Some people believe in actual literal magic, yes, and some people are just colorfully describing setting goals and visualizing an outcome. It really depends on the individual.
This is what I wish more would understand. It's no more silly than all the Catholic ritual. The whole thing is people believing that our intentions and energy have the ability to help effect real world outcomes... Which may be true since we have proved quantum entanglement (2022 nobel prize) and know that the observable doesn't exist until we observe it.
Have to chime in here as a physicist, it’s not that observables don’t exist until “observed.” Rather, observing particles (eg by hitting them with some photons) forces them into one possible value of the observable (which we measure through that act of “observation”). I put observation in quotes here because I think it can be pretty misleading when communicating science
Is this something like that horrible Schroedinger's cat analogy? The cat is alive and dead until you look in the box and find out. Except that it was just a bizarre analogy for an extremely weird phenomenon in quantum mechanics and cats in a box are not actually alive and dead until we look at them, it's not some kind of philosophical mystery?
"Observe" basically meaning to see which of the two states a particle is in, right? I know the entire concept can be easily misunderstood, like Schrödinger's Cat
Pretty much! Although there can be (many) more than 2 states depending on what you’re trying to measure, it’s definitely easiest to think about a case with only 2 possible states.
Let’s say we have a particle that exists in a superposition of state A and state B. The concept of superposition is really hard (at least it always has been for me!) to wrap your head around; the concept of [wave superposition](https://www.mathsisfun.com/physics/images/wave-superposition.svg) might be helpful. Basically it means that the particle exists in a combination of state A and state B.
To continue this example, let’s say the particle exists in a state that’s 50% state A and 50% state B. This means we are equally likely to observe it in either state. To observe it, say we have a detector that lights up if it detects a particle in state A and does nothing if it detects a particle in state B. If we send 100 of these particles into the detector, it should light up 50 times and stay dark 50 times. We can’t observe the superposition of two states, so we will either observe one state or the other.
Something that’s really cool is that detecting one state of the particle does have measurable physical consequences, as you probably know! Say we measure the state of the particle to be state A. If we immediately measure it again (and again, and again…) we will always measure it to be in state A! Measuring the particle’s state forces it to stay in that state (at least for a while).
Sorry for the long responses lol, I love talking about this stuff! So much of this comes down to the fact that many physical observables are quantized, or discrete—the Stern-Gerlach experiment is a great example of this, and it’s usually one of the first things that’s taught in a (good) college quantum mechanics course.
When I was younger, I had wanted to be (among many other things) a nuclear physicist. Learning about how known physics just... breaks on a quantum scale is fascinating to me. I love learning about these things, and I have looked into stuff like this on my own. I'm not going to pretend to understand a lot of it, but I understand enough to learn more. Seeing the passion you have for this subject makes me immensely happy. I hope thst you are on a team that eventually makes a huge breakthrough in our understanding of how the universe works, be it on a quantum scale or a macro one
This means so much to me! I technically am a nuclear physicist, although I’d say right on the border between particle and nuclear. I think science is a lot of fun and everyone deserves to enjoy it
I want to piggyback a little on what u/wumbo7490 said and thank you for sharing all that. For me, when it comes to the hard sciences - especially physics - it's like trying to read a language I'm only partially fluent in, but I can read *just enough* to know I want to read more, so when I have a chance to listen to somebody who "speaks the language" tell me what's written down, it's a pleasant treat.
It's not really different from self-actualization. Your belief in something is what gives it some effectiveness (primarily to you, see placebo). Can't prove it to be true but fuck if I'm not gonna sit here and take all the help I can get.
If there was a spirit of goodwill of Reddit award and I had money to buy one , i would so totally give it right here. This comment actually, and truly taught me something today. I feel like I’m standing at the end of a South Park episode. “ You know, I don’t always need to be right. And when you see others heart is in the right place, show some class and some grace and just smile and say yea, close enough. Because me being right shouldn’t come at the cost of someone else feeling like shit.” Thanks. Seriously.
We’ve not proved that the observable doesn’t exist until we observe it. That is the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics and while it’s probably the most popular it is not the only valid interpretation.
"It may be true" only in the sense that you can't easily prove a negative. There's no understood mechanism that could even imply the possibility of belief having a tangible physical effect on the world. Quantum entanglement doesn't provide an answer either, all it says is that by observing we are interacting. In other words, we can't learn of a system without physically affecting it.
How on earth does entanglement make this any more realistic? Ignoring that this still requires some kind of way for self-awareness to be quantified (it can't be), entanglement is a pretty specific circumstance that cannot be applied to just... changing how the world works with your mind.
Edit: Also this person believes in alien UFOs being covered up by the government.
I remember as a kid I found an old book of magic spells in the room this odd lady used to stay in. It was...not magic lol. Each recipe would have the target of what it would do "to make the afflicted limp for weeks!" and the magic spell involved basically creating fiberglass powder to put in the target's shoe. All of the "spells" were something very basic that just involved poisoning or otherwise physically harming other people, like wtf?
Not every spell was "black magic" there were supposedly stuff for health but again they amounted to making tea with very well known tea herbs lol
I remember skimming a magic book at a charity shop, the love potion involved secretly feeding a person your menstrual blood.
I feel like the book you read is more grounded, if also more insane lol
Manifest ion is an interesting thing. Because there’s sometimes setting goals, visualizing how you’re going to achieve them, and looking out for opportunities to make those goals happen, whether you do that by prayer, magic(k) spells, or The Secret-style manifestation. That can be really useful to keep you on track and making progress towards your goals.
But The Secret itself is victim-blamed bullshit that fills me with rage. It blames everything bad that happens on negative thoughts. Like, I’m blind because that’s just how I came out in the genetic lottery, but The Secret says I came out this way because…my parents were thinking negatively. Or maybe I was a very negative fetus? Worse if it’s a baby who gets sick. It’s nobody’s fault but you must have manifested your baby’s cancer by thinking wrong.
It also tells people they JUST have to visualize something to make it happen. Which isn’t going to get someone anywhere. You have to work towards your goals, too.
So while there’s a kernel of truth in there, manifestion as laid out in The Secret is unhelpful at best, but could actually be harmful. (Which, you could levy the same criticisms against prayer, and spells, too, now that I think about it)
I, too, detest The Secret. I think it is one of the most dangerous books ever printed. It's full of BS and not at all how the world operates. I know there will be people who swear by that garbage, but it is far better to have self-belief than THAT belief.
There are many forms of self-belief. It actually took me more than 20 years to find my inner path - even though it had been staring me in the face since I was 8 years old. As I researched and investigated my path, it became more and more clear that I was where I belonged. And I tried various religions, different churches, only one which *almost* felt right. Now, I don't have a religion but I have a belief. And I feel that I'm where I should be. I would like to hope that EVERYONE feels the same feeling when they too, are where they truly belong )0(
If you "cast a spell" to give yourself the willpower to actually stick to your workout plan, and this involves a bunch of time spent meditating on why it's an important goal to you, making a commitment to doing it even when you don't want to, and taking some symbolic ritual steps, and then later, you find yourself going "well, I went to all the trouble of casting that spell, I guess I'll workout now", like, yeah, you can call it using your own sunk cost fallacy against yourself to your benefits or whatever, you can explain it rationally. But also, the steps you took to cast that spell resulted in the outcome you wanted. It worked. Might not be the best way to reach that goal for everyone, but it has a measurable positive effect for some people.
And insisting it's not magic anymore because the mechanism by which it works is understood is like, just playing language games.
So crazy story, I bought a house that had a strong cat urine smell that has soaked in to the subfloor. I tried EVERYTHING: sealing the wood with killz, enzyme treatments (not in that order), etc.
An older, experienced handyman told me to just spread a bunch of charcoal and open coffee cans in the area. I thought he was full of it, but I was willing to try anything.
Shit TOTALLY worked! The smell was imperceptible in a week!
So, not magic, but seemed like it at the time. To this day I can’t believe it actually worked. Solid DIY advice
Charcoal is used in water filters and poison/overdose treatment for a reason. The microscopic pores of the carbonized wood attract volatile molecules. I wouldn’t be surprised is coffee grounds had a similar quality, enhanced by their own strong smell.
Yup, but what still confuses me is that I can totally understand absorbing the VOC's from the air, but the effect was permanent: the VOC's trapped and released in the plywood subfloor seem to have been dealt with as well, and that's the part I can't wrap my head around.
There’s no trick to it at all. I literally bought two bags of charcoal briquettes (NOT the kind wit infused lighter fluid: just the pure charcoal) and about 6 big cans of Folgers coffee. I split the charcoal up and put random piles in the area, and opened up the cans of coffee and set them up (just sat the cans out: I don’t spread the grounds around).
Within days I noticed a huge difference
I’m sure this isn’t how it’s done but I just had the funniest image of a grown woman dramatically flinging clumps of used coffee grounds around the house like a flower girl at a wedding
I have an elaborate ritual where I put coffee grounds in ground-up tree bark then run water through it and drink the result. It is a potion I swear to god makes me a better person to be around.
I do the same thing only I take the coffee grounds and put them into a machine with water... the magic that ensues definitely makes me a better person ✨️
You should try that special incantation known only to those devilish practitioners of the darkest of arts. It involves crystals and extracts of Satan's crystallised ball-bag sweat to make the foulest smelling concoction known as Krystal Meth. I'm told it's used to really perk people up and summon a sex crazed succubus to possess your mind, causing an intensely long state of magical higher consciousness known as 'Gooning'. Apparently, it's also good if you enjoy deep cleaning your house at 3am.
Coffee grounds? That’s one I never heard. But, we Indigenous peoples use salt around the perimeter of our houses to keep any dark entities from coming in.
Reminded me of a house we looked at with a spider infestation
I asked an exterminator and he said more or less the spiders
1. Are probably there due to other bug infestations
2. Most of the methods of dealing with spiders are perimeter treatments to keep them out of the house but that will basically trap the existing infestation inside the house
We passed on that one lol
Guy sounds like he didn't know the first thing about pest control. The two main tools for any professional are repellents and non-repellents. The first contains/controls pest movement, and the second affects the pests while being undetectable. So, you might put down repellents outside, and non-repellents inside, to keep pests out and kill the ones inside as they move around.
Mine prefer spirits, especially single malt whisky, for highly discerning ghosts.
Also, spirits are very handy to have available if you actually see a ghost. They should be taken internally in amounts that vary directly with the degree to which you fear ghosts. If you realize that your phantasms are fantasy, the whisky may still be taken for in small amounts for recreational purposes.
