some people perceive more readily, remember faster, or slip into altered states with little effort. That is real, and it should not be dismissed. But sensitivity is not the same thing as mastery.

Untrained sensitivity tends to magnify everything at once. Emotional states, imagination, memory, desire, and genuine perception arrive together, layered on top of one another. Without structure, it becomes difficult to tell which thread is being pulled at any given moment. The work feels intense, meaningful, and deeply personal, but it often lacks clarity.

Over time, this can lead to exhaustion or confusion rather than growth. Experiences accumulate without integration. Power is felt, but not always understood. Insight appears, but it is not consistently grounded. The practitioner may move from one moment of intensity to the next without developing a stable relationship to the work itself.

Training does not diminish natural sensitivity. It gives it somewhere to settle.

With training, sensitivity becomes directional rather than overwhelming. Perception develops edges. Experiences can be revisited, tested, and understood within a larger context rather than treated as isolated revelations. What once arrived all at once begins to sort itself into patterns.

The idea of the natural witch often carries an unspoken pressure to remain untrained, as though study or discipline would somehow contaminate authenticity. But no other craft expects raw talent to remain untouched in order to stay real. Art, music, and performance all recognize that skill matures through engagement, not avoidance.

Witchcraft is no different.

Sensitivity is an opening. Training is what allows that opening to remain intact over time.

Why This Matters Now

Witchcraft is more visible now than it has been in a very long time. Books, social media, online communities, and aesthetic representations have made the Craft accessible to people who might never have encountered it otherwise. That accessibility has value. It has allowed people to reconnect with practices that were once hidden, suppressed, or quietly transmitted.

Visibility also changes how a practice is approached.

When witchcraft is framed primarily as identity, aesthetic, or emotional expression, the slower work of training can fade into the background. Feeling becomes central. Experience becomes currency. Intensity is mistaken for depth. The pressure to have something happen, to feel something meaningful, can quietly replace the patience required to learn how the work actually functions.

This environment does not encourage discernment. It rewards immediacy.

Without training, practitioners are often left to navigate powerful experiences alone, without context or support. They may interpret everything symbolically, literally, or personally, without having the tools to sort one layer from another. Over time, this can lead to confusion, burnout, or a loss of trust in one’s own perception.

Training offers a counterweight to that pace.

It creates room for slowness, reflection, and repetition. It encourages practitioners to sit with experiences rather than immediately narrating them. It reminds us that not every moment requires interpretation, and not every experience needs to be shared or acted upon.

In a time when certainty is often rewarded and doubt is treated as weakness, training restores the value of questioning. It normalizes not knowing. It allows practitioners to hold complexity without rushing toward conclusion.

This matters because witchcraft is not only personal. It is relational. It shapes how people engage with power, responsibility, and meaning. When those engagements are unexamined, the consequences do not stay contained within the individual.

Training does not make the Craft less accessible. It makes it more sustainable.

Closing

Training in witchcraft is not about authority, hierarchy, or proving legitimacy. It is about relationship. Relationship to perception, to power, to consequence, and to time.

Intuition opens the door. Sensitivity allows entry. What determines whether someone can remain in the work over years rather than moments is how that opening is tended.

Training teaches patience with uncertainty. It teaches how to listen without rushing to interpret, how to hold experience without immediately acting on it, and how to recognize when clarity has arrived and when it has not. It asks for attention rather than certainty, and for responsibility rather than performance.

This kind of practice is quieter than many people expect. It does not always announce itself. It does not promise constant intensity or easy answers. What it offers instead is depth, stability, and the ability to return to the work again and again without losing oneself along the way.

Witchcraft has always required care. Care in how it is practiced, care in how power is held, and care in how meaning is made. Training is one expression of that care.

It is not a rejection of intuition.
It is a commitment to honoring it well.

War Magick: Sovereignty, Shadow, and the Sacred Blade

“Not all witches are healers. Some are shields. Some are swords.”

There is a current rising beneath our feet, a low drumbeat that calls not for peace, but for protection. Not for stillness, but for stance.

War magick is not about wrath or revenge. It is the art of drawing the line. Of standing between what you love and what would destroy it. It is sacred refusal. The spell of no more.

We live in a world where many witches are called to heal.
But some of us….

Some of us are called to hold the line.

What Is War Magick?

War magick is not a tantrum spell. It is not chaos cast from the wound. It is magick rooted in discipline, sovereignty, and sacrifice. It is strategy woven with spirit.

It is not always loud. In truth, the most dangerous war witches are often quiet. They listen. They observe. And when the time comes, they strike with precision.

War magick is:

Shielding your home against spiritual incursion.
Banishing malevolent forces, visible or hidden.
Holding energetic boundaries in moments of crisis.
Breaking patterns of abuse, manipulation, or ancestral trauma.
Defending others who cannot yet defend themselves.

This is not destruction for power’s sake. It is protection as holy labor.

Historical and Mythic Archetypes

Throughout myth and history, we find witches who fought with fire and vision.

The Morrigan, Irish goddess of prophecy and sovereignty, walks the battlefield whispering omens and outcomes. She is the embodiment of war’s truth.
Nemain, often associated with The Morrigan, is the spirit-woman or Goddess of Havoc whose battle cry is so terrifying it can kill a hundred men.
Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of Egypt, is a war-bringer and healer in one. Her rage is both wrathful and medicinal. She teaches us: sometimes the fever must burn before the cure can take hold.
Joan of Arc, guided by visions, led armies not as a soldier but as a vessel of divine will—her power lay in unwavering conviction and sacred command.

And in our modern magical history:

During World War II, with Britain on the brink of Nazi invasion, occultists, including those aligned with Dion Fortune’s Fraternity of the Inner Light, gathered at sacred sites such as the New Forest and possibly the cliffs of Dover. One technique involved a ritual known as the Wyvern Circle, through which a massive Cone of Power was raised to shield the British Isles from harm.

Their work was not done with bombs or blades, but with focused psychic force, ancestral calling, and spiritual alliance.

This was War Magick, ritual action taken on behalf of a land under siege.

The Witch’s Shield and Blade

Every war witch must know the tools of their craft: the shield, and the blade.

The Shield

The shield protects. It contains. It holds the line when everything else is falling apart.

Types of Shield Work:

Warding: Sigils, salt lines, iron filings, blessed threads.
Cloaking: Making yourself or your home “invisible” to spiritual predators.
Ancestral Shields: Calling on bloodline, guardians, or coven spirits to defend a space.
Circle of Sovereignty: A personalized ritual to define what is allowed in your sphere.

In a world of energy vampires, psychic parasites, abusive dynamics, and haunting echoes, a strong shield is not optional. It is your first act of war.

The Blade

The blade is not always literal, but it is always final.

Types of Blade Work:

Banishing: Smoke, chant, bell, and will to drive out harmful forces.
Cutting Cords: Severing energy ties that bind you to the toxic or dead.
Breaking Patterns: Spells to unbind ancestral trauma, addiction, or domination.
Naming and Unmasking: Calling out truth to dissolve illusions and manipulation.

The blade is not vengeance. The blade is clarity.

Battle Mages and Magical Warriors

Some witches serve at the threshold, not as seers or healers, but as guardians, tacticians, and energetic combatants. In modern fantasy, they might be called battle mages, but this archetype is far older than the term. It echoes in the witch at the edge of the circle, knife in hand. It stirs in the priest who knows when to invoke wrath. It lives in those who do not fear confrontation, but rather train for it.

