Witch. One of the more venomous words in the English language, the label “witch” can send a person to a hideous death. Even now, when the Burning Times seem more like myth than history, the popular imagination equates witches with warty evil hags cackling over poisonous, foul-smelling brews. Why would anyone, then, want to use something as quaintly horrific as “witchcraft”? Because those who understand it know that it works… not only as a magickal practice but also as a form of reverence for the natural world.

The equally loaded term “witchcraft” covers a lot of ground, from the diabolical maledictions of medieval legend to the reclamationist neopaganism of the modern era. As a Mage practice, however, the term refers to a nature-oriented, practical craft, as opposed to the scholastic abstractions of High Ritual Magick, alchemy, and so on. Traditional witchcraft is a folk-oriented low magick practiced by common people who need discernible results: healing, fertility, divination, luck or misfortune, prosperity, clarity, physical prowess, and intercessions between the people and their gods that are far more intimate than what can be found at the local temple. The disputed origin of the term witch is “wisdom,” although other possibilities include words meaning “twist,” “knot,” or “knowledge.” And so, witches throughout time have been said to know things… often things that proper people could not or should not know.

Today’s witchcraft features a postmodernist brew of traditional European wise-craft; 19th-century literary occultism and 20-century mystic fusions; pre-Christian elements from Greek, Norse, Celtic, Hindu, Slavic, Roman, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian cultures (with prodigious cultural appropriations from Native American, African, Romani, and occasionally Asian cultures); repurposed Christian and Jewish practices (especially Catholicism and the Kabbalah); postmodernist philosophy, and New Age takes on quantum physics; mass-media iconography; and tons of pure invention wrapped up in a bright bow of fantasy media, political activism, and technological polyculture. This high-eclectic synergy often incorporates computers, the Internet, pop psychology, chaos theory, and other elements that would be entirely unrecognizable to old-school wise-crafters. Nevertheless, it speaks to people on an elemental level… and yes, as a mystic practice, it’s as effective as any other tool on a mage’s workbench.

In all its forms, witchcraft has an outlaw mystique – due both to constant persecution and a defiantly sinister stance. Today’s witch might practice holistic medicine and nonviolent politics, but she still exists outside of mainstream respectability… often with a Fuck You attitude. Whatever style of witchcraft she prefers, that Art/ Craft incorporates potent symbols – Old Gods, nature spirits, blades, circles, wands, robes, very dark or bright colors, occult iconography, seasons, shadows, chalices, ashes, the four Classical elements, and so on – that reach into the subconscious territory beyond a mainstream comfort zone.

Our 21st-century witch might favor dark clothes, body art, and a swaggering subculture image, or cloak her Arts in a middle-class façade that conceals her elemental devotions. She could follow a strict Witch’s Rule or proclaim herself a mystic anarchist. In more or less all cases, she reveres Nature and diversity, channeling her Will through harmony with light and shadow, death and life. Though epitomized by the Verbena Tradition, she isn’t necessarily Pagan and doesn’t always wear her Art on her sleeve, so to speak. Regardless of her tools or devotions, though, her witchcraft remains eminently practical, focused on everyday miracles and visionary craft.

Associated Paradigms: A World of Gods and Monsters; Bring Back the Golden Age; Creation’s Divine and Alive; Divine Order and Earthly Chaos; Everything is Chaos; Everything’s an Illusion, Prison, or Mistake; It’s All Good – Have Faith; Might is Right; One-Way Trip to Oblivion

Associated Abilities: Academics, Animal Kinship, Art, Awareness, Crafts, Medicine, Meditation, Occult, Pharmacopeia

Common Instruments: Artwork, blessings and curses, blood and fluids, bodywork, bones and remains, books, brews, cards, celestial alignments, circles, crossroads, cups and vessels, dance, drugs and poisons, elements, eye contact, group rites, household tools, knots and ropes, music, offerings, sex and sensuality, social domination, symbols, True Names, wands and staves, weapons, writing and inscriptions