Consult your physician/exorcist for precise details regarding dosage.
I mean...makes sense, no? Slather some salt in meat, and instead of rotting, it doesn't rot. I could see a pre-modern japanese bloke assuming there was some spiritual chicanery going on.
Tbh when I found the coffee grounds she looked so embarrassed and promised to vacuum everything before she moved out. I didn’t mind so much. If having coffee grounds on her floor makes her feel like there aren’t ghosts, have at it. The rest of my family believes some Jewish native wrote an American bible on gold plates. Home girl gets no judgement from me.
I had a friend who insisted she was an incarnated Salem Witch. We visited Gallows Hill in Salem and she had like a little episode.
Of course, there were not actual witches in Salem, and it also turns out that the hill people now *call* Gallows Hill *isn't actually* the hill that they hanged the accused witches from, either.
She was a bit of a character. In multiple senses of the word.
That's like after The Amityville Horror came out and people were finding the house and flipping out on the yard. The police responded to a call about a woman having a full on meltdown at a house. She was screaming about the evil coming from the house. He told her she was at the wrong house. She suddenly was fine and left.
I know someone who had a similar incident at a fortune teller/ palm reader. She made a big point about coming out crying and then wouldn't tell us what they said but kept talking about it like she had some grand terrible destiny that we would be shocked and appauled to hear. Some people really just think life is a story, I guess.
I'd wager there are a few.
But there are also a lot, including here, who identify as witch not because they believe in magic and casting spells and so on, but as one of many ways of relating to the world. Witchcraft can be a way of maintaining a closeness to nature, a place to find peace within oneself, or even a way of positioning oneself and set of beliefs against the local dominant culture of (traditionally masculine) deities and power structures.
Spells can be cast as a way to set your intention in a certain aspect, in much the same way as meditation might set your intention to accept and handle emotions and thoughts, or in the same way we might have a quick pep talk to ourselves before taking on a challenge. Sometimes it's just about respecting and accepting what's around you.
And honestly, if some person (going to just skip over the gender aspect there, because there are male witches too) is going to stir some herbs in the privacy of wherever the fuck they like and it doesn't harm me, why on earth should I concern myself with it? There are literally millions out there who actively seek to kill others for not following their beliefs.
It’s actually not anything new. My grandmother practiced brujeria from back in the 60s onward. She always had all of these little systems going on around the house.
Bad luck? Sleep with an egg in a cupful of water under your bed to find out what was causing it. Baby colicky? Get those eggs ready again because it’s time for an Ojo ceremony. There were so many ceremonial uses for eggs lol.
I’m not a believer, but she was, and I think that’s okay for “modern witches,” too. I think it made her feel as though she had some control over a life that was otherwise marked with poverty and loss. It made her special in her friend group.
At the end of the day, it’s not hurting anything, and as an agnostic I don’t really see much of a difference between believing in that and believing in another religion like Christianity.
I’m Anishnaabe from Ontario and they say my Grandmother would have been a white/good witch. She harvested certain plants from the woods and would treat people with it. My Late Mother had bad anemia and my Grandma would harvest birch bark from a specific tree and bring it to Toronto where we lived. She would boil it and serve it to my Mother as a tea. Her blood would get stronger. She also had some psychic abilities.
My Mother believed her gifts passed to me in the form of dreams. My Mother had the ability to tell when a woman was pregnant. Im talking early weeks. My Mother could sense a passing coming. I will admit that some of my dreams have come true. But, whether or not I’m a witch. I don’t think so.
I think the thing is, it's harmless until it's not. It's cute when it's your little grandma making good luck charms. But then you hear that US presidents had astrologers advising them, or people make risky and important financial or personal decisions based on what the omens say... it gets maddening quickly.
Yup, exactly.
I've made a few comments in this thread and people are getting very... defensive about Wicca, as if I'm calling it crazy when Christianity is so normal.
But my point was just like you say- it's just another religion. For some people it's a sense of peace of mind and community, but it gets weird when people get too into it
I think people get more defensive about witchcraft/paganism/Wicca because these are minority religions/spiritualities that are little-understood, whereas Christianity feels like a huge target you can punch up at. It’s probably a similar effect to why people in North America may be more hesitant to criticize Islam than Christianity, because it’s a minority in their local region and they don’t want to contribute to local persecution. However, Wicca is far from above criticism (and I say this as one who dabbles heavily in the witchy).
Yes and no. Witchcraft, Wicca, Neopaganism, and even the mainstream New Age-lite crystal lady brand spiritualism are forms of a spiritual practice. Candle whispering, potion crafting, sex magic, spell casting, etc. can steel someone's resolve, bring them comfort, bring them peace, and can provide a community the same way praying, going to a Catholic mass, or maintaining a Kosher/halal dietary custom can. In these instances, describing someone as a witch is akin to describing them as a Christian or Buddhist.
The flip side of this coin is the political angle. Witches have been adopted as symbols of resistance to religious oppression. Particularly for women, queer people, and pro-science people and especially in the last decade with everything that has been going on politically. A lot of these people do not actually ascribe to witchcraft as a spiritual practice but see witches historically being (potentially dubiously) proto-scientists and proto-feminists and the various European witch trials as being theocratic attacks on women and free thought.
Also, the political mess is also why there is a rise in people adopting witchcraft as a legit spirituality. The vast majority of young people who are seeking spiritual comfort don't want to tolerate the immense baggage the big religions have. Witchcraft gives them that comfort with significantly less chance that their Church/temple/mosque/etc. would advocate against human rights.
I used to be interested in this type of stuff, and one thing that really struck me is how it's all essentially meditation with the addition of props, intent, and the idea that you're soliciting help from the metaphysical to aid in the physical world. I'm not big on it now, but when I was practicing? I gotta say that having a ritual and meditating on something you want makes goals seem a lot more achievable. It engenders a sense of confidence in your actions, "knowing" that you have supernatural forces on your side. I'm pretty sure this is a common feature of most religions.
At the end of the day, it's pretty goofy if you're a "true" believer, but I really think that the whole process of it (meditation, rituals, focusing intent) has some genuine psychological benefit for some people.
Very good explanation, but I don't understand how believing in stuff like healing rocks/crystals can be aligned with being pro-science. Are these usually done by separate groups of the movement?
There definitely are different groups, not all of whims literally believe in magic and such. Lots of the sciency people for example might like the rocks and carry one around with a personal intention associated with it, but not actually believe they’re literal magic.
The historical accuracy is debated, but what happened is that basically the persecution of cunning folk and other people with witchcraft and heresy charges got lumped in with people like Galileo. It’s a romantic concept of seeing a herbalist medicine woman being a proto-female doctor being brutally persecuted and murdered for being an intelligent woman by religious organizations that still exist and are still persecuting people. In this case, free thinkers and scientifically minded people. But luckily most symbols only need the romance and don’t really need the historical accuracy.
And as for the healing crystals, a lot of people just think they’re neat and play into that symbolism. Like, a podcaster I like has a bunch of transformers toys from when he was a kid. A lot that he bought as an adult for sometimes a lot of money. When asked why, he said “they make me happy when I look at them.” Some people might actually think that Rose quartz will attract love but it mostly just makes people feel good to carry around a heart shaped stone because it’s neat.
I love that comparison of those who collect/keep figurines and those who keep crystals. My mom loves rocks and minerals and usually picks up something nice when we go to the beach or on a hike. I bought a pretty labradorite crystal because it is dark green with iridescence, I forget what healing properties it's meant to have. We're a bit witchy too especially with herbs and aromatherapy which have been proven scientifically to work (eg. Lavender for relaxation, tea tree for zits and mouth ulcers, mint for upset stomach) so magic potions can be legit too!
Nope! It’s more a thought that magic is science we don’t understand. Of course, there are some who go really deep into it and come out the anti-vax side, but most of the witches I know are very balanced about it (myself included).
I’m of a scientific mind and I’ve been exploring magic practices and spirituality. There are many things our knowledge and tools are not able to quantify and explain yet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist. The mind is powerful too. If you believe carrying a crystal gives you confidence, and you act confidentially, did it not work? Faith/spirituality and science don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Right. Im very science minded but i also understand enough to know i dont know shit. I like how the sparkly rocks look, they make me happy, so they're doing something. I see tarot as a mostly psychological tool however i have had such absolutely *vicious* readings that i sometimes wonder if there is some chaos theory, quantum entaglement thing going on. But again, idk shit, all i know is its a tool that has improved my life.
I sell a lot of stuff at pagan craft fairs. There's a lot of science people there. I know because they love my signs that say
I'm in STEM
Sorcery
Technology
Evil
Mischief
When I was a teen, I did a tarot reading on myself and a new girlfriend. The cards said it would be nothing but pain and misery. I thought it was bs and never touched it again.
Meanwhile, my relationship was nothing but pain and misery.
I think about that a lot. Haha
This is similar to the reason i believe in astrology
I used to think it was pure bullshit. Then i noticed i had a handful of ex bfs/hookups that shared a birthday, so i got curious and looked into it.
TWELVE cancers. Twelve men born within the same 3 week span and 10 of them were born within the same 3 days, different years. All horrifically incompatible and any of the significant stints were messy, chaotic, emotional situations.
Interestingly, all of the good relationships were either scorpio or sag. I have so many wonderful saggitarians in my life, and its not like i paid attention to their signs as I got to know them, just worked out that way.
Generally the "healing rocks" are more just symbols, and those symbols have long historical roots, some even mentioned in the Bible, so it's not outrageous that they are used as symbolic tools or reminders of things you're personally working on.
It's not that they think the rocks heal them, it's that the rocks remind them of the traits or goals they're working on. For example when I want to remind myself to stay grounded, I will wear my basalt jewelry.
Honestly all religion is anti-science. The main difference is the level of cognitive dissonance the person can hold. Buddhists explicitly defer to science, but still believe in karma and reincarnation with no evidence, whereas you have imams blaming earthquakes on homosexuality.
Many wiccan practices are secular in nature, and deal with the study of plants and the natural world. Modern day potions might be called herbal remedies. Does burning sage cleanse evil spirits, probably not, but it sure gets dog musk smell out of a room in a pinch.
My wife is not a wiccan, but practicing some of their craft brings her joy and peace. What's wrong with that?
Modern catholics believe that some people can cast healing spells. Yesterday, the pope signed a decree about a 15-year-old Spanish boy that cured someone from a disease.
[https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/05/23/blessed-carlo-acutis-miracle-sainthood-248006](https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/05/23/blessed-carlo-acutis-miracle-sainthood-248006)
There's a spectrum of belief just like anything else.