The battle mage is not wild magic personified.
They are discipline. Focus. Movement under pressure. They are the spellcaster in armor, the one who holds the line when others falter. Where chaos threatens sacred working, they respond with clarity and command.

They are the witches who:

Guard the circle when the veil thins or when the working turns volatile.
Intervene when an entity pushes too far or an energy becomes unstable.
Sense the shift in vibration before others do, and know how to anchor or sever.
Use voice, will, and motion to redirect or collapse energy structures mid-ritual.
Mediate the sacred space between magickal will and embodied danger.

The battle mage works with more than tools and techniques; they move in harmony with cosmic tides. Saturn, the great protector, lends its weight to shields, boundaries, and banishings. Its energy is the fortified wall, the circle drawn in ash, the no that does not bend. Mars, by contrast, fuels the blade, the righteous strike, the spell of severing, the clarity of direct action. When tempered by wisdom, Mars becomes the sacred flame in the warrior’s heart. Together, Saturn and Mars shape the rhythm of magical warfare: hold, then strike. Watch, then move. Protect, then cleanse.

In covens or magical communities, battle mages are often misidentified: seen as “too intense,” “too direct,” or “too forceful.” In truth, they are protectors, kin to temple guards, ritual sentinels, and martial priesthoods of old.

They are the Blackthorn in the hedge, the edge that cuts, not because it is cruel, but because it must not yield.

Some traditions may formalize this path. In Wild Blackthorn, this current aligns with what we may someday name the Thane Path, the spiritual warrior who stands for the circle physically and magically alike. But even without title, this role exists. The land remembers them. The old gods recognize them.

And when battle comes, spiritual, energetic, psychic, or political, they are the first to rise.

Spellcraft, Tools, and Allies of the War Witch

Tools

Iron – Binds and banishes. Use in nails, keys, or chains.
Knife or Athame – Not just for circle casting, but for energy cutting.
Smoke – Cleansing herbs like mugwort, rosemary, sulfur-rich plants.
Black thread – For binding harmful actions or baneful intent.
Ash – From sacred fire, carried as a reminder of past battles.

Spirits and Allies

The Ancestors Who Fought – Soldiers, rebels, guardians. Call them.
The Crone – Not just wise, but wrathful. She does not suffer fools.
Land Spirits – Especially in threatened or poisoned places.
Wards, Guardians, and Egregores – Create or feed protectors for your space.

Example Working: The Circle of No

Purpose: Create a protective boundary spell to say “No” to spiritual intrusion or emotional manipulation.

Draw a circle with iron filings or crushed eggshell.
Place black candles at cardinal points.
Call your ancestors or guides to stand watch.
Speak aloud: I do not welcome harm into this house.
I do not host fear in this heart.
I name this space sovereign.
And what is not aligned leaves now.
Burn a pinch of sulfur-rich herb or protective resin to seal it.

When the War Is Not a Metaphor

There are times when witches speak of battle as myth, when we cloak our words in symbol and let the blade remain unseen. But this is not one of those times.

The world burns in truth.

It burns in airstrikes, displacement, and genocide.
In book bans and gerrymandering.
In surveillance wrapped in patriotism and hatred cloaked in law.
In bodies stripped of rights. In spirits driven into silence.

And so war magick becomes more than philosophy.
It becomes necessity.
It becomes resistance.
It becomes the unseen rite behind every act of courage, clarity, and sacred defiance.

It is not cast for vanity, nor for spectacle.
It is cast for those who cannot speak.
It is cast for the land that groans beneath poisoned waters.
It is cast for the dead who still echo, unnamed and unburied.

To work war magick in times like these is not to curse wildly.
Real war magick is precise. Strategic. Rooted.

You can raise a cone of power not only to heal, but to hold.
You can enchant a sigil not only to bless, but to banish.
You can anoint not only for peace, but for protection, fierce and final.

There is a reason witches were feared by empire.
We remember.
We name the dead.
We walk the old roads and call upon the powers that do not answer to kings.

And when the gates fall open, when the innocent are hunted and truth is drowned in noise, we do not run.

We shield.
We strike.
We speak names that echo beyond the veil.
We become the weapon and the ward, the line that does not break.

We Stand

Witches have always been dangerous to empire, not because we wield swords, but because we remember what empire tries to erase.
Because we speak with the voices they tried to silence.
Because we hold power that answers to no earthly throne.

War magick is the whispered prayer beneath the siren’s wail.
It is the spell sewn into the lining of your coat as you walk into the courthouse, the school board meeting, the protest line.
It is the breath you hold while lighting a candle for someone you’ve never met, but who you know must be protected.

We are not always called to heal.
Some of us are called to guard.
Some of us are called to fight.
Some of us were born to remember the old rites, and wield them like a blade when the world begins to forget.

If you are one of those, this is your summons.

Not every battle is visible.
Not every warrior wears armor.

But in the shadowed places of this world, the war witches rise.

They are watching.
Waiting.
Warding.

And when the time comes,
they stand.

The Witch’s Hero Journey: A Mythic Map for the Spiral Path

Prologue: A Witch’s Call to Adventure

“To be a witch is to walk your own myth into being.”

As a child of about five, I recall sitting in the sunlight one morning on the floor of my bedroom; dolls and playhouse assembled before me, stalwart companions. I turned my face into the sun, feeling the warmth upon my skin. “I cannot be five years old,” I thought. “I have been here too long. I am far older than this.”

Science tells us a child this age should not possess such abstract awareness. But the memory is clear, and so, the journey began.

Spirituality concerns itself with the Soul’s relationship to the Universal “Is.” I call it The Dragon. Not because it is a literal dragon, but because it is vast, powerful, and ancient, a hoarder of knowledge, both terrifying and beautiful, creating and destroying in a breath. My Spirit awakened that day. Not my soul, which had long been at work, but the tether to my oversoul, the self beyond the self, lit with awareness.

To awaken is not merely to believe, but to know. To touch something timeless. Some of us say yes at five years old. Others wrestle for decades. But the Call is the same:

“The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.”
~ Joseph Campbell

This is what begins the Hero’s Journey. And for witches, for mystics, for the awakened, it is not metaphor. It is lived.

The Witch’s Journey: Myth, Mystery, and the Spiral Path of Becoming

Before we descend into the stages of the journey, we must name the one who gave this map its form.

The concept of the Hero’s Journey was brought to light by Joseph Campbell, a scholar of comparative mythology and religion. In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell studied myths from across cultures and found a universal pattern, a path walked by heroes, mystics, and seekers alike. He called this pattern the monomyth, or the Hero’s Journey.

In this arc, a figure receives a call, crosses into the unknown, is tested and transformed, and returns bearing a gift or wisdom for the world. Whether it’s Gilgamesh or Luke Skywalker, Inanna or Iron Man, the bones of the story are the same.

But for witches, for those whose lives are shaped by both myth and magic, this journey is more than story. It is a rite of passage. A spiral we return to over and over as we become, unbecome, and become again.

Campbell showed us the structure. We walk it in soul and fire.

One of Campbell’s greatest modern collaborators was filmmaker George Lucas, who built the original Star Wars saga as a living expression of the Hero’s Journey. Luke Skywalker’s path, from orphaned farm boy to reluctant hero to spiritually awakened Jedi, follows the arc almost step by step. It is myth made modern, story made soul.

