Picking Up Your Broom

THE MIND

Who Are the Witches?

Before you can take your broomstick for a test drive, there are some basics we need to cover. In chapter one, you will find a basic overview of the most important things you will need to know before you start your journey. This will serve as your golden ticket as we head out of the station. It is important for you to remember that this book's focus is eclectic Wicca whilst you are reading the information shared. Remember that most can be customised and designed to suit you, your needs, your likes and dislikes. Very few things are set in stone, and that is the beauty of the faith. It is absolutely, without omission, yours and yours alone.

What is Wicca?

Wicca is the fastest growing spiritual practice in the United States of America and in Europe. I believe that is because those who follow Wicca and use it can see physical evidence that it actually works. In a nutshell, Wicca does what it says on the tin. There is no putting your faith into elements of creation that you cannot see, feel or touch. There is no dependence on anyone but yourself to create your own reality and live in the world you desire to live in. You need not even leave the comfort of your own home to study, practice and master the art that is Wicca.

You do not have to follow a hierarchy or be told "the right way" to worship and practice your personal beliefs. You finally get to experience, speak to and hear back from the divinity within yourself and the universe. It's a way of finally opening up your eyes and seeing the truly sacred in existence, not just in certain places but absolutely everywhere in the world. It's a way to practice and live true in your faith with every breath you take, and the most rewarding thing is you don't have to listen to anyone but yourself. Wicca is a pathway to the divine.

Many say that Wicca is not about believing something in particular but about experiencing what is actually right in front of you. There is no element of blind faith in Wicca where you have to trust really hard that something exists somewhere despite the fact that you know you will never ever have that idea confirmed completely. Wicca is about experiencing the divine within yourself and the universe. Having a genuine and undeniable connection. When I was very young I had a friend that told me she wasn't religious because she didn't believe in anything she couldn't see. I accepted her views as she accepted mine, and we got along just fine. She stumbled one day when she realised she had never seen a dinosaur or the solar system in a fathomable way to the human mind. There were too many things she knew existed despite never actually seeing them for herself. My young friend was not believing in the solar system, but experiencing it first hand from first- person perspective of a human being living on the planet earth.

She wasn't certain what each and every planet looked like, what stars were entirely, the shapes, sizes and speeds at which everything moved. She could research to her hearts content but would still only be left with beliefs based on what others had said and recorded. Instead, she was happy to simply experience the solar system for what she personally could see to be ultimate truth. Wicca is a faith based on the truth of the experience. Much like gravity, you do not believe it, you know it exists, and you experience it every second of the day. But that doesn't mean you completely understand all concepts of it or how it came to exist originally. The journey of Wicca lies in the adventure of discovery: the studies, the observations, the lessons. No one graduates from Wicca. There is no base Wiccan, intermediate or high level Wiccan. All followers are equal. The only difference is a higher number of years living with your eyes wide open and experiencing reality for what it truly is.

Unlike a lot of religions, it's highly encouraged to question the universe and what you are being told is true. It helps you grow spiritually and mentally. Wicca urges you to challenge the divinity inside of you and out in the universe. It permits you to try and find the hidden camera or who's pulling the strings of puppetry. Wiccans crave to learn and know truth is all things. Know thyself to know what you truly believe from the bottom of your heart based on real experiences. Trust thyself to trust every experience you have and be brave enough to stand by it despite what today's society tells you is or isn't impossible.

What Is a Witch?

One of the most common questions I get asked is what is a witch? There are so many mystical, strange and confusing rumours that surround the topic, not to mention a certain level of stigma that is still associated with the term today. A witch is a practitioner of the craft of Magick. You may find that until this moment in time you have associated the term witch with a pointy hat, broomstick and green skin. Am I close? Well, I am sorry to destroy the fantasy, but it is something quite different altogether. I often wear a hat to keep my head warm, my skin only turns green when I wear cheap jewellery and as for a broom, I much prefer vacuum cleaners, personally.

Many people today are still scared of witches. This fear stems from many years ago when the puritans associated witchcraft with the devil, and anyone accused of practicing witchcraft would more often than not meet a very unpleasant end. Un truth, most people ruthlessly killed as witches had nothing to do with the craft at all. Often congregations would cry witch if they took distaste to a certain member or family. Women who spoke up or whose opinions differed from those of a man were also condemned to death as a witch. Once a victim had been labelled a witch, there was very little they could actually do to save their lives. Often, they were asked to provide names of other witches and heavily tortured with grotesque devices until a name should leave their lips. Very often, innocent people were accused in this way not through malice but just so that the prisoner could find the sweet release of death in the gallows and leave the torturous houses of pain behind them. All who fell prey were labelled as being in league with the devil. If they did nothing they would die, and if they acted out they would be killed for disrespecting the Church.