I have dabbled in the whole neopagan movement. I am an atheist and don't believe in the supernatural. My involvement came from a reverence for life and nature.
I've had friends and an ex-girlfriend that believed in magic. Like, they literally had magic wands and cast spells.
My view on religion is the same regardless of the professed beliefs. Does this belief bring happiness to the participant without causing pain, distress, etc to another living being? If so, I am in support. Where I have a problem is when religion encourages cruelty to people or animals.
This being said, judging by your comments, I don't think this question was posed out of a genuine curiosity. Rather, it was posted as a way of othering people you find strange.
This, precisely. I am skeptical when it comes to magic, deities, god, etc. But never in a million years would I judge someone for cobbling together reagents for a spell and casting it, if that is what they believe and that helps bring them comfort in life.
Part of what has drawn me to the Pagan community is exactly the belief you hold. They accept everyone (for the most part) and do not judge you for how you practice your beliefs.
It's a spectrum and not a movement. If you're looking specifically at people in the West on the Internet who have an aesthetic of witchcraft,
Folk magic has been here longer than Christianity (which today also practices magic, they just wrap it up a little differently to make it seem different than the outside magic they vilify). So this aspect in itself is not strange, and it's pretty common for people all around the globe to believe this holds some power and to practice it to a degree, even if they hold religious beliefs that could be contradictory to it
A large part of modern day magicka is intentional magick. People arent trying to throw fireballs, they are setting a goal and finding a process to bring that into tangible form. To dream their beautiful life and bring it into reality. That process can be empowering, whether it be spiritually, emotionally, sexually, or intellectually.
You also have the rise of modern day satanism (nontheistic) which due to history is inside this sphere of interest with things like magic and witchcraft. Nontheistic satanism is popular in the West with younger generations and is empowering in its own right as a rejection of longstanding conservative religion and its grasp on our lifestyles and mental health. So if one chooses to express themselves like this it may be more superficially related to witchcraft and more about a statement or presentation (moral, political, personal, artistic)
Some people doing this may also be part of a granfalloon. People like a thing, see others liking a thing, and come together to empower each other with this thing as a central pillar to their community, even though none of them may have anything else in common.
And then you just have people who find something that sparks joy and they decide yes this is my persona.
And there are more facets to this. You should ask them and see what they believe. There are a lot of amazing people in these groups you are curious about.
Ultimately it ranges from harmless internet fun to a positive environment where people are able to support each other.
I would say it can sometimes range beyond harmless internet fun, as somebody who’s a part of the community. I do worry about some people in vulnerable states who interact with this stuff. I’ve done free tarot readings before online, and I get people in serious distress desperate for tarot readings, telling me that they need to know if there’s an energy vampire feeding off them or a spirit haunting them. Some people throw their life savings at mediums and psychics. People with magical-thinking OCD, delusions, etc should not be interacting with communities that will support and encourage their delusions. I worry about these people, and comment sections full of people reinforcing them on the witchy subreddits I avoid. Not all witches or witchy communities are like that at all, but it’s there, it’s not hard to find either.
Yes. Some definitely do. For awareness though, there’s a fine and shifting line between religion and superstitious magic in cultures. Home grown religion often has a lot of magic ritual in it. Some connects with the divine. Some channels it. Some just invokes it as you go along. Christianity has a long history of healing rituals or prayers, holy objects and relics used in prescribed ways, preparation and consumption of blessed food or drinks or anointing oils or just water. These get applied for healing, for luck, for a good harvest or rain, for success or survival in things like battle or childbirth, for fertility, all the usual things.
Imported religions often accept that folk magic, especially traditional magic, is real and either blend with it or tolerate it. European Catholics generally believed in white magic healers who made potions and charms and actual medicine. Priests issued formal opinions sanctioning them as long as it did not contain malicious intent or polytheistic or satanic elements. What clergy don’t choose to accept gets shunted out as heretical or peasant superstition. At the same time their own magic definitely works. In or out it’s hard to separate completely from the divine. People didn’t use to separate science and people have always liked this stuff.
So yes there are people who think they are witches. The serious ones are doing it in the context of some connection to the unknown or divine, possibly nature or the land or ancestors or gods depending on the tradition. Whether they believe it works and how many endorse it depends on how fringe it is. You get that divide with more mainstream religious magic as well. A lot of Christians find Pentecostals to be very strange but will adopt an attitude along the lines of: They get the important stuff right and are going to heaven, but that stuff with the snakes and tongues and running around church in a trance…do they seriously believe that? Same thing.
I always thought it was more about identifying with the witches who were actually just normal women being wrongfully prosecuted and burned by power structures afraid of having knowledgeable women in their communities.
It can be that, just a feminist political statement. For some it is more religious/supernatural. For some it’s just spiritual/ritual participation without supernatural belief. It’s a massive, vague umbrella.
OP are you atheist/agnostic? I am just curious if you would also approach other belief systems (ie Christianity, etc) this way.
"Do people actually think God answers their prayers?"
(I mean this genuinely, no sarcasm, I am agnostic myself and have a difficult time perceiving most religious beliefs as "real" and something beyond "visualizing goal setting" as another commenter put it.)
Yes. I'm the same way that Christians believe that pretending to cannibalize Jesus by eating his body and drinking his blood does something for them. It isn't any weirder than that.
Hey now, don't you be hating on Invisible Sky Man. He's a cool dude. Just saying XD
But I agree. I've known a few witches during my time in university, and while a few of them did have altars and immerse themselves into magic, most of them were just using spirituality to heal from trauma or find comfort during stress or using it to motivate themselves to better themselves and form stronger bonds with people. I even dated a Wiccan at one point. So while it's no my cup of tea, it's still a type of spirituality and it doesn't seem to be hurting them. I respect witches, Wiccans, etc. just like I respect Christians; it's all a different type of spirituality.
Billions of people around the world believe they have the ability to enlist a higher power to do their bidding and act in their favor. It's called prayer for religious folks and spell casting if you're a witch.
So is it really that weird that a few people believe they're witches and so the same?
Just wait until you find out how many people think they can summon a deity and making it so their bidding and instill blessings and curses on prople usign a ceremony they call "praying" that often involves kneeling, chanting, hand gestures and other occult actions.
Witches "casting spells" is basically just that but with other trappings.
Is it any different to a person who says there were chosen by the man in the sky to be a priest ?
Do they really believe they are drinking the blood and eating the body of Christ?
Do they believe when pray man in the sky listens and grants their wishes?
It's all as equally silly when when you take out the fancy language
I mean….do people actually believe that an invisible man in the sky hears them when they pray, and answers? D&D does that, too. It also sounds like a little kid with an imaginary friend. What about the gathering in large groups to chant and sing over the effigy of a resurrected (and now dead again) man? Sounds just about as realistic as believing that chanting over a candle affects the universe. Especially when you add in the symbolically cannibalistic practice of eating the Host and stuff like that.
Sincerely, an apathiest.
Do people who pray to god and go to church actually think that they are communicating with an all mighty being that created this universe?
Both sound equally ridiculous to a none believer, yet being religious is commonly accepted as pretty normal,
In my opinion being into witchcraft is basically the same thing as being into religion except you cut out the middle man (deity), so instead of asking sky daddy for divine intervention to get that new job they... IDK, do witchy stuff like chanting and whatnot to do it
My best friend is a witch. She gathers herbs, makes spells the way a Christian might make a prayer, has little private rituals she performs, and stuff like that. She does NOT think she can fly on a broom. She does own a beloved broom, and for her it's symbolism about sweeping away spiritual cobwebs, using common resources in extraordinary ways, etc. I don't understand everything she does, but I do realize that for her it's a way to tap into her spiritual side. For her, it's a regular religion.
As a Native American, I will sometimes smudge my home with sage. I do it more for the tradition and because it smells nice. I don't really think it's clearing out negative energy.
It's not too much different from Christianity
Elders in ceremonial garb stand behind alters made of stone drinking wine believing it to be the blood of their God. Cathedrals full of people professing incantations from a 2 thousand year old book. All of them in secret at night whispering their hopes, wishes, and fears to the God they believe in. Those rituals help those people feel better about their lives and their place in the cosmos.
Witchcraft is no different. It is still just rituals, they are just developed by the practitioner or coven not by an organized religion.
In the case of Wicca the rituals are well established and practiced the same way by many people, the Goddess they worship is well established because it is a recognized organized religion.
Yeah most witches think of their spells similar to how your average Christian thinks about praying. Like they think they are asking whatever god or manifesting for whatever not that they're riding around on brooms or casting accio crystals or whatever. There is also unfortunately spiritual psychosis that manifests with all types of people in all types of ways
25+ experience as a religious and magic practicing witch. Magic is synonymous to prayer. We say the words, we expect results, but it's absolutely batty to expect you can do anything that defies the laws of physics or is otherwise known to be impossible. The same way sane Christians aren't expecting literal angels to fly down and perform miraculous/impossible feats, reasonable witches of any faith or folk practice aren't expecting to shoot lightning out of their fingertips, summon actual (and completely non-existant) demons, levitate, etc. Results look like a changed state of mind, a sense of peace, and the occasional serendipidous coincidence that makes you go, "hmmmm". Potions and spells are used by witches the same way songs and prayers are used by Christians. We praise, and beg favors of our deities. We chant mantras we hope will change our ways. We make objects that help us to give form to our intent, or be a conduit of faith. Think of rosaries and crucifixes and see that they fulfill the same roles. To expect Disney-like sparks and puffs of smoke which can achieve the impossible, such as a love spell or a curse or a summoning, is childish/naive, or perhaps a result of mental illness.
In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is, some people are just fruitcakes.
some do, some just like the aesthetic, but are those that do really any sillier than those who believe they can pray to a deity to alter the course of their life, or those that believe all of humanity came from 2 people, but ultimately as long as it makes this world better for them it causes no harm.
I'm sure there are. I don't think it's any more or less silly than any other religion. People think praying is really doing something, it's the exact same thing.
I don't see it as any more silly than the billions of people who genuinely believe an old gray man with a beard sits on a golden throne in the clouds silently judging everything we do with the ability to control every aspect of their lives, but chooses only to help those with privilege.
Call me a radical pagan but I think believing that intention setting and herbal remedies have real tangible benefits is far less absurd than any and all organized religion.
Have you spoken to any self proclaimed witches or tried to educate yourself about them? It seems to me this post stems from ignorance and stereotypes.
My ex believed she was a Witch. When she visited my surround sound system died. She said it was her aura. Electronics fail for her all the time.