“What Campbell gave me was a template to follow. A lot of the script [of Star Wars] was built on those principles.”
~ George Lucas

Luke hears the Call when R2-D2 shows him the message from Leia. He Refuses, tries to return to safety, but fate will not have it. Obi-Wan becomes his Mentor. The Threshold is crossed when they leave Tatooine. He faces Tests, Allies, and Enemies as the Rebel struggle intensifies. The Cave? His vision on Dagobah. The Ordeal? Confronting Vader. The Reward? Not power, but truth. His Road Back is sacrifice. His Resurrection is faith. And his Elixir is peace, offered not through battle, but through choosing love over vengeance.

Luke’s story lives in us because we know it already. Witches, too, feel the Force moving within and around them. The symbols differ, but the journey is the same. The Call is real. The descent is real. And the return, bearing the Grail, is the sacred task we are born to fulfill.

But not all journeys are paved in certainty…

The Leap of Faith: Infinite Resignation and the Grail

The Hero’s Journey is not merely a structure of story, but a crucible of transformation. It demands more than courage; it demands faith.

Where Campbell gave us the map, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard speaks to the soul of the traveler. He offers us two mirrors: the Knight of Infinite Resignation and the Knight of Faith.

The Knight of Infinite Resignation is noble in her sorrow. She gives up the thing she loves most, a dream, a person, a calling, because the world seems to demand it. She grieves, but endures. She walks on, eyes cast downward.

But the Knight of Faith is different. She makes the same sacrifice, stands at the same threshold… and then leaps. Not with certainty, but with trust. Not with proof, but with fire. She believes, without reason, that she will receive the impossible, not through force, but through grace.

This is Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade, where the Grail lies just beyond the lion’s head. He steps into empty air, heart pounding, and finds the bridge beneath his foot.
This is Abraham on the mountain, lifting the knife, not knowing what hand will stay his own.
This is the Witch, hands raised in the dark, calling to a God they have never seen, trusting the Circle to open, and the power to answer.

The Knight of Faith does not walk alone. They walk with Spirit.

And perhaps this is the truest spell:
To leap without knowing,
To offer your will,
And to believe in return.

The Hero’s Journey in Witchcraft

This is a mythic map for the modern witch. It may look linear, but it is lived in spirals.

You will walk it more than once.

With Poetic Commentary from the Wild Blackthorn Tradition
A Mythic Map for the Seeker of the Spiral Path

The Ordinary World
Before the awakening. Life is measured in routines, expectations, and small certainties. The Witch-to-be may feel like a stranger to herself, haunted by unnamed longings or fleeting visions. The soul hums in its sleep. The Circle is still far away—but the breath of it brushes your skin.
The Call to Adventure

“The Call to Adventure signifies that Destiny has summoned a Hero.”
~Joseph Campbell

Something stirs, soft or sudden. A moment of knowing. A presence in the woods. A stranger’s words that hit too close. The veil lifts just enough to reveal a door. And whether in dream or day, the Goddess knocks. You do not yet understand, but the path has found you.

Refusal of the Call
You doubt. You fear ridicule, failure, madness. You try to forget the signs, ignore the dreams, explain away the feeling. But it lingers. A witch may turn from the fire, but the flame still glows beneath the skin. The Circle waits, not forever, but long enough.
Meeting the Mentor
She may wear a cloak, or she may wear your face in a mirror. He may be a book that changes everything, or a voice that arrives in a trance. The Mentor reveals possibility, opens a door, but never walks through it for you. Their wisdom may guide you, but your feet must still move.
Crossing the Threshold
A circle is cast. A vow is spoken. A candle burns that cannot be unlit. This is the step that transforms desire into devotion. The world feels charged, alive, altered. You are no longer on the edge, you are within the Work now. You are becoming.
Tests, Allies, Enemies
The path reveals mirrors. Some reflect your strength. Others’ wounds. Some lessons soothe and others scorch. You are no longer the dreamer; you are becoming the doer. Magic is tested in tension, and so are you. This is where the bones of your practice are formed.
Approach to the Inmost Cave
You feel it coming. The storm beneath the stillness. Old fears rise like ghosts. Something in you must die for something greater to be born. You begin to prepare. Not just in spell or rite, but in heart. The deeper gate nears, and the Guardian watches.
The Ordeal
This is the long night. The silence of the Gods. The breaking point. You may fall. You may curse the Circle that once called you. But here, in the darkness, choice becomes sacred. Will you stand, even if no one sees? Will you walk, even with no light? Here, you choose the Grail or the grave.
Reward (Seizing the Sword)
You emerge not triumphant, but real. You carry a truth that is yours alone. Perhaps it is strength. Perhaps it is sorrow. Perhaps it is the ability to speak a word that heals or to hold silence when it matters. This is your Grail. This is your sword. Not forged in fire, but in faith.
The Road Back
The veil is behind you, but its weight remains. You walk again among the ordinary, but you are not the same. You carry responsibility now and awareness. You prepare to serve, to teach, to stand as a fire for others. You are no longer just seeking. You are bearing witness.
Resurrection / Transformation
Something tries to take you back. The old self claws at your new skin. But you do not break, you refine. You rise as something whole. Magic is now marrow-deep. You do not speak it. You are it. You are not who you were. You are who you are becoming.
Return with the Elixir
You carry the flame forward. Not for acclaim, but to light the way. You speak when others cannot. You hold the Circle when others forget its shape. You do not walk ahead, you walk beside. This is not the end of the journey. This is where your myth becomes medicine.

Reflection: Your Own Hero’s Path

Before you close this page, take a breath. Let your own story rise in your memory.

When did you first hear your Call to Adventure?
Was it a whisper in the woods, a book that shattered your worldview, or a moment in sunlight that cracked you open?

What was your Dagobah? Who or what was your Vader? And what Elixir did you carry home?

The map is shared, but the story is yours.

To refelct

Where are you on this spiral?
What was your first Call to Adventure?
Who or what has mentored you?
What shadow have you faced, or are still facing?
Write a letter to your future self as the Grail Knight.
Perform a ritual reenactment of Crossing the Threshold.
Create a symbolic map of your own mythic journey so far.

How to Work This Into Your Practice

This journey is not only meant to be read. It is meant to be lived. Here are ways you can bring this mythic path into your spiritual and magical practice:

Use each stage as a moon cycle theme – Reflect, journal, and create spells aligned to that stage’s energy.
Track your personal journey – Return to these stages during moments of upheaval, growth, or reawakening. Name where you are. Let it guide your next step.
Craft rituals for key thresholds – Crossing the Threshold, Facing the Ordeal, Seizing the Sword. Honor these turning points with fire, water, ash, and vow.
Create a personal grimoire spread or visual spiral – Let each stage become a page of art, spell, or poetry. Tell your myth with symbols and soul.
Offer the Elixir – Share what you’ve learned. Speak, teach, heal, write. You carry more than your own fire; you carry the spark of those who will follow.

This is a path of becoming, unbecoming, and becoming again. Let each step sanctify your spiral.

Closing Reflection

To be a witch is to walk the path of myth, not in fantasy, but in fire.
To walk the Hero’s Journey again and again, each time deeper.
To spiral inward until you emerge carrying light for others.

We are the story and the spell.
We are the seeker, the shield, the flame.

We return, not to the beginning, but to the beginning transformed.

So mote it be.

Invocation of the Spiral Path

O Flame that called me from the dust,
O Voice that sang me through the veil,
I have walked the gate of shadow,
I have borne the Grail.

I am not who I was.
I am who I am becoming.
By trial and fire, by vow and breath,
I walk the spiral, beyond death.