In Wicca there is no belief in the Devil at all — there is no belief in Hell or in Heaven — and so not only is Wicca not associated with the Devil, it is a religion that does not recognise the existence of Satan at all. A Wiccan witch can be defined as a nature-loving human of any gender who includes the practice of the craft into their lives. They acknowledge the divinity within the universe and within themselves. They acknowledge the changing seasons and the wheel of the year. Wicca is a religion in which its followers are witches. However, not all witches follow Wicca.

You may find yourself wondering: where are all these witches I speak of? Where can you find one? Where can you see one? How can you meet a real witch? The chances are, my friend, you have met thousands. We do not look or act a certain way. We do not have special costumes or wear all black to locate each other in public forums. I can all but guarantee someone at your local supermarket is a Wiccan, someone on the local hospital staff, someone in the care home where your friend's grandmother lives. Wiccans are everywhere, and just like you and I they blend into society easily. This is not a disguise. This just is. Wicca is a religion like any other, but instead of using houses of worship we worship in our gardens, in forests and mountains. Instead of reading from one particular rule book we follow basic rules and write our own books, known as a Book of Shadows, where we detail our most proud and personal practices.

There is a witch stereotype that we all wear black and skulk around, and I am sure there are witches who look that way. But there are also millions of members of other religions who do the same. To assume a Wiccan has a certain look is to assume all Christians dress in sandals and robes. Another stereotype is that we are all hippies: we smell of incense and cannabis and wear paisley organic clothing and protest animal cruelty as proud vegans. Again, it is very possible that some Wiccan witches do this, I know a few myself, but that is certainly not all of us. I know Wiccan hairdressers. solicitors, book makers, archaeologists, postal delivery service workers, police officers, exotic dancers and tree surgeons. Wiccan witches do not fit into a neat little box with a bow on top, just as no one else does. When you find yourself hunting for a witch and desiring to find one, you may find it more useful simply to ask.

Witchcraft is a pre-Christian indigenous religion of the British Isles and the Celtic countries which included Ireland, France, Germany and Northern Italy. It can be called a religion, as it is actively practiced by a group of people, and it can also be called a spiritual path because it is actively practiced by the individual.

The Natural World

Nature, within Wicca, is classed as a sacred home. The Earth is honoured as a Goddess: as Gaia, Mother Earth, Mother Nature and by many other names. The Earth creates and houses all life, not just the human kind, and provides us with the life sources we need to exist. When we destroy the natural world, we destroy ourselves, our heritage, our ancestry and our future.

Some Wiccans believe that all living things (including stars, planets, humans, animals, plants, rocks) have a spirit of some type. Many Wiccan rituals deal with bringing harmony and healing to nature. As a direct result of this, a vast majority of Wiccans share a great concern for the environment. Many Wiccans believe the universe is our creator, and yet it exists inside of us all. Meaning that when we damage ourselves we chip away at the universal divine source, too.

Many celebrate the gendered and sexual polarity of nature. For example, the fertilizing rain is one manifestation of the male principle; the nurturing Earth symbolizes The female. Wicca is a very peaceful, harmonious and balanced religion that promotes oneness with the divine in which all exists. There is a deep appreciation and awe in watching the morning sunrise, the moonlight piercing through the branches of the bare winter trees, and the dew on freshly cut grass. To truly love nature, one must truly love themselves and vice versa. If all exists within the universe and the universe exists within ourselves, then we cannot live harmoniously with Gaia if we are at each other's throats or our own. Self-love is taken seriously within the faith because it is believed that unless you can grow to understand, accept and appreciate the divine within yourself, you will not fully appreciate it outside of yourself. What would be the point of loving the environment and destroying yourself? The same could be said for loving yourself and destroying your environment.

Nature is the embodiment of the sacred divine. It is the cloak the Goddess wears to shield herself from the cold, the carpet the God walks on as he takes his throne, the bed the Goddess lays on to bear her child, and the grave the God lays to rest in. The natural world weeps spiritual wisdom globally. By working in harmony with nature and learning from nature, holding our rituals along the lunar cycle, and celebrating our joyous sabbat occasions with the cycle of the sun in the wheel of the year, we actually grow naturally. Our consciousness develops. Our connection to the source of the divine — the source of all energy — deepens, and we understand so much more about the world and ourselves as a result.