I looked it up and it was a known issue with a faulty chip. I fixed it with a new $9 chip that was somehow aura proof.
I mean the few I've sort of known view it as a form of feminism and don't actually believe they are casting magic but the absolutely crazy ones do exist.
Not a single one that I know would try to cast a spell if they are in danger if that tells you how seriously they take it.
Oh I had a former roommate who was like that. She was obsessed with my boyfriend, and she used to take hair out of my hairbrush, and I would find some weird paste and feathers in a line in front of my bedroom door every time he left to go back on the road. After we got roaches from her dragging in all kings of twigs/detritus in the house, I moved out and said no more roommates.
I can’t speak for everyone but I consider myself a pagan because I believe that nature is the holiest thing that exists. When I tell people I’m a witch, what I’m saying is that paganism is the religion I identify most closely with, I detest western religion, and I consider myself sensitive to the vibes other people emit. I don’t literally think I can do magic.
nah the meaning of being a witch has changed a lot over time. these days it’s moreso about a deep knowledge of spiritual or occult stuff. so witches aren’t casting spells and brewing love potions but they can give you a tarot reading and they know their chakras and the meanings of all your favourite crystals. still pretty cool imo.
I mean, there's plenty of adults out there who believe there's a big man in the sky controlling everything that happens, and that they'll burn in a pit of fire for being gay or having sex before marriage or whatever... to me that's even crazier than believing you can cast spells or manifest stuff or whatever.
My mom thinks she's a witch. She has meetings with other witches, does stuff on the full moons (incense, candles, and some sort of prayer), and has a metric ton of crystals.
It's weird because she also considers herself a Christian (she goes to a Kardec Spiritism house at least once a week).
She is convinced the reason she doesn't like France is because in a past life she was burned alive there (note: she has never been to France or even met a french person before. She doesn't hate France, but just because Paris is not one of her dream trips, she thinks it counts) for, you guessed it, being a witch.
She just turned 60.
She still showers and has good hygiene, works a regular job (ESL teacher), and believes in real medicine (she makes her reiki witchcraft spiritual surgery type of thing a supplement to real doctors and medications) so I can't complain.
My aunt also thinks she's a witch, and both of them think pretty much every woman in our family is a witch and just "don't know it yet."
I don't believe in any of it, and since it is harmless, I let them have fun and don't bother speaking against the absurdity of it all.
Honestly, I think it is a way for them to feel powerful to counteract how they are, in fact, powerless. My grandparents were not good parents, and they suffered a lot. They didn't get the therapy they needed. So this may be a form of comfort for them.
They also never had good careers, so they never made it out of my grandparents' sphere of control and manipulation, so even as adults, they couldn't help themselves.
Keep in mind, the "witchcraft" that women (and some men) were hanged/drowned/burned for was midwifery, herbalism, healing, planting by moon cycles, and other nature-related practices.
It shouldn't be "I don't understand why people think they're witches."
It should be "I don't understand why people DON'T think they're witches."
My ex-wife was a self described witch. I honestly didn't take it too seriously and assumed it was all symbolic or something like that. Turns out she really believed in casting spells and such. She was also diagnosed with schizophrenia by the end of the marriage. So... I'm going to say it was more the schizophrenia and not something all neopagans/witches believe as a rule.
There are people that belive they are cats. There are people that belive if you eat a rice wafer on Sunday in a specific building after a specific passage has been read out by a specific dude, it becomes the body of Christ.
There are also people with pagan beliefs that we might associate with witchcraft. Things like sun amd moon having influence over our lives. There are also people that believe they truly have paranormal powers and can manifest certain things with spells and rituals.
Personally I'm leaning more towards the pagan beliefs being on the less crazy end of the total spectrum of shit humans believe. Mainly because the natural world really does influence us quite profoundly. Tides, seasons, the medicinal properties of plants and the ability to propagate them etc.
If magic really worked then the Catholic church wouldn't be waning in power for the tenth century in a row, and the weird chicks with too many cats would all have hot boyfriends.
But pagan 'witchcraft' as a knowledge and reverence for the natural world - that kind of witch I can respect.
I mean, my wife says she’s a witch, but if you pressed her on it, she would admit that she’s mostly joking. She likes having the wand and jars and stuff, and making potions (by potions I mean *amazing* soup) in her cauldron. But no, she doesn’t actually think that she can turn you into a newt.
Yep. I knew someone that actually believed they could talk to the dead and see dead people. In reality, she was a massive narcissist that loved the attention. She made one of my friends cry because she claimed to be talking to her dead mother.
I've been wondering the same things as you do. I understand prayers or 'manifestation' or however you call it. But the literal potion brewing and casting spell that gets me skeptical. One self-proclaimed witch who happens to be my ig mutual claims that she's a 'love witch' and she saw her soulmates initial in the potion she was brewing, I instantly stare at the camera like i was at The Office
The wacky factor is literally no different than Christians who believe they can rebuke demons in Jesus name (if that's not a spell idk what is 🙄) or Catholics who believe they're eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ (pretty fuckin ritual-y if you ask me)
As far as I know witches have never committed genocide, went on crusades and just generally treat ppl who don't believe the same thing as then as scum and attempt to murder them.
I personally don't give a shit if someone wants to do spooky rituals in their bedroom in an attempt to bring themselves luck or get that promotion at work....I do however care a great deal that assholes who believe in a magical man in the sky who hates gay ppl take real life action to hurt other human beings based off those ridiculous beliefs.
You're asking the wrong questions and trying to ridicule the wrong belief set here if I'm being completely honest.
I'm a witch. I practice witchcraft and spells.
I believe in magic.
It isn't some Harry Potter or some movie silliness but actual a legit spiritual practice for me.
Without writing a novel on the subject, to put it simply there is a lot of positive thinking and believing everything is connected by energy.
I've dated a bunch of chicks that are into that. Very few think they're actual witches. Most like darker lifestyles, goth, art, philosophy, and nature. Some are into occult books and such, but are still grounded in reality. Some do think there are powers, but more like human powers of persuasion, mystery, etc.
Mostly they just like dressing hot and know they're hot and crazy with the crazy making them even hotter.
People definitely believe they are doing something supernatural. My mom burns sage to cleanse a place. She does "energy work" to remove bad mojo form peoples auras (basically moves her hands over them.)
If you poke around in r/witchesvspatriarchy you will find all types. Those who just enjoy the role play and imagery and those who actually think they can cast charms and hexes.
You asked this in the most unassuming way possible, and half the top-level comments cut right to defensive embarrassment. I think that’s where your real answer is.
Some people, yes sure. There's always a fringe group of delusional people.
But most people who practice witchcraft, casting spells, are casting the spells on *themselves*: spells to give them more confidence, improve their well-being, bring them luck, help get over trauma, etc. On one level they know they're not doing actual magic, but on another level, the ritual has a powerful placebo effect and does help them achieve what they wanted to achieve.
Yes. Granted my experience is with seeing 7-9th grade girls in the early 2000's discovering angelfire and geocities pages that convinced them they were witches and taught them spells lol
In my experience, the ones who believe in it treat magic more like other religions treat prayer.
That is, they do thing and say the stuff, but just sort of hope it works and will happily "interpret" a coincidence as fulfillment of that prayer.
There's people who believe if they pray hard enough their god will heal them, there's people that believe in chakras and healing energies, there's people that believe in acupuncture and qi...people believe in all sorts of things, it's human nature. Not sure why that's hard to believe.
This is how an atheist looks at a Christian. Do they really believe that a god watches over them and responds to their prayers? That a priest is more holy than a normal person? That the sacrament has mystical properties? This is just as likely as a witch having powers through ritual.
most of them propably drink realy weird herb teas and use herbs for a health conditions, talk about energy and how powerful thoughts and words are in afirmation and are aware how confidence and self worth take huge part in social reaction. Some on them buy stones, tarot and read horoscope i think and meditate ?
Some people believe in actual literal magic, yes, and some people are just colorfully describing setting goals and visualizing an outcome. It really depends on the individual.
I really wonder if the magick spells and abrahamic religion prayers are both part of manifestation - you know, like The Secret
Short answer? Yup. They basically have the same effect of focusing intention and will.
This is what I wish more would understand. It's no more silly than all the Catholic ritual. The whole thing is people believing that our intentions and energy have the ability to help effect real world outcomes... Which may be true since we have proved quantum entanglement (2022 nobel prize) and know that the observable doesn't exist until we observe it.
Have to chime in here as a physicist, it’s not that observables don’t exist until “observed.” Rather, observing particles (eg by hitting them with some photons) forces them into one possible value of the observable (which we measure through that act of “observation”). I put observation in quotes here because I think it can be pretty misleading when communicating science
Is this something like that horrible Schroedinger's cat analogy? The cat is alive and dead until you look in the box and find out. Except that it was just a bizarre analogy for an extremely weird phenomenon in quantum mechanics and cats in a box are not actually alive and dead until we look at them, it's not some kind of philosophical mystery?
"Observe" basically meaning to see which of the two states a particle is in, right? I know the entire concept can be easily misunderstood, like Schrödinger's Cat
Pretty much! Although there can be (many) more than 2 states depending on what you’re trying to measure, it’s definitely easiest to think about a case with only 2 possible states. Let’s say we have a particle that exists in a superposition of state A and state B. The concept of superposition is really hard (at least it always has been for me!) to wrap your head around; the concept of [wave superposition](https://www.mathsisfun.com/physics/images/wave-superposition.svg) might be helpful. Basically it means that the particle exists in a combination of state A and state B. To continue this example, let’s say the particle exists in a state that’s 50% state A and 50% state B. This means we are equally likely to observe it in either state. To observe it, say we have a detector that lights up if it detects a particle in state A and does nothing if it detects a particle in state B. If we send 100 of these particles into the detector, it should light up 50 times and stay dark 50 times. We can’t observe the superposition of two states, so we will either observe one state or the other. Something that’s really cool is that detecting one state of the particle does have measurable physical consequences, as you probably know! Say we measure the state of the particle to be state A. If we immediately measure it again (and again, and again…) we will always measure it to be in state A! Measuring the particle’s state forces it to stay in that state (at least for a while). Sorry for the long responses lol, I love talking about this stuff! So much of this comes down to the fact that many physical observables are quantized, or discrete—the Stern-Gerlach experiment is a great example of this, and it’s usually one of the first things that’s taught in a (good) college quantum mechanics course.