For those who seek, I leave a flame.
For those who follow, I speak your name.
You are the myth. You are the blade.
You are the Elixir, memory made.

So may the path rise to meet you.
So may the dark reveal the stars.
And may you always return,
Transformed, and transforming.

Pop Culture Magick: Modern Myths and the Living Current

Pop culture magick isn’t about pretending you’re a Hogwarts student or cosplaying your way to power.

It’s about recognizing myth where it lives now, in the collective imagination, in symbols millions of minds are feeding every day, and in stories that carry emotional and archetypal weight, whether they’re ancient or streaming on Netflix.

What Is Pop Culture Magick?

Pop culture magick is the use of modern symbols, stories, characters, and worlds in magical practice.

At its best, it’s mythic hacking.
It’s working with what the collective subconscious is already charging.
It’s speaking in a language your inner child, your shadow, and your godself can all understand.

Why It Works (When It Does)

Pop culture magick works not because the fictional is real, but because:

Emotion charges energy. Stories that move you are already lit with power.
Belief creates patterns. Millions of people thinking about a character or concept creates a current.
Symbolism is alive. The archetypes in pop culture often mirror the oldest gods, dressed in modern skins.

Examples in Practice

Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) as a vessel for chaos, grief, feminine power, and reality-bending, paralleling Inanna, Apophis, and the Witch of the Wyrd.
Darth Vader as a shadow archetype, used in banishing work or inner confrontation rituals.
The TARDIS from Doctor Who as a portable astral temple or psychopomp symbol.
Pokémon for servitor design and energy-anchoring via familiar motifs.
Anime characters as thoughtform-based allies in confidence, courage, or transformation spells.

Cautions & Considerations

Don’t confuse symbol with reality. Pop culture magick is symbolic animism, not a religion unto itself (unless you intentionally build it that way).
Avoid cultural theft. Working with Black Panther as an ancestral guide is not the same as reverently connecting to African traditional religions.
Mind the licensing gods. If you’re invoking Mickey Mouse, understand Disney is a thoughtform of control. Use with caution, or jester energy.

Pop Culture and the Witch Today

A modern witch is a myth-maker.
Pop culture is one of the deepest wells of myth available to us now.

To reject it entirely is to miss the heartbeat of this generation’s sacred stories.
To embrace it without discernment is to risk shallow roots.

But to work with it skillfully?
That’s evolution. That’s enchantment in motion.
That’s magick that walks through the world wearing today’s face.

Case Study: The Charm of Making – Voice as Spellcraft

In the 1981 film Excalibur, the Charm of Making is uttered in Old Irish, a phrase woven with mystery, cadence, and power:

“Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha.”
(Serpent’s breath, charm of death and life, thy omen of making.)

For many, it’s just a dramatic line.
But in the hands of a witch, it becomes living resonance.

Experimental Use: The Dragon Current

In our tradition, we already work with the dragon as the symbol of the Universal Is, the raw, primal power that underlies creation. The breath of the dragon is not just a metaphor. It is the current of making and unmaking.

The Charm of Making, when spoken with correct tone, vibration, and intent, taps directly into that current.

With training, you can get it to sing through your body.
The spine becomes a flute.
The lungs become bellows.
The dragon wakes.

Why It Works

Archetypal Alignment: The Charm mirrors core themes, creation, destruction, breath, serpent, life-death-life.
Phonetic Magick: The phrase carries a sonic architecture that vibrates the body like mantra or galdr.
Emotional Imprint: For those moved by the film, the phrase already holds emotional and mythic charge.
Symbolic Echo: Linking the spoken charm to your dragon work creates resonance across time, self, and story.

Try This:

Speak the charm aloud in ritual tone.
Breathe into each word from belly to crown.
Visualize your spine as the dragon’s body, coiling and rising.
Let it activate, not just as a quote, but as a trigger phrase for your power.

Your Turn

What characters live in your bones?
What stories set your will ablaze?
What myths do you live by, whether ancient, comic, or cinematic?

The Witch Is a Choice: Myth, Memory, and the Making of the Craft

We live in a world that has forgotten how sacred choice is.

To be a witch is not simply to be born with “gifts,” or to feel a pull toward the stars, the bones, the wind. Those things may call you, but calling alone is not enough. Witchcraft is a path walked with intention. It is an act of remembrance. A rebellion. A devotion. And most of all, it is a choice.

The word witch carries centuries of shadow and fire. It has been used to condemn, to silence, to burn. But it has also been used, by those who survived, to reclaim power, to heal, to protect, and to create. The word has teeth and tenderness both. It is not aesthetic. It is not trend. It is an oath.

The Human Birthright

There is a deep truth we must say plainly: the abilities often attributed to witches, intuition, energy sensitivity, spiritual communication, healing touch, dreamwork, spellcraft, the shaping of reality, are not limited to a special few. These are human abilities.

Some of us may awaken to them more quickly. Some may be born into families that nurture them, honor them, or protect them through lineage. But no one is excluded from the birthright. Witchcraft is not elitist. It is not gatekept by bloodline alone.

Every human being has the capacity to sense, to shift, to speak with the unseen. But not every human chooses to walk that path. That is what sets the witch apart.

Remembered in the Blood – The Science of Our Magic

Science is beginning to explore what witches have always known: we carry more than DNA in our cells. We carry memory, emotional echoes, behavioral patterns, survival responses passed down through generations. This is epigenetics: the way trauma, instinct, and sensitivity to the world can be inherited.

So when you feel something stir within you at the sound of a chant, or find yourself dreaming in symbols you’ve never studied, you are not imagining it. You are remembering.

You are tapping into the reservoir of all those who came before you, the mothers who whispered over herbs, grandfathers who watched the stars, ancestors who reached toward mystery in their own language and time.

You are not more powerful than anyone else. But you are awake. You are listening. You are choosing to answer the call and take the next step with reverence.

The Path to Power – No Shortcuts, Only Steps

Power is not granted by aesthetic.

It is not found in a TikTok spell or bestowed by bloodline.

Power is a path. And like all true paths, it must be walked.

There are no shortcuts. The Craft demands evolution. The path unfolds like this:

Knowledge – gathering lore, tools, teachings, systems.
Experience – testing that knowledge in the world.
Understanding / Actualization / Integration – when the lessons become instinct, internalized within you.
Wisdom – knowing not only how to work, but when and most importantly why.
Power – the quiet, earned hum of alignment between will, purpose, and reality.

You must walk the path. There’s no other way. But each step deepens your roots, sharpens your senses, and strengthens your flame.

Initiation – The Threshold No One Crosses Unchanged

Witchcraft is a path of initiation, but it’s not always in the way people expect.

Yes, there are formal initiations. Ceremonies. Oaths. Lineage rites that pass power and wisdom from teacher to student. And these are real. They are sacred. They matter.

But the Craft also initiates in other ways. Through grief. Through fear. Through the long dark night of the soul. Through the moment when your old life breaks and something new demands to be born.

Initiation means crossing a threshold and knowing that you can’t go back.

The witch is not just someone who studies magic. The witch is someone who has been changed by it.

Alone and Together – The Witch in Solitude and Circle

Many witches begin alone. And there is beauty in that. Solitary practice teaches self-trust and deep listening.

But the Craft is not only solitary. It is also relational.

Historically, magic was communal, shared in kitchens, fields, hearths. Even today, something powerful happens when we gather: we witness each other. We challenge each other. We raise power together.