Divination

Divination is one of the best ways a Wiccan can pay attention to the messages that the universal divine sends to you to help guide you along your way. It is a way of engaging or conversing with the God and Goddess, and you will find that almost every indigenous culture uses some form of divination. The method of divining is entirely the choice of the witch, and you need not restrict yourself to just the one form of divining. Commonly, Wiccans are associated with using runes, pendulums, tarot cards, oracle cards, reading palms, reading tea leaves, scrying, astrology and so many more. You can even create your own ways. Divination is not so much about how you communicate as how you learn to interpret the messages you receive. It is a way to truly see that the universe, just like you and I, is a conscious, interactive life-source. It has awareness and is awake. The divine is an energy just waiting to be tapped into by all that exist within the universe.

When you cast a spell and you find yourself unhappy or disappointed with the results, it may be because the timing was off when you cast it, or that the desire you had in the present moment of casting did not harmoniously align with the plan set out for you. If you were to use divination before casting the spell, you would receive a message allowing you to understand this and guiding you in a more suitable direction for your highest good.

There are many ways to use divination, some very common like the ones listed below and some extremely uncommon. These are the most commonly practised forms of divination within Wicca.

The Divine View

The view of the divine within Wicca is generally theistic and tends to include a Goddess and a God. The theme of polarity is common in Wicca, especially represented with gender, often emphasised as total opposites yet equal in every way. There are certain types of Wicca that only worship the Goddess or the God rather than regarding them as equally important parts of worship. Some Wiccans are polytheists and choose to worships many different Gods and Goddesses that come from one or several different Pagan pantheons of belief. There are Wiccans who are both polytheistic and duotheistic. Many will honour, respect and converse with several different deities whilst choosing to only worship one God and one Goddess. There is no hard rule that says how exactly your worship must take place or who it is you must worship. Many Wiccans will worship many Deities throughout their lives at different times depending on the situations they find themselves in and circumstances they are working with. Some Wiccans simply view the universe as the overall divine source and, to avoid confusion, break that term down into female and male attributes, referring to them as "God" and "Goddess," but simply meaning the universe has polarity within itself that can be best described in the knowledge we hold as masculine and feminine.

Unlike many belief systems you may have come across in your life so far, eclectic Wicca allows you to paint your own canvas. This may seem strange and lacking structure, but it is in fact quite the opposite. Every second you exist, you change, grow and develop. Of course it goes quite unnoticed on such a small scale, but who amongst us can say we are the same now as we were this time ten years ago, five years ago or even this time last year? Every experience we have moulds us in one way or another: every death, every birth, every relationship, every break-up. But it isn't just the big things. If you do one workout at home using full water bottles as weights, then your body has started changing even though you cannot see it on the outside. Every time you eat a bite of food you change. Every conversation, even idea or thought that pops into your head, sculpts you for the rest of your life with or without your permission. Some changes are very subtle, and some are glaringly obvious to all. It is very hard, if not impossible, to find one size that fits all in a world where our technology is out of date before we learn how to use it properly, in an existence where we have such radically different opportunities, laws and lives depending on which part of the world we travel to. Many of us have faith and desire a connection with Gaia, Mother Earth, but we simply don't wish to be told which way we can and cannot converse with her. Some religions of our planet created special houses for their worship, and I think many will agree when I praise the beauty of the sanctuaries they create. But the Wiccan's house is the Earth itself. No building is necessary to commune with the nature that exists within us and around us. Wiccans often prefer the freedom of intimate associations with the Moon or Sun as opposed to a statue, but that doesn't mean Wiccans have no structure at all.

There is much freedom in the nature of the craft. This means that no one witch will fall into a perception of a stereotypical, structured ways of worship, belief and practicing. Many witches belong to traditions within Wicca, but this does not mean they all believe the same things. A tradition is simply the way in which you choose to practice your craft, but your practice is yours alone, and your connection to nature, the universe, the Deities and all that comes with it will always be customised for your truth.

Unlike following football here in the United Kingdom, connecting to Deity is not like picking your local team to support. A Greek man or woman might find themselves connected to the Deities of the Greek pantheon; they may worship Aphrodite and Zeus. However, they may find they connect better to a Roman pantheon, Celtic, Egyptian and so on. No one need follow a pantheon of Deities simply because it is connected to their homeland, though this may be what fuels their personal connection.

I myself, born and bred in the heart of England, find deep connections to many Norse, Roman, Egyptian and Greek and occasionally Celtic Deities. I have not travelled to all of these places, nor do I have family connections to them all. I cannot explain what it is that pulls me to the Deities I have connected with thus far on my journey. There is no rhyme or reason, but the connection is ever strong and true within my heart and soul.