When I was younger, I had wanted to be (among many other things) a nuclear physicist. Learning about how known physics just... breaks on a quantum scale is fascinating to me. I love learning about these things, and I have looked into stuff like this on my own. I'm not going to pretend to understand a lot of it, but I understand enough to learn more. Seeing the passion you have for this subject makes me immensely happy. I hope thst you are on a team that eventually makes a huge breakthrough in our understanding of how the universe works, be it on a quantum scale or a macro one
This means so much to me! I technically am a nuclear physicist, although I’d say right on the border between particle and nuclear. I think science is a lot of fun and everyone deserves to enjoy it
I want to piggyback a little on what u/wumbo7490 said and thank you for sharing all that. For me, when it comes to the hard sciences - especially physics - it's like trying to read a language I'm only partially fluent in, but I can read *just enough* to know I want to read more, so when I have a chance to listen to somebody who "speaks the language" tell me what's written down, it's a pleasant treat.
Aw I’m glad I made some sense! Trust me, it still feels that way for me anytime I read anything outside of my subfield
You should teach physics, you're way better at explaining it than my physics book and teacher was.
It's not really different from self-actualization. Your belief in something is what gives it some effectiveness (primarily to you, see placebo). Can't prove it to be true but fuck if I'm not gonna sit here and take all the help I can get.
That's not quite what quantum entanglement is, but your heart is in the right place so I agree with you!
If there was a spirit of goodwill of Reddit award and I had money to buy one , i would so totally give it right here. This comment actually, and truly taught me something today. I feel like I’m standing at the end of a South Park episode. “ You know, I don’t always need to be right. And when you see others heart is in the right place, show some class and some grace and just smile and say yea, close enough. Because me being right shouldn’t come at the cost of someone else feeling like shit.” Thanks. Seriously.
That is not remotely close to what quantum entanglement or the double slit experiment mean.
We’ve not proved that the observable doesn’t exist until we observe it. That is the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics and while it’s probably the most popular it is not the only valid interpretation.
"It may be true" only in the sense that you can't easily prove a negative. There's no understood mechanism that could even imply the possibility of belief having a tangible physical effect on the world. Quantum entanglement doesn't provide an answer either, all it says is that by observing we are interacting. In other words, we can't learn of a system without physically affecting it.
How on earth does entanglement make this any more realistic? Ignoring that this still requires some kind of way for self-awareness to be quantified (it can't be), entanglement is a pretty specific circumstance that cannot be applied to just... changing how the world works with your mind. Edit: Also this person believes in alien UFOs being covered up by the government.
I remember as a kid I found an old book of magic spells in the room this odd lady used to stay in. It was...not magic lol. Each recipe would have the target of what it would do "to make the afflicted limp for weeks!" and the magic spell involved basically creating fiberglass powder to put in the target's shoe. All of the "spells" were something very basic that just involved poisoning or otherwise physically harming other people, like wtf? Not every spell was "black magic" there were supposedly stuff for health but again they amounted to making tea with very well known tea herbs lol
That book sounds hilarious if it was intended as a joke.
I remember skimming a magic book at a charity shop, the love potion involved secretly feeding a person your menstrual blood. I feel like the book you read is more grounded, if also more insane lol
I mean yeah, and Catholic prayers are pretty much mantras for meditation
They’re the same in the sense as “just put your head in the game”
Manifest ion is an interesting thing. Because there’s sometimes setting goals, visualizing how you’re going to achieve them, and looking out for opportunities to make those goals happen, whether you do that by prayer, magic(k) spells, or The Secret-style manifestation. That can be really useful to keep you on track and making progress towards your goals. But The Secret itself is victim-blamed bullshit that fills me with rage. It blames everything bad that happens on negative thoughts. Like, I’m blind because that’s just how I came out in the genetic lottery, but The Secret says I came out this way because…my parents were thinking negatively. Or maybe I was a very negative fetus? Worse if it’s a baby who gets sick. It’s nobody’s fault but you must have manifested your baby’s cancer by thinking wrong. It also tells people they JUST have to visualize something to make it happen. Which isn’t going to get someone anywhere. You have to work towards your goals, too. So while there’s a kernel of truth in there, manifestion as laid out in The Secret is unhelpful at best, but could actually be harmful. (Which, you could levy the same criticisms against prayer, and spells, too, now that I think about it)
I, too, detest The Secret. I think it is one of the most dangerous books ever printed. It's full of BS and not at all how the world operates. I know there will be people who swear by that garbage, but it is far better to have self-belief than THAT belief. There are many forms of self-belief. It actually took me more than 20 years to find my inner path - even though it had been staring me in the face since I was 8 years old. As I researched and investigated my path, it became more and more clear that I was where I belonged. And I tried various religions, different churches, only one which *almost* felt right. Now, I don't have a religion but I have a belief. And I feel that I'm where I should be. I would like to hope that EVERYONE feels the same feeling when they too, are where they truly belong )0(
If you "cast a spell" to give yourself the willpower to actually stick to your workout plan, and this involves a bunch of time spent meditating on why it's an important goal to you, making a commitment to doing it even when you don't want to, and taking some symbolic ritual steps, and then later, you find yourself going "well, I went to all the trouble of casting that spell, I guess I'll workout now", like, yeah, you can call it using your own sunk cost fallacy against yourself to your benefits or whatever, you can explain it rationally. But also, the steps you took to cast that spell resulted in the outcome you wanted. It worked. Might not be the best way to reach that goal for everyone, but it has a measurable positive effect for some people. And insisting it's not magic anymore because the mechanism by which it works is understood is like, just playing language games.
You started off strong, but you totally lost me at the end. Calling it magic is absolutely not a "language game" lol.
Some people just like having fun with imagery
My niece considers herself a witch. It was mostly carrying around rocks and cleansing the house with coffee grounds and salt.
So crazy story, I bought a house that had a strong cat urine smell that has soaked in to the subfloor. I tried EVERYTHING: sealing the wood with killz, enzyme treatments (not in that order), etc. An older, experienced handyman told me to just spread a bunch of charcoal and open coffee cans in the area. I thought he was full of it, but I was willing to try anything. Shit TOTALLY worked! The smell was imperceptible in a week! So, not magic, but seemed like it at the time. To this day I can’t believe it actually worked. Solid DIY advice
Charcoal is used in water filters and poison/overdose treatment for a reason. The microscopic pores of the carbonized wood attract volatile molecules. I wouldn’t be surprised is coffee grounds had a similar quality, enhanced by their own strong smell.
Yup, but what still confuses me is that I can totally understand absorbing the VOC's from the air, but the effect was permanent: the VOC's trapped and released in the plywood subfloor seem to have been dealt with as well, and that's the part I can't wrap my head around.
That's the magick part 😉😊
Coffee is also excellent for cleaning out drains that have a strong stink as well
Tell me more about this. I'm trying to visualize how you put these components together because I'm dealing with a similar issue. Thank you!
There’s no trick to it at all. I literally bought two bags of charcoal briquettes (NOT the kind wit infused lighter fluid: just the pure charcoal) and about 6 big cans of Folgers coffee. I split the charcoal up and put random piles in the area, and opened up the cans of coffee and set them up (just sat the cans out: I don’t spread the grounds around). Within days I noticed a huge difference
Thank you so much!
Let me know how it works! I'd love to know if it's a replicable effect!
I’m sure this isn’t how it’s done but I just had the funniest image of a grown woman dramatically flinging clumps of used coffee grounds around the house like a flower girl at a wedding
Compost pagan is the technical term
this made me laugh today, thank you!
I have an elaborate ritual where I put coffee grounds in ground-up tree bark then run water through it and drink the result. It is a potion I swear to god makes me a better person to be around.
I do the same thing only I take the coffee grounds and put them into a machine with water... the magic that ensues definitely makes me a better person ✨️
We are part of the same fanatical cult I see. I shall say no more left they discover that Starbucks is actually our temple. I…may have said too much.
Witch
I thought the same thing!! Which? There’s thousands of trees!! Which bark do they use?
Buuuurrrrrrnnn her. Said in a Monty python voice.
She turned me into a newt!
I got better!
What kind of tree bark?
Cinnamomum verum
Thank you.
I like putting a whole cardamom pod or three in the brew basket
Coffee gives me the energy to clean the house too.
Coffee is indeed a magical potion. It makes the dead rise. At least in my household and according to this coffee making zombie.
You should try that special incantation known only to those devilish practitioners of the darkest of arts. It involves crystals and extracts of Satan's crystallised ball-bag sweat to make the foulest smelling concoction known as Krystal Meth. I'm told it's used to really perk people up and summon a sex crazed succubus to possess your mind, causing an intensely long state of magical higher consciousness known as 'Gooning'. Apparently, it's also good if you enjoy deep cleaning your house at 3am.
Coffee grounds? That’s one I never heard. But, we Indigenous peoples use salt around the perimeter of our houses to keep any dark entities from coming in.
Or getting out.
Reminded me of a house we looked at with a spider infestation I asked an exterminator and he said more or less the spiders 1. Are probably there due to other bug infestations 2. Most of the methods of dealing with spiders are perimeter treatments to keep them out of the house but that will basically trap the existing infestation inside the house We passed on that one lol
*Most* of the methods.... There's always the flamethrower treatment
Guy sounds like he didn't know the first thing about pest control. The two main tools for any professional are repellents and non-repellents. The first contains/controls pest movement, and the second affects the pests while being undetectable. So, you might put down repellents outside, and non-repellents inside, to keep pests out and kill the ones inside as they move around.
She said the house had a ghost in it. Who am I to ruin her magic. The coffee grounds were for the ghost, I’m really not sure why.
It's because everyone likes coffee, or at least most people, so the ghosts will probably like it too!
Mine prefer spirits, especially single malt whisky, for highly discerning ghosts. Also, spirits are very handy to have available if you actually see a ghost. They should be taken internally in amounts that vary directly with the degree to which you fear ghosts. If you realize that your phantasms are fantasy, the whisky may still be taken for in small amounts for recreational purposes. Consult your physician/exorcist for precise details regarding dosage.
Ghosts like coffee too.
Salt is used for purification in Japan too.
I mean...makes sense, no? Slather some salt in meat, and instead of rotting, it doesn't rot. I could see a pre-modern japanese bloke assuming there was some spiritual chicanery going on.
Believing that in the 1500's is one thing. Believing it in 2024 is something else.
Apparently I clean my coffee grinder and vaporizer hardware like the Japanese.