You don’t need a coven to be a witch. But you do need connection. Every flame needs a hearth. Even the solitary witch benefits from shared fire now and then.

More Than the West – Honoring the World’s Magic

This piece speaks from the perspective of Western witchcraft. But the magical traditions of humanity are vast, diverse, and sacred.

From African Diaspora lineages to Asian animism, from First Nations medicine to Oceanic spirit paths, there are many ways to know the unseen, to work with energy, to honor ancestors and spirits.

Witchcraft is one thread in a much larger tapestry.

We honor what we know, but we also honor what we do not practice. Respect means listening. Learning. And never pretending that all magic looks like ours.

The Witch in the World – Responsibility and Reckoning

The witch does not practice only for herself. She stands at the edge of the world. She sees what others ignore. She heals what others won’t touch.

Witchcraft is not a retreat from reality. It is a response to it.

We are called not just to manifest for ourselves, but to protect the sacred. To resist injustice. To carry forward the flame of remembrance, responsibility, and radical hope.

To be a witch is to hold power, and power must be tempered by purpose.

The Witch Is Not Her Hashtag – She Is the Diamond

In today’s world, you’ll hear: Green Witch. Cosmic Witch. Love Witch. Shadow Witch. And while these names may help express interest, they are not identities. They are facets, not separate stones.

There is only one Craft. One diamond, many glints.

Just as all gods may be facets of one divine diamond, so too are the many expressions of the witch simply different faces of a singular, sacred calling.

You are not just your favorite spell or element. You are the whole gem.

Witch, Sorcerer, Magician – Names with Purpose

Not all magical practitioners are witches. Some are ceremonial magicians. Some are sorcerers. Some are cunning folk, brujas, spirit workers, shaman or mystics.

These are not aesthetic differences, they’re structural. They point to different philosophies, systems, and goals.

Choose your name wisely. Let it reflect what you do and how you walk the path, not just what sounds cool.

The Roots and Rivers – What Shapes the Modern Craft

Modern witchcraft, especially in the West, is shaped by both folk magic and ceremonial systems.

The rituals many of us use, calling the quarters, using elemental tools, invoking planetary forces, were deeply influenced by Western occultism: the Golden Dawn, Thelema, Kabbalah, alchemy, Hermetic thought.

That doesn’t make them impure. It makes them known. And when we know where our tools come from, we can use them more powerfully.

You Cannot Read the Past with Modern Eyes

We often romanticize the ancient world. But we can’t lift ancient practices into modern life without understanding context.

Just as many modern Christians misread the Bible by applying today’s morals and assumptions to ancient Jewish texts, so too do witches sometimes claim antiquity without understanding it.

The truth is: we are revivalists. And that’s not a weakness, it’s a calling.

Taking Off the Rose-Colored Veil

We have wrapped witchcraft in myth, and that’s fine, if we know it’s myth.

But too often, we pretend.

We pretend we’re the unbroken line of ancient priestesses. That we know exactly what was done in Neolithic caves. That our symbols are untouched by history.

It’s time to stop pretending.

We are writing the myths now. Let’s write them with integrity. Let’s build something our descendants won’t have to rewrite.

Mystery Is Not Make-Believe

Witchcraft is a mystery tradition. But that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all.

Mystery requires training. A path. A framework. You don’t need a lineage to begin, but you need foundation, study, and respect.

Saying “I’m a witch because I feel magical” is like saying “I’m Catholic because I like Mary,” while knowing nothing of the Saints, Sacraments, or Stations.

Intuition is the start. Not the end.

The Craft deserves depth. And so do you.

What the Tools Really Do

Our tools are symbolic keys. They speak to the subconscious. They unlock ritual states. They help us focus, anchor, awaken.

The candle isn’t magic. You are.

The herb isn’t power. It’s a mirror.

The ritual isn’t theater. It’s alignment.

Tools are the outer shape of inner work. They awaken the part of you that remembers how to cast, how to call, how to become.

Ritual Is the Architecture of Change

Ritual is how we shift our state. It’s the scaffolding for the sacred.

Whether basic or advanced, every ritual has the same goal: to move us from mundane to magical. To align body, will, emotion, and spirit. To create coherence. And from that, to cast change into the world.

Embodied Craft – The Body Remembers What the Mind Forgets

Magic lives in the body. In breath, posture, movement, sensation.

Gesture is spell. Voice is vibration. Touch is energy.

Your body is not separate from your power; it is your power. It holds memories older than thought. It knows how to move energy. It knows how to anchor spirit.

To be a witch is to be fully in your body, not apart from it.

Sidebar: Common Myths About Witchcraft

Witches worship the devil.Most don’t. The devil is a Christian concept.
Witchcraft is anti-Christian.Not inherently. Some witches blend paths.
You have to be psychic or special.You have to practice. That’s it.
It’s all love and light.No. The path includes shadow, death, grief, truth.
You can manifest anything instantly.Magic is real—but it’s also work.

What Witchcraft Is

Witchcraft is not just a set of tools or spells. It’s a way of being in the world.

It’s conscious. Intentional. Ethical. Responsive.

It’s rooted in mystery, in training, in self-awareness.

It’s not escapism. It’s engagement.

It’s not ancient, but it is real.

It is yours to choose. And yours to carry forward.

Closing Invocation: The Witch’s Choice

I was not born in the mists of Avalon,

Nor raised in a hidden grove untouched by time.

I was born here,

In this fractured world, with its wires and noise and memory.

But something ancient stirred in me.

A voice. A dream. A name.

I remembered the path.

And then, I chose it.

I am not the heir of a perfect line.

I am the stitcher of remnants,

The singer of new songs in old tongues.

I am the witch, not by fate,

But by choice.

I know the myths I build,

And I build them with intention.

I name myself,

Not as one above,

But as one becoming.

I am the flame of many fires.

The facet of many truths.

The echo of ancestors, and the voice of what comes next.

I am witch.

And I am awake

“Constellations of Power”: The Witch Who Looked Up

Turning Toward the Stars After the Descent

“There comes a moment, after the threshold is crossed, when the only thing left to do is lift your head and look toward the stars.”

I have walked the edge with you. We have spoken of power, of the blade, of what it costs to be true. We have touched the Gate that speaks our names. And now… I find myself standing still beneath the sky, the silence wide, the breath of the world holding its pause.

Because the truth is this: the witch does not live only in the root and the shadow. We are not only made of bone and ash and blood.
We are made of starlight too.

For all our grounding, all our descent, there comes a moment in every path, especially after reckoning, when we must look up.
Not to escape.
But to remember.

The ancients looked to the stars to know when to plant and when to reap.
When to mourn and when to crown.
When to speak, and when to keep silent.
The stars were never distant; they were mirrors, messages, and maps.

And not just in myth.
In Egypt, temples were aligned to the heliacal rising of Sirius, the star associated with Isis, and the annual flood that replenished the land.
In Mesopotamia, priest-astronomers read the heavens for gods and kings alike, inscribing fate into tablets of clay.
And during the medieval period, across Europe, the Jewish diaspora, and the Islamic world, magicians and mystics cast their eyes skyward to guide their workings.
They used the stars not only to mark time but to open gates, call angels, conjure spirits, and calculate when fate might bend.
The grimoires and charts they left behind still whisper of planetary hours, zodiacal talismans, and the names of spirits written in the stars.

And older still, before writing, before empire, stone was carved and lifted to meet the sky: pyramids, circles, henges.
Even now, they stand like frozen prayers, aligned to the sun and the moon, to stars that still rise and fall in the old ways.

This is not new work.
It is ancient remembering.
And the Witch, too, must remember, not just how to root into the land, but how to lift the eyes to the stars.

What I am seeking now is rhythm.
The great wheel above the wheel.
A map made not of rules, but of relationships.
Not of commands, but of cosmic memory.

In the weeks to come, I’ll begin tracing those lines. Not as an astrologer, not in the language of ephemerides and aspects. But as a witch.
As one who walks with myth and mirror.
As one who asks: What stories do the stars still hold? And how do we remember them in the body, the breath, the spell?

You are invited to walk that path with me.

We’ve stood at the edge. Now we rise like flame and look toward the constellations.
The next spell begins above us.

Sidebar: Stargazers of the Sacred Arts

“Long before telescopes, there were watchers. Not scientists, but sorcerers, scribes, and seekers.”

Throughout history, the stars were not just measured, they were invoked.

In Egypt, temples were aligned to the heliacal rising of Sirius, sacred to Isis and the Nile’s fertility.

In Babylon, priest-astronomers recorded planetary movements as divine messages, every eclipse, omen; every conjunction, a sign from the gods.

During the medieval period, magicians across Europe, the Jewish diaspora, and the Islamic world wove celestial wisdom into spellcraft:

Jewish Kabbalists calculated planetary hours and invoked angelic intelligences.
Islamic mystics and scientists mapped the heavens with astonishing precision, preserving Hellenistic and Persian traditions.
European occultists like Picatrix and Agrippa built systems of planetary magic rooted in astrological timing, angelology, and spirit correspondences.

Their altars were aligned, their talismans engraved, their rites timed to the arc of the stars.

This was not superstition; it was cosmic engineering.
And it lives on in the Craft.

Walking the Edge- Part III: A Witch’s Journey Through Power, Preparing the Vessel

Know Thyself

Before you can wield real power, you must become a vessel capable of holding it.

That sounds poetic, but it’s also literal. Power rushes through the body like fire, like song, like voltage. It cannot be held in a cracked and leaking cup. It requires inner scaffolding, ethics, discipline, clarity, and alignment, so it doesn’t simply burn through you and leave you empty.

And most of all, it requires this:
To hold power, you must know yourself.

Not the fantasy-self, not the spiritual persona, not the carefully curated mirror you show to the world. You must look unflinching into the truest mirror, the one that shows your capability and your shadow. Because power will not lie to you. And even if power did not, the spirits, gods, and adversaries you may face absolutely will not. They will press every weakness, amplify every doubt, and offer tempting shapes to your most hidden desires.

Knowing yourself is not a luxury. It is armor.

Ethical Grounding

You cannot walk the edge if you don’t know where the cliff is.

Ethical grounding is more than knowing right from wrong. It’s learning how to hold power without exploiting others, how to be feared without being cruel, how to lead without controlling. It’s also about boundaries: yours and theirs.

Witchcraft does not hand you a rulebook. It demands something far more difficult: discernment.

Ethics requires that we build our own moral compass. Unlike, many religions, which foist theirs onto their laity, assuming them incapable of doing so. Witchcraft requires your full participation. You must know yourself, examine your motives, and choose the values you will live by, even when no one is watching.

Only you can hold your mirror. Only you can choose your line in the sand.

I have watched many a witch do this work, and I can say honestly: they are some of the most moral people I have ever encountered in my life. Not because they were told what to believe, but because they chose, again and again, to align power with integrity.

In the Wild Blackthorn Tradition, power is a flame cupped between two hands: one is Will, the other is Ethics. Lose either, and the fire goes out, or turns wild and devours.

Psychic Hygiene

Witches are sensitive. That’s part of the gift. But sensitivity without sovereignty makes you a sponge, not a channel.

Psychic hygiene is the daily practice of clearing, shielding, and reclaiming your energy. Just as you wash your body and tend your home, you must cleanse your spirit. Not occasionally. Not only when things feel “off.” But as a habit. As devotion.

A simple daily practice:

Breathe deeply.
Call your energy home.
Visualize a cleansing light or elemental force (fire, wind, water) moving through you.
Expel what does not belong. Thank it, then release.
Seal yourself with light, symbols, breath, or intention.

Neglect this and you invite intrusion. Practice it, and your light becomes sharp—less buffet, more blade.

Even in the most formal ceremonial traditions, daily spiritual hygiene is non-negotiable. In systems like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, new initiates (Neophytes) are encouraged to perform the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) every day for a full year. This ritual clears unwanted influences, centers the self, invokes elemental guardians, and aligns the practitioner vibrationally with their highest purpose. It also builds confidence, discipline, and internalization.

It’s not the ritual itself that creates mastery; it’s the daily doing of it.

Whatever your path, the principle remains: cleanse, center, protect. Again and again. Power respects those who tend their temple.

Neglect this and you invite intrusion. Practice it, and your light becomes sharp, less buffet, more blade.

Shadow Integration

The edge will cut you if you’re afraid of your own darkness.

Every witch has a shadow. Power will expose it. That’s not failure,it’s an invitation.

Do you long to be adored? Feared? Vindicated? Do you still seek permission? Revenge? Are there wounds beneath your rituals?

Shadow work isn’t about banishing these parts of you. It’s about acknowledgment, integration, and transformation. You must be able to name your hungers before they name you. You must be able to say:
I know what I am capable of, both the holy and the terrifying.

This is the first armor. This is the mirror you must not break.

Embracing your shadow is not only an act of healing but also of creating wholeness. In this wholeness, we are no longer divided. Our power courses freely without obstacle, unblocked by shame or self-denial. This integration can make us more powerful than we ever dared to dream.

As the saying goes: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Strengthening the Will

The Will is the blade of the Witch.

Discipline sharpens it. Desire drives it. Belief tempers it. But it is forged in fire, by choosing, again and again, to act from the deepest truth of who you are.

Ritual strengthens Will. Repetition carves paths in the mind. Every time you say the words, light the candle, cast the circle, you are reminding the world (and yourself): I choose. I shape. I remember.

You don’t need to feel ready. You need to begin.

The Guardian at the Threshold

There comes a point in every path of power when you meet the one who bars the gate.

Sometimes they appear in dreams. Sometimes as illness, fear, loss, or a sudden pull to abandon the Work entirely. They are not your enemy.

They are you. The part of you that remembers every failure, every trauma, every vow you made to stay small or safe or silent. They wear your face. They know your secrets.

But if you face them, not with violence, but with presence, they become the ally you didn’t know you needed. They test you because power will test you. If you cannot meet your own shadow and stand your ground, what will you do when a real force opposes you?

Next time, I will offer a guided meditation to meet the Guardian at the Threshold.

But for now…
Cleanse your altar.
Name your values.
Look into the mirror.
Feel your breath return to your body.
Strengthen the vessel.
And prepare to knock at the door.

Footnote:
The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) is a foundational ceremonial magic rite used to clear space, establish energetic boundaries, and invoke the archangels of the four quarters. Originating in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it is widely practiced in Western esotericism and often recommended as a daily practice for beginners to build clarity, presence, and alignment.
A simplified instructional version can be found in:

Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig
The Middle Pillar by Israel Regardie
Or online: [Search “LBRP ritual text” or “LBRP walkthrough” for trusted resources]

Walking the Edge – Part II: The Fire Beneath the Thorn

A Witch’s Journey Through Power Series

There comes a moment in every witch’s path where the wind changes.