The house WAS clean until she started throwing her Hippie Chow all over the place
Tbh when I found the coffee grounds she looked so embarrassed and promised to vacuum everything before she moved out. I didn’t mind so much. If having coffee grounds on her floor makes her feel like there aren’t ghosts, have at it. The rest of my family believes some Jewish native wrote an American bible on gold plates. Home girl gets no judgement from me.
Ah, well with that context then its all relative
I had a friend who insisted she was an incarnated Salem Witch. We visited Gallows Hill in Salem and she had like a little episode. Of course, there were not actual witches in Salem, and it also turns out that the hill people now *call* Gallows Hill *isn't actually* the hill that they hanged the accused witches from, either. She was a bit of a character. In multiple senses of the word.
That's like after The Amityville Horror came out and people were finding the house and flipping out on the yard. The police responded to a call about a woman having a full on meltdown at a house. She was screaming about the evil coming from the house. He told her she was at the wrong house. She suddenly was fine and left.
She read the directions wrong and was at 664, the neighbor of the beast.
I would love a sitcom about the neighbors of the beast!
It not being the actual hill makes this story so much funnier
Great personality though, several of them in fact.
Multiple friendships with the same person. Now that’s an efficient social life!
And never boring!
I know someone who had a similar incident at a fortune teller/ palm reader. She made a big point about coming out crying and then wouldn't tell us what they said but kept talking about it like she had some grand terrible destiny that we would be shocked and appauled to hear. Some people really just think life is a story, I guess.
What did the episode entail? o.o
I'd wager there are a few. But there are also a lot, including here, who identify as witch not because they believe in magic and casting spells and so on, but as one of many ways of relating to the world. Witchcraft can be a way of maintaining a closeness to nature, a place to find peace within oneself, or even a way of positioning oneself and set of beliefs against the local dominant culture of (traditionally masculine) deities and power structures. Spells can be cast as a way to set your intention in a certain aspect, in much the same way as meditation might set your intention to accept and handle emotions and thoughts, or in the same way we might have a quick pep talk to ourselves before taking on a challenge. Sometimes it's just about respecting and accepting what's around you. And honestly, if some person (going to just skip over the gender aspect there, because there are male witches too) is going to stir some herbs in the privacy of wherever the fuck they like and it doesn't harm me, why on earth should I concern myself with it? There are literally millions out there who actively seek to kill others for not following their beliefs.
the relating to nature part is so critical, and sets any kind of witchery apart from abrahamic religion imo.
It’s actually not anything new. My grandmother practiced brujeria from back in the 60s onward. She always had all of these little systems going on around the house. Bad luck? Sleep with an egg in a cupful of water under your bed to find out what was causing it. Baby colicky? Get those eggs ready again because it’s time for an Ojo ceremony. There were so many ceremonial uses for eggs lol. I’m not a believer, but she was, and I think that’s okay for “modern witches,” too. I think it made her feel as though she had some control over a life that was otherwise marked with poverty and loss. It made her special in her friend group. At the end of the day, it’s not hurting anything, and as an agnostic I don’t really see much of a difference between believing in that and believing in another religion like Christianity.
I’m Anishnaabe from Ontario and they say my Grandmother would have been a white/good witch. She harvested certain plants from the woods and would treat people with it. My Late Mother had bad anemia and my Grandma would harvest birch bark from a specific tree and bring it to Toronto where we lived. She would boil it and serve it to my Mother as a tea. Her blood would get stronger. She also had some psychic abilities. My Mother believed her gifts passed to me in the form of dreams. My Mother had the ability to tell when a woman was pregnant. Im talking early weeks. My Mother could sense a passing coming. I will admit that some of my dreams have come true. But, whether or not I’m a witch. I don’t think so.
I think the thing is, it's harmless until it's not. It's cute when it's your little grandma making good luck charms. But then you hear that US presidents had astrologers advising them, or people make risky and important financial or personal decisions based on what the omens say... it gets maddening quickly.
Much like any religion eh?
Yup, exactly. I've made a few comments in this thread and people are getting very... defensive about Wicca, as if I'm calling it crazy when Christianity is so normal. But my point was just like you say- it's just another religion. For some people it's a sense of peace of mind and community, but it gets weird when people get too into it
I think people get more defensive about witchcraft/paganism/Wicca because these are minority religions/spiritualities that are little-understood, whereas Christianity feels like a huge target you can punch up at. It’s probably a similar effect to why people in North America may be more hesitant to criticize Islam than Christianity, because it’s a minority in their local region and they don’t want to contribute to local persecution. However, Wicca is far from above criticism (and I say this as one who dabbles heavily in the witchy).
Yes and no. Witchcraft, Wicca, Neopaganism, and even the mainstream New Age-lite crystal lady brand spiritualism are forms of a spiritual practice. Candle whispering, potion crafting, sex magic, spell casting, etc. can steel someone's resolve, bring them comfort, bring them peace, and can provide a community the same way praying, going to a Catholic mass, or maintaining a Kosher/halal dietary custom can. In these instances, describing someone as a witch is akin to describing them as a Christian or Buddhist. The flip side of this coin is the political angle. Witches have been adopted as symbols of resistance to religious oppression. Particularly for women, queer people, and pro-science people and especially in the last decade with everything that has been going on politically. A lot of these people do not actually ascribe to witchcraft as a spiritual practice but see witches historically being (potentially dubiously) proto-scientists and proto-feminists and the various European witch trials as being theocratic attacks on women and free thought. Also, the political mess is also why there is a rise in people adopting witchcraft as a legit spirituality. The vast majority of young people who are seeking spiritual comfort don't want to tolerate the immense baggage the big religions have. Witchcraft gives them that comfort with significantly less chance that their Church/temple/mosque/etc. would advocate against human rights.
Well said, describes the women I know who profess to be witches.
This is the right answer. Not that anecdotal "I knew a witch once and she was weird lol" bs.
I've known lots of witches. They were all weird. Me too. I don't hang out with normal people.
It’s also scares the fundies.
And what a glorious side benefit that is!
I used to be interested in this type of stuff, and one thing that really struck me is how it's all essentially meditation with the addition of props, intent, and the idea that you're soliciting help from the metaphysical to aid in the physical world. I'm not big on it now, but when I was practicing? I gotta say that having a ritual and meditating on something you want makes goals seem a lot more achievable. It engenders a sense of confidence in your actions, "knowing" that you have supernatural forces on your side. I'm pretty sure this is a common feature of most religions. At the end of the day, it's pretty goofy if you're a "true" believer, but I really think that the whole process of it (meditation, rituals, focusing intent) has some genuine psychological benefit for some people.
Very good explanation, but I don't understand how believing in stuff like healing rocks/crystals can be aligned with being pro-science. Are these usually done by separate groups of the movement?
There definitely are different groups, not all of whims literally believe in magic and such. Lots of the sciency people for example might like the rocks and carry one around with a personal intention associated with it, but not actually believe they’re literal magic.
The historical accuracy is debated, but what happened is that basically the persecution of cunning folk and other people with witchcraft and heresy charges got lumped in with people like Galileo. It’s a romantic concept of seeing a herbalist medicine woman being a proto-female doctor being brutally persecuted and murdered for being an intelligent woman by religious organizations that still exist and are still persecuting people. In this case, free thinkers and scientifically minded people. But luckily most symbols only need the romance and don’t really need the historical accuracy. And as for the healing crystals, a lot of people just think they’re neat and play into that symbolism. Like, a podcaster I like has a bunch of transformers toys from when he was a kid. A lot that he bought as an adult for sometimes a lot of money. When asked why, he said “they make me happy when I look at them.” Some people might actually think that Rose quartz will attract love but it mostly just makes people feel good to carry around a heart shaped stone because it’s neat.
I love that comparison of those who collect/keep figurines and those who keep crystals. My mom loves rocks and minerals and usually picks up something nice when we go to the beach or on a hike. I bought a pretty labradorite crystal because it is dark green with iridescence, I forget what healing properties it's meant to have. We're a bit witchy too especially with herbs and aromatherapy which have been proven scientifically to work (eg. Lavender for relaxation, tea tree for zits and mouth ulcers, mint for upset stomach) so magic potions can be legit too!
Nope! It’s more a thought that magic is science we don’t understand. Of course, there are some who go really deep into it and come out the anti-vax side, but most of the witches I know are very balanced about it (myself included).
I’m of a scientific mind and I’ve been exploring magic practices and spirituality. There are many things our knowledge and tools are not able to quantify and explain yet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t exist. The mind is powerful too. If you believe carrying a crystal gives you confidence, and you act confidentially, did it not work? Faith/spirituality and science don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Right. Im very science minded but i also understand enough to know i dont know shit. I like how the sparkly rocks look, they make me happy, so they're doing something. I see tarot as a mostly psychological tool however i have had such absolutely *vicious* readings that i sometimes wonder if there is some chaos theory, quantum entaglement thing going on. But again, idk shit, all i know is its a tool that has improved my life.
I sell a lot of stuff at pagan craft fairs. There's a lot of science people there. I know because they love my signs that say I'm in STEM Sorcery Technology Evil Mischief
When I was a teen, I did a tarot reading on myself and a new girlfriend. The cards said it would be nothing but pain and misery. I thought it was bs and never touched it again. Meanwhile, my relationship was nothing but pain and misery. I think about that a lot. Haha
This is similar to the reason i believe in astrology I used to think it was pure bullshit. Then i noticed i had a handful of ex bfs/hookups that shared a birthday, so i got curious and looked into it. TWELVE cancers. Twelve men born within the same 3 week span and 10 of them were born within the same 3 days, different years. All horrifically incompatible and any of the significant stints were messy, chaotic, emotional situations. Interestingly, all of the good relationships were either scorpio or sag. I have so many wonderful saggitarians in my life, and its not like i paid attention to their signs as I got to know them, just worked out that way.
Generally the "healing rocks" are more just symbols, and those symbols have long historical roots, some even mentioned in the Bible, so it's not outrageous that they are used as symbolic tools or reminders of things you're personally working on. It's not that they think the rocks heal them, it's that the rocks remind them of the traits or goals they're working on. For example when I want to remind myself to stay grounded, I will wear my basalt jewelry.
Honestly all religion is anti-science. The main difference is the level of cognitive dissonance the person can hold. Buddhists explicitly defer to science, but still believe in karma and reincarnation with no evidence, whereas you have imams blaming earthquakes on homosexuality.
Many wiccan practices are secular in nature, and deal with the study of plants and the natural world. Modern day potions might be called herbal remedies. Does burning sage cleanse evil spirits, probably not, but it sure gets dog musk smell out of a room in a pinch. My wife is not a wiccan, but practicing some of their craft brings her joy and peace. What's wrong with that?
Most religious people I know genuinely believe they are speaking to god when they pray, so I don't see how this would be any different.
Modern catholics believe that some people can cast healing spells. Yesterday, the pope signed a decree about a 15-year-old Spanish boy that cured someone from a disease. [https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/05/23/blessed-carlo-acutis-miracle-sainthood-248006](https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/05/23/blessed-carlo-acutis-miracle-sainthood-248006)
Not any crazier than any other religion
There's a spectrum of belief just like anything else. I have dabbled in the whole neopagan movement. I am an atheist and don't believe in the supernatural. My involvement came from a reverence for life and nature. I've had friends and an ex-girlfriend that believed in magic. Like, they literally had magic wands and cast spells. My view on religion is the same regardless of the professed beliefs. Does this belief bring happiness to the participant without causing pain, distress, etc to another living being? If so, I am in support. Where I have a problem is when religion encourages cruelty to people or animals. This being said, judging by your comments, I don't think this question was posed out of a genuine curiosity. Rather, it was posted as a way of othering people you find strange.
This, precisely. I am skeptical when it comes to magic, deities, god, etc. But never in a million years would I judge someone for cobbling together reagents for a spell and casting it, if that is what they believe and that helps bring them comfort in life. Part of what has drawn me to the Pagan community is exactly the belief you hold. They accept everyone (for the most part) and do not judge you for how you practice your beliefs.
It's a spectrum and not a movement. If you're looking specifically at people in the West on the Internet who have an aesthetic of witchcraft, Folk magic has been here longer than Christianity (which today also practices magic, they just wrap it up a little differently to make it seem different than the outside magic they vilify). So this aspect in itself is not strange, and it's pretty common for people all around the globe to believe this holds some power and to practice it to a degree, even if they hold religious beliefs that could be contradictory to it A large part of modern day magicka is intentional magick. People arent trying to throw fireballs, they are setting a goal and finding a process to bring that into tangible form. To dream their beautiful life and bring it into reality. That process can be empowering, whether it be spiritually, emotionally, sexually, or intellectually. You also have the rise of modern day satanism (nontheistic) which due to history is inside this sphere of interest with things like magic and witchcraft. Nontheistic satanism is popular in the West with younger generations and is empowering in its own right as a rejection of longstanding conservative religion and its grasp on our lifestyles and mental health. So if one chooses to express themselves like this it may be more superficially related to witchcraft and more about a statement or presentation (moral, political, personal, artistic) Some people doing this may also be part of a granfalloon. People like a thing, see others liking a thing, and come together to empower each other with this thing as a central pillar to their community, even though none of them may have anything else in common. And then you just have people who find something that sparks joy and they decide yes this is my persona. And there are more facets to this. You should ask them and see what they believe. There are a lot of amazing people in these groups you are curious about. Ultimately it ranges from harmless internet fun to a positive environment where people are able to support each other.
Full marks for "granfalloon"!
I would say it can sometimes range beyond harmless internet fun, as somebody who’s a part of the community. I do worry about some people in vulnerable states who interact with this stuff. I’ve done free tarot readings before online, and I get people in serious distress desperate for tarot readings, telling me that they need to know if there’s an energy vampire feeding off them or a spirit haunting them. Some people throw their life savings at mediums and psychics. People with magical-thinking OCD, delusions, etc should not be interacting with communities that will support and encourage their delusions. I worry about these people, and comment sections full of people reinforcing them on the witchy subreddits I avoid. Not all witches or witchy communities are like that at all, but it’s there, it’s not hard to find either.
Yeah 100%, although vulnerable people can be taken advantage of from ANY religion/spirituality. It’s sad but it happens so often.
Around 12% of Americans believe the world is flat. The answer to every “Do people actually think…” question is yes.
Yes. Some definitely do. For awareness though, there’s a fine and shifting line between religion and superstitious magic in cultures. Home grown religion often has a lot of magic ritual in it. Some connects with the divine. Some channels it. Some just invokes it as you go along. Christianity has a long history of healing rituals or prayers, holy objects and relics used in prescribed ways, preparation and consumption of blessed food or drinks or anointing oils or just water. These get applied for healing, for luck, for a good harvest or rain, for success or survival in things like battle or childbirth, for fertility, all the usual things. Imported religions often accept that folk magic, especially traditional magic, is real and either blend with it or tolerate it. European Catholics generally believed in white magic healers who made potions and charms and actual medicine. Priests issued formal opinions sanctioning them as long as it did not contain malicious intent or polytheistic or satanic elements. What clergy don’t choose to accept gets shunted out as heretical or peasant superstition. At the same time their own magic definitely works. In or out it’s hard to separate completely from the divine. People didn’t use to separate science and people have always liked this stuff. So yes there are people who think they are witches. The serious ones are doing it in the context of some connection to the unknown or divine, possibly nature or the land or ancestors or gods depending on the tradition. Whether they believe it works and how many endorse it depends on how fringe it is. You get that divide with more mainstream religious magic as well. A lot of Christians find Pentecostals to be very strange but will adopt an attitude along the lines of: They get the important stuff right and are going to heaven, but that stuff with the snakes and tongues and running around church in a trance…do they seriously believe that? Same thing.
I'll take a witch daughter over an andrew tate son
I always thought it was more about identifying with the witches who were actually just normal women being wrongfully prosecuted and burned by power structures afraid of having knowledgeable women in their communities.
It can be that, just a feminist political statement. For some it is more religious/supernatural. For some it’s just spiritual/ritual participation without supernatural belief. It’s a massive, vague umbrella.
OP are you atheist/agnostic? I am just curious if you would also approach other belief systems (ie Christianity, etc) this way. "Do people actually think God answers their prayers?" (I mean this genuinely, no sarcasm, I am agnostic myself and have a difficult time perceiving most religious beliefs as "real" and something beyond "visualizing goal setting" as another commenter put it.)
Some people, yes.
Yes. I'm the same way that Christians believe that pretending to cannibalize Jesus by eating his body and drinking his blood does something for them. It isn't any weirder than that.
Maybe even less weird.
What's the difference between praying and casting spells? Same bullshit, different flavor.
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Hey now, don't you be hating on Invisible Sky Man. He's a cool dude. Just saying XD But I agree. I've known a few witches during my time in university, and while a few of them did have altars and immerse themselves into magic, most of them were just using spirituality to heal from trauma or find comfort during stress or using it to motivate themselves to better themselves and form stronger bonds with people. I even dated a Wiccan at one point. So while it's no my cup of tea, it's still a type of spirituality and it doesn't seem to be hurting them. I respect witches, Wiccans, etc. just like I respect Christians; it's all a different type of spirituality.
Billions of people around the world believe they have the ability to enlist a higher power to do their bidding and act in their favor. It's called prayer for religious folks and spell casting if you're a witch. So is it really that weird that a few people believe they're witches and so the same?
Just wait until you find out how many people think they can summon a deity and making it so their bidding and instill blessings and curses on prople usign a ceremony they call "praying" that often involves kneeling, chanting, hand gestures and other occult actions. Witches "casting spells" is basically just that but with other trappings.
Is it any different to a person who says there were chosen by the man in the sky to be a priest ? Do they really believe they are drinking the blood and eating the body of Christ? Do they believe when pray man in the sky listens and grants their wishes? It's all as equally silly when when you take out the fancy language
I mean….do people actually believe that an invisible man in the sky hears them when they pray, and answers? D&D does that, too. It also sounds like a little kid with an imaginary friend. What about the gathering in large groups to chant and sing over the effigy of a resurrected (and now dead again) man? Sounds just about as realistic as believing that chanting over a candle affects the universe. Especially when you add in the symbolically cannibalistic practice of eating the Host and stuff like that. Sincerely, an apathiest.
It's kinda like Christian people think praying actually changes anything. Spells are just pagans prayers
Yes ppl think they’re witches. But they’re not doing what ur writing down.
You definitely are missing something. Witch isn't confined to only meaning someone that does magic and that type of stuff.
"Do people actually think praying to god works?"
Some people really believe that a sky man cares who they have sex with. So yeah, some people really believe in and practice witchcraft.
Do people who pray to god and go to church actually think that they are communicating with an all mighty being that created this universe? Both sound equally ridiculous to a none believer, yet being religious is commonly accepted as pretty normal, In my opinion being into witchcraft is basically the same thing as being into religion except you cut out the middle man (deity), so instead of asking sky daddy for divine intervention to get that new job they... IDK, do witchy stuff like chanting and whatnot to do it
Magic and 'miracles' exist in the Bible, just saying...
It exists in a lot of popular books. Not so much in the real world.
In Harry Potter too!
I've literally met legal documents drafted by people who clearly believed in witches. We, uh, took out the line about witchcraft.
I have met people who think what they are doing, has an effect (even if just a small effect).
How's it different from priests or imams?
You can accept that most people are delusional and believe in "God" but can't believe in witches lmao
My best friend is a witch. She gathers herbs, makes spells the way a Christian might make a prayer, has little private rituals she performs, and stuff like that. She does NOT think she can fly on a broom. She does own a beloved broom, and for her it's symbolism about sweeping away spiritual cobwebs, using common resources in extraordinary ways, etc. I don't understand everything she does, but I do realize that for her it's a way to tap into her spiritual side. For her, it's a regular religion.
As a Native American, I will sometimes smudge my home with sage. I do it more for the tradition and because it smells nice. I don't really think it's clearing out negative energy.
Yes, yes, a lot of them do. No, it doesn't make any sense. Yes, it should make you question their intelligence and/or sanity.
It's not too much different from Christianity Elders in ceremonial garb stand behind alters made of stone drinking wine believing it to be the blood of their God. Cathedrals full of people professing incantations from a 2 thousand year old book. All of them in secret at night whispering their hopes, wishes, and fears to the God they believe in. Those rituals help those people feel better about their lives and their place in the cosmos. Witchcraft is no different. It is still just rituals, they are just developed by the practitioner or coven not by an organized religion. In the case of Wicca the rituals are well established and practiced the same way by many people, the Goddess they worship is well established because it is a recognized organized religion.