You are no longer simply learning. The spells you cast begin to ripple outward. Your words take on weight. People turn to you for insight, for healing, for justice. And the power you once touched with trembling hands begins to move through you with ease, sometimes unbidden.

This is not mastery.
This is the dangerous middle.

The Moment When Power Answers

In the beginning, power is something we reach for. We read, we train, we practice. We cast the same spell again and again, tweaking the moon phase or the herb blend, trying to catch the current just right.

But then… something shifts. A whisper moves through you, a knowing rises in your gut. The work deepens because you are becoming more refined.

Your aura takes on a gravity of its own. Ritual becomes less about calling and more about opening. Your presence stirs reaction, resonance, or resistance.

And with that shift, the world begins to test you.

The Ladder to True Power

We speak in the Wild Blackthorn Tradition of a progression; a ladder of fire, climbed not in haste but with care:

Knowledge – The gathering of lore, theory, tools, and stories. Books and breath.
Experience – The doing. The failed spells. The moments of awe. The nights of doubt.
Actualization – The integration. When the witch no longer works the spell, but becomes it.
Wisdom – The still point. When discernment is sharper than desire.
Power – Not the lightning. The conductor. The one who knows what to do with the storm.

This is not a linear journey. We rise and fall through these states. But when one tries to leap ahead, when power is seized without wisdom, when understanding blooms without humility, something fractures.

This is where obsession is born. And obsession is not power, it is power turned inward, festering.

The False Fire

There is a kind of power that masquerades as mastery. It is loud, impressive, and intoxicating. It commands attention. It often gets called “influence.”

But true power does not always shine. Sometimes it walks barefoot. Sometimes it bleeds. Sometimes it waits in silence until the moment is right.

Beware the gleam that demands your gaze. In magic, as in life, the brightest thing in the room is not always the most powerful. Sometimes, it is the trap.

The Peril of Outer Praise

Power wants to be witnessed. This is part of its nature—it radiates. But the desire to be seen as powerful is not the same as being powerful.

There is danger in chasing recognition before the soul is ready. In every tradition, we see those who begin to shine a little too early—and who then reshape their magic around being seen rather than becoming whole.

This happens in subtle ways:

We post a ritual and check for likes.
We speak in circle hoping for admiration, not alignment.
We wear our title louder than our integrity.

The desire for outer validation is often a mask for unworked insecurity. When we seek applause, it’s because some part of us doubts our worth, and would rather hear others say it than learn to believe it ourselves.

But this kind of validation feeds the wrong fire. It grows the ego, not the spirit.

And ego, once fed too long, becomes a hungry ghost, always needing more. It will whisper that you are wiser than your elders, more gifted than your peers, immune to correction. It will resist stillness. It will panic at silence.

This is not sovereignty. It is spiritual inflation.

The Witch’s power must rise from within, not depend on a mirror held up by others. Otherwise, when that mirror breaks, and it always does, we are shattered with it.

The Forge of Becoming

You must be tempered, Witch. And that tempering is never comfortable. There will be days when the magic feels like fire in your mouth. When your spirit aches from holding boundaries. When you are tempted to use the Craft for validation, revenge, or escape.

Those are the crossroads. Not whether you can cast, but why.

Power without ethics is violence.
Power without devotion is vanity.
Power without will is waste.
But power with all these? That is the mark of the Witch whole.

A Vision: The Path of Ash and Ember

Close your eyes and walk with me.

You stand at the edge of twilight on a mountain pass older than maps. The air is sharp with myrrh and woodsmoke, and beneath your feet, the stones are warm with something ancient, something watching.

To your right, the land falls away into a golden plain lit by sunset. A wide road stretches across it, paved with sigils and scattered with broken wands, dulled blades, and tarnished crowns. Here walked those who hungered for power, who cast great spells and gathered titles—but whose works crumbled for lack of root.

To your left, a narrow path coils upward into mist and shadow. It is hard going. The ground is uneven, the stones slick with old blood and weathered tears. Thorn branches clutch at your sleeves. Along the trail stand cairns, one for each who walked the path to its end. Some bear names carved in languages long dead. Others are unmarked, known only to the stars and the Gods.

Here and there you glimpse offerings: a braid of hair, a ring of iron, a tooth, a prayer etched in salt. These are the tools of the true initiate, not trophies, but sacrifices.

Then, from within the thicket of blackthorn to your left, a voice stirs. It is dry as wind, sharp as bone, and yet somehow your own:

“Will you carry the fire, or be consumed by it?”

The forge is not at the summit.
It is within the climb.

The Power of Restraint

The witch who knows their own limits, and tests them with intention, is already walking toward wisdom.

We must build not just spellcraft, but soulcraft.

Restraint is not weakness. Patience is not passivity. These are disciplines of the deep magician, who understands that a spell well-timed is worth a thousand flung in frenzy.

Power must be shaped, not hoarded.
It must serve something greater, or it will devour its bearer.

The Witch as Keeper of Fire

You are not here to burn the world down.

You are here to carry the ember forward.
To protect the spark.
To light the beacon when others are lost.
To warm. To forge. To cauterize.
To know when to let the fire die into coals… and when to breathe it back to life.

In Part III

In the next part of this journey, we will begin preparing the vessel:

Ethical grounding
Psychic hygiene
Shadow integration
Ritual techniques for strengthening will
And a meditation on the “Guardian at the Threshold.”

But for now, I leave you with this: What in you is still flammable?
And what in you has already survived the fire?

What Witches Can Do Now – Standing in the Time of Apophis

“The serpent rises. But we rise higher.”

The warnings have come. The old systems are trembling. This is a time of unraveling, but also one of choosing. Witches are not spectators to collapse. We are part of what must come next.

This path was never meant to be comfortable. We walk it to remember who we are and to stay close to the land and its spirits. Many of us have lived through fire and come through stronger. We’ve listened in silence long enough to know: “This isn’t the end.”

It’s the beginning. And we’re being called to show up.

So what do we do now?
We hold fast.
We cast when needed.
We protect those we love.
We remember what matters.
We begin again.

The Circle Is Not Just a Spell—It’s a Stronghold

There was a time when the circle was for celebration and communion. A space to speak with the gods, practice our craft, and welcome change.

Now, our circle becomes something more: they become bastions of protection, thrones of our sovereignty, centers of transformative power, a place to remember what is real.

The Witch’s Circle is not escape, it is reclamation.
It says: Within this space, truth lives. Within this space, I am whole. Within this space, the old ways still live in me and through me.

Cast your circle as often as you need to. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Some days, a single candle is enough. Or a quiet moment to breathe and draw strength from the Earth. A simple phrase. A hand resting over your heart. A clear boundary spoken aloud: “Only truth may enter here.” This, too, is a shield.

Discernment Is a Sacred Art Now

Apophis doesn’t always come in an obvious way. Sometimes he looks like distortion, illusion, doubt, and misdirection.

We live in a world full of noise. Everyone’s talking, few are listening. Witches can’t afford to get swept up in it. We need to tune in differently. Not through blind belief, and not through constant skepticism, but with something deeper.

Discernment asks more of us. It’s a quiet skill, sharpened over time. It comes from checking in, using your tools and gifts, yes, but also questioning yourself honestly.

Try it:
Ask your deck what’s hidden, not just what’s ahead.
Use your mirror to reflect, not just for visions, but to show your choices.
Name the lies you’ve heard out loud, then name what you know to be real. Lies in repetition often drown what we know to be true.

It’s not always comfortable. But it’s sacred work.

The Web Must Be Woven Now, Not Later

If you’re alone, reach out. Don’t wait for the perfect time or the perfect group. Start with a message. Share tea or a small meal. Make space to speak.

A coven does not have to wear robes and chant in the woods. It is a place where we are safe to speak, to be seen. In many respects, our covens and small groups become family.

Witches know how to endure. We’ve practiced solitude. But this moment calls for more. Don’t try to weather everything alone. We need one another. Now more than ever.

And While You’re Building—Go Deeper

Some have stayed on the edge of this path too long. Lighting the same candles. Reading the same books. Always planning to go deeper, but never quite starting.

That time has passed.

Beginner practice is valid, but it’s no longer enough. Not with what’s unfolding around us. The gods are restless. The land is in pain. There’s no more room for hesitation.

This is the moment to learn more. To stretch yourself. To risk something and, in doing so, to grow in power.

Years ago, I was told I wasn’t ready. I stepped forward anyway. I built what I needed, found my footing, and completed what would become my first true Great Work. Not because I had approval, but because the fire wouldn’t wait. Every serious witch will reach that moment eventually. And if no elder has told you before, I will.

You have permission.

To leave the safe edge of things.

To take a step forward.

To push yourself in ways you had not imagined.

To begin building something real.

Magic was never safe. That’s not the point. But risk is where growth happens. It always has been.

That doesn’t mean being reckless. It means choosing the path of power, again and again. A path built on learning, effort, experience, and understanding. Power doesn’t come through force. It arrives quietly, when we’re ready to carry it. A culmination that brings wisdom.

A Simple Oath for Those Ready

If this speaks to you, speak it aloud. All you need is a flame, your breath, and a moment of truth.

The Oath

I wasn’t called to skim the surface.
I didn’t come here to play small.

I’m choosing to show up.
To learn what I need to.
To remember who I am.

I’m a Witch.
And I’m ready.

Light your candle. Touch the ground. Breathe. Say what’s true.

The Time of Apophis – A Witch’s Warning

I was warned.

It began more than twenty-five years ago, in a small living room thick with incense and shadow. The five of us sat cross-legged on the floor, chanting our invocation. My Priestess, Lady Teara, veiled and still, opened herself, and as the breath left her body, the Crone stepped in.

Her voice came low and dry, ancient as dust and bone.

“There will come a time,
of fire, famine, and war.
A time of great unmaking.
And you must be ready.”

I didn’t know it then, but that was the first time I heard the breath of Apophis coiling through the veil.

The warning returned, again and again, over the years. In dreams. In trance. In ritual.

The Crone came to me in different faces, sometimes as the Morrigan, sometimes cloaked and nameless. The only date she ever gave, spoken again through Lady Teara’s voice: “In twenty-five years.”

She never offered comfort. Just the knowing. Just the echo: Prepare.

And the gods of war began to stir.

Ares stood at the edge of my dreams, shield gleaming red. Tyr raised his stump of justice. Sekhmet’s eyes burned with plague and righteous flame. The Morrigan gathered her tribes, feathers blacker than the void between stars.

The war gods are walking again.
And they are not quiet.

We Were Told, But We Forgot

We thought the fire would come all at once. We imagined mushroom clouds, not slow-burn collapse.
But chaos rarely screams.
It whispers, through storm and flood, through smoke-blackened skies, through laws twisted into weapons against the people they once claimed to serve.

We saw the signs.

The Earth cried out, forests burning, oceans warming and rising, storms of untold strength, animals fleeing from lands gone silent. The people fractured, turning on each other, fed lie after lie until truth was drowned beneath spectacle.

Empires teetered.
Masks fell.
And still, we looked away.

But witches, real witches, do not look away.

We listen.
We feel the bones of the world humming underfoot.
And we know.

In 2015, I sat with a beloved friend and oracle. Together, we spoke again with the Morrigan.

She warned us once more, this time, more urgently.

A threat from the Great Bear.
A war that would begin in the early spring.
And something else: the rising of a name barely spoken for centuries, an obscure Egyptian deity suddenly surfacing in books, conversations, and even visions within our own circles.

Then, in late February of 2022, the war in Ukraine began.

The Morrigan had whispered: a time of chaos was at hand.
The time of Apophis had arrived.

Who Is Apophis?

Apophis, Apep, is not the devil.
He is not evil in the moralistic sense.
He is unmaking. He is entropy. He is dissolution.

He is what comes when truth collapses, when order fractures, when the center no longer holds.

In the stories of ancient Kemet, Apophis is the serpent of chaos, rising from the abyss each night to devour the solar barque of Ra.
He is not a creature of one strike, but of endless return.
Even if defeated, he comes again. Always.

He is the force that whispers:

“Nothing is real. Nothing matters. Burn it all down.”

Apophis unravels by lies.
He devours not only the sun, but the mind.
Confusion is his mist.
Division is his weapon.

He rises in propaganda, in conspiracy, in the algorithmic storm of a thousand half-truths.
He does not need to be believed, only to be repeated.
His power lies in erosion.
He wears down faith, coherence, meaning.

He comes when Ma’at, the principle of balance, truth, and justice, is weakened.

And make no mistake: Ma’at is bleeding.

Apophis slithers through every unchecked greed, every broken promise, every law twisted to serve power instead of people.
He delights when the people are too tired to care.
When cynicism replaces vision.
When witches forget their oaths to truth and become influencers instead of initiates.

This is not a bedtime tale.
This is the mirror we must not turn away from.

We are not living in Revelation.
We are living in the age of the Great Unbinding.

And yet, Ra still sails.
The sun still rises.

Not because the serpent is slain once and for all,
but because each night, someone stands to fight.

Let that someone be you.

The Witch’s Role

We were not born into this time by accident.

I believe this with all my soul: witches are not tourists in the age of collapse.
We are the ones who light the way through it.

We are threshold-walkers.
Grief-bearers.
Justice-callers.
And when the world frays, we do not run.
We weave.

We do not worship Apophis.
But we name him.
Not to glorify the serpent, but to understand the shape of the battle.

This is a spiritual war.
But not the kind preached from pulpits.

This is a war of forgetting vs. remembering.
Of greed vs. generosity.
Of silence vs. song.

It is a war for the soul of the Earth.
And it is being fought in courts and forests, kitchens and dreams.

Our ancestors knew how to survive collapse.
Their bones still remember.

So must we.

What You Must Do

Prepare. Truly. Learn to live with less. Store what you need. Know your neighbors.
Build your circles. Magical and mundane. No one survives alone.
Work your shadow. Do not bring your unhealed poison into the world. That is how tyrants are born.
Hone your gifts. Second sight. Word-craft. Protection. Conjuring joy.
Shield the vulnerable. Speak truth, even when your voice shakes.

And remember:

This is not the end.
This is the unraveling before the weave begins again.

This is the death throes of empire and patriarchy,
a last gasping grasp to hold power through fear and force.

But from this collapse, something else may rise.
Not dominion, but balance.
Not hierarchy, but wholeness.
A world where the sacred is not hoarded, but shared.

The Crone does not come only to destroy.
She comes to clear the way for rebirth.

The Mirror and the Flame

When the veil thins and the nights stretch long, I sit in ritual and I remember her words.

I remember the war gods watching.

And I remember: even Apophis cannot stop the sunrise.

I do not fear the dark.
I was made for it.

And if you’re reading this, so were you.

The serpent rises.

Let us rise higher.