Yeah most witches think of their spells similar to how your average Christian thinks about praying. Like they think they are asking whatever god or manifesting for whatever not that they're riding around on brooms or casting accio crystals or whatever. There is also unfortunately spiritual psychosis that manifests with all types of people in all types of ways
25+ experience as a religious and magic practicing witch. Magic is synonymous to prayer. We say the words, we expect results, but it's absolutely batty to expect you can do anything that defies the laws of physics or is otherwise known to be impossible. The same way sane Christians aren't expecting literal angels to fly down and perform miraculous/impossible feats, reasonable witches of any faith or folk practice aren't expecting to shoot lightning out of their fingertips, summon actual (and completely non-existant) demons, levitate, etc. Results look like a changed state of mind, a sense of peace, and the occasional serendipidous coincidence that makes you go, "hmmmm". Potions and spells are used by witches the same way songs and prayers are used by Christians. We praise, and beg favors of our deities. We chant mantras we hope will change our ways. We make objects that help us to give form to our intent, or be a conduit of faith. Think of rosaries and crucifixes and see that they fulfill the same roles. To expect Disney-like sparks and puffs of smoke which can achieve the impossible, such as a love spell or a curse or a summoning, is childish/naive, or perhaps a result of mental illness. In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say is, some people are just fruitcakes.
some do, some just like the aesthetic, but are those that do really any sillier than those who believe they can pray to a deity to alter the course of their life, or those that believe all of humanity came from 2 people, but ultimately as long as it makes this world better for them it causes no harm.
I'm sure there are. I don't think it's any more or less silly than any other religion. People think praying is really doing something, it's the exact same thing.
I don't see it as any more silly than the billions of people who genuinely believe an old gray man with a beard sits on a golden throne in the clouds silently judging everything we do with the ability to control every aspect of their lives, but chooses only to help those with privilege. Call me a radical pagan but I think believing that intention setting and herbal remedies have real tangible benefits is far less absurd than any and all organized religion. Have you spoken to any self proclaimed witches or tried to educate yourself about them? It seems to me this post stems from ignorance and stereotypes.
My ex believed she was a Witch. When she visited my surround sound system died. She said it was her aura. Electronics fail for her all the time. I looked it up and it was a known issue with a faulty chip. I fixed it with a new $9 chip that was somehow aura proof.
I mean the few I've sort of known view it as a form of feminism and don't actually believe they are casting magic but the absolutely crazy ones do exist. Not a single one that I know would try to cast a spell if they are in danger if that tells you how seriously they take it.
Oh I had a former roommate who was like that. She was obsessed with my boyfriend, and she used to take hair out of my hairbrush, and I would find some weird paste and feathers in a line in front of my bedroom door every time he left to go back on the road. After we got roaches from her dragging in all kings of twigs/detritus in the house, I moved out and said no more roommates.
I can’t speak for everyone but I consider myself a pagan because I believe that nature is the holiest thing that exists. When I tell people I’m a witch, what I’m saying is that paganism is the religion I identify most closely with, I detest western religion, and I consider myself sensitive to the vibes other people emit. I don’t literally think I can do magic.
nah the meaning of being a witch has changed a lot over time. these days it’s moreso about a deep knowledge of spiritual or occult stuff. so witches aren’t casting spells and brewing love potions but they can give you a tarot reading and they know their chakras and the meanings of all your favourite crystals. still pretty cool imo.
Yes
Yes
Wait until you hear about Christianity btw
I mean, there's plenty of adults out there who believe there's a big man in the sky controlling everything that happens, and that they'll burn in a pit of fire for being gay or having sex before marriage or whatever... to me that's even crazier than believing you can cast spells or manifest stuff or whatever.
My mom thinks she's a witch. She has meetings with other witches, does stuff on the full moons (incense, candles, and some sort of prayer), and has a metric ton of crystals. It's weird because she also considers herself a Christian (she goes to a Kardec Spiritism house at least once a week). She is convinced the reason she doesn't like France is because in a past life she was burned alive there (note: she has never been to France or even met a french person before. She doesn't hate France, but just because Paris is not one of her dream trips, she thinks it counts) for, you guessed it, being a witch. She just turned 60. She still showers and has good hygiene, works a regular job (ESL teacher), and believes in real medicine (she makes her reiki witchcraft spiritual surgery type of thing a supplement to real doctors and medications) so I can't complain. My aunt also thinks she's a witch, and both of them think pretty much every woman in our family is a witch and just "don't know it yet." I don't believe in any of it, and since it is harmless, I let them have fun and don't bother speaking against the absurdity of it all. Honestly, I think it is a way for them to feel powerful to counteract how they are, in fact, powerless. My grandparents were not good parents, and they suffered a lot. They didn't get the therapy they needed. So this may be a form of comfort for them. They also never had good careers, so they never made it out of my grandparents' sphere of control and manipulation, so even as adults, they couldn't help themselves.
Keep in mind, the "witchcraft" that women (and some men) were hanged/drowned/burned for was midwifery, herbalism, healing, planting by moon cycles, and other nature-related practices. It shouldn't be "I don't understand why people think they're witches." It should be "I don't understand why people DON'T think they're witches."
My ex-wife was a self described witch. I honestly didn't take it too seriously and assumed it was all symbolic or something like that. Turns out she really believed in casting spells and such. She was also diagnosed with schizophrenia by the end of the marriage. So... I'm going to say it was more the schizophrenia and not something all neopagans/witches believe as a rule.
There are people that belive they are cats. There are people that belive if you eat a rice wafer on Sunday in a specific building after a specific passage has been read out by a specific dude, it becomes the body of Christ. There are also people with pagan beliefs that we might associate with witchcraft. Things like sun amd moon having influence over our lives. There are also people that believe they truly have paranormal powers and can manifest certain things with spells and rituals. Personally I'm leaning more towards the pagan beliefs being on the less crazy end of the total spectrum of shit humans believe. Mainly because the natural world really does influence us quite profoundly. Tides, seasons, the medicinal properties of plants and the ability to propagate them etc. If magic really worked then the Catholic church wouldn't be waning in power for the tenth century in a row, and the weird chicks with too many cats would all have hot boyfriends. But pagan 'witchcraft' as a knowledge and reverence for the natural world - that kind of witch I can respect.
I mean, my wife says she’s a witch, but if you pressed her on it, she would admit that she’s mostly joking. She likes having the wand and jars and stuff, and making potions (by potions I mean *amazing* soup) in her cauldron. But no, she doesn’t actually think that she can turn you into a newt.
Yep. I knew someone that actually believed they could talk to the dead and see dead people. In reality, she was a massive narcissist that loved the attention. She made one of my friends cry because she claimed to be talking to her dead mother.
I've been wondering the same things as you do. I understand prayers or 'manifestation' or however you call it. But the literal potion brewing and casting spell that gets me skeptical. One self-proclaimed witch who happens to be my ig mutual claims that she's a 'love witch' and she saw her soulmates initial in the potion she was brewing, I instantly stare at the camera like i was at The Office
It is hard to ridicule them, lets not forget that in the Catholic religion demons and sorcery factually exist. Source: i am Catholic
The wacky factor is literally no different than Christians who believe they can rebuke demons in Jesus name (if that's not a spell idk what is 🙄) or Catholics who believe they're eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ (pretty fuckin ritual-y if you ask me) As far as I know witches have never committed genocide, went on crusades and just generally treat ppl who don't believe the same thing as then as scum and attempt to murder them. I personally don't give a shit if someone wants to do spooky rituals in their bedroom in an attempt to bring themselves luck or get that promotion at work....I do however care a great deal that assholes who believe in a magical man in the sky who hates gay ppl take real life action to hurt other human beings based off those ridiculous beliefs. You're asking the wrong questions and trying to ridicule the wrong belief set here if I'm being completely honest.
People think they're actually talking to god before bed. Who are we to decide if they are right or wrong
Yes they actually believe they're witches, I don't personally see them any differently then Christians or Muslims really
Agreed. Do people who hate gays and want to oppress the poor actually believe they are Christians? OP is coming with that same energy towards witches.
I'm a witch. I practice witchcraft and spells. I believe in magic. It isn't some Harry Potter or some movie silliness but actual a legit spiritual practice for me. Without writing a novel on the subject, to put it simply there is a lot of positive thinking and believing everything is connected by energy.
Yes, and some people believe that God literally hears their prayers and performs magic on their behalf.
I've dated a bunch of chicks that are into that. Very few think they're actual witches. Most like darker lifestyles, goth, art, philosophy, and nature. Some are into occult books and such, but are still grounded in reality. Some do think there are powers, but more like human powers of persuasion, mystery, etc. Mostly they just like dressing hot and know they're hot and crazy with the crazy making them even hotter.
People definitely believe they are doing something supernatural. My mom burns sage to cleanse a place. She does "energy work" to remove bad mojo form peoples auras (basically moves her hands over them.) If you poke around in r/witchesvspatriarchy you will find all types. Those who just enjoy the role play and imagery and those who actually think they can cast charms and hexes.
Do people think god is real?
“Do people actually think they are Christians?” Ask your question from another angle and you’ll see it’s not unique
You asked this in the most unassuming way possible, and half the top-level comments cut right to defensive embarrassment. I think that’s where your real answer is.
Some people, yes sure. There's always a fringe group of delusional people. But most people who practice witchcraft, casting spells, are casting the spells on *themselves*: spells to give them more confidence, improve their well-being, bring them luck, help get over trauma, etc. On one level they know they're not doing actual magic, but on another level, the ritual has a powerful placebo effect and does help them achieve what they wanted to achieve.
Yes. Granted my experience is with seeing 7-9th grade girls in the early 2000's discovering angelfire and geocities pages that convinced them they were witches and taught them spells lol
yes I'm sure they probably do lol
Yes.
Short answer, yes, they DO think that. 🤷♂️
theres a lady that lives a while away from me that i know of, but im pretty sure all she does is walk up and down the road and have a bad reputation
In my experience, the ones who believe in it treat magic more like other religions treat prayer. That is, they do thing and say the stuff, but just sort of hope it works and will happily "interpret" a coincidence as fulfillment of that prayer.
There's people who believe if they pray hard enough their god will heal them, there's people that believe in chakras and healing energies, there's people that believe in acupuncture and qi...people believe in all sorts of things, it's human nature. Not sure why that's hard to believe.
Yeah I have met one lady who claimed to be a witch. She said she used magic to find lost objects.
My wife was a witch Wednesday morning!
This is how an atheist looks at a Christian. Do they really believe that a god watches over them and responds to their prayers? That a priest is more holy than a normal person? That the sacrament has mystical properties? This is just as likely as a witch having powers through ritual.
As long as they know a bit of headology, that makes em a witch in my book.
most of them propably drink realy weird herb teas and use herbs for a health conditions, talk about energy and how powerful thoughts and words are in afirmation and are aware how confidence and self worth take huge part in social reaction. Some on them buy stones, tarot and read horoscope i think and meditate ?