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   Hello, Wiccurioses and Witchynauts! Welcome to this secret passage!

 

   Today we are going to talk about something that I get asked very often on my social networks and that is how to start our path in the beautiful spiritual tradition of Wicca.

 

   First of all, no witches, no, I don't know of any coven that I can recommend in your area, unless you live in Palermo, Italy or London, England. There is a Facebook group called Gardnerian Wicca Seekers and Initiates and it has an updated list of all the Gardenian covens from different parts of the world. There is also a page called Mandragora Magika that also has a listing in the “Find a group” option. I clarify this because it is the first question you ask me when you write to me for queries; that and what books I recommend starting with, but we will get to that point later. 

 

   Now, let's start with the real tips. Witchcraft is nothing if not practical, one can read a lot and become what some call an “armchair magician” which is someone who has read a lot but has not done anything with it, but that is not the point of witchcraft, the point of witchcraft is to develop power and improve your life (individual and collectively), therefore reading will help you, of course, and it is absolutely useful but it is useful as long as it is used for something, if not you are simply improving your general culture, not learning magick. So let's review step by step which are the practices that will make it easier for you, little by little, to achieve more powerful rituals.
 

 Visualize

This is a basic technique every witch must master. All magic is governed by the law of as above, so below and that means that for every aspect of this reality, there is an astral parallel. Whether we are aware of that astral plane or not, we generally find ourselves at its mercy but the moment we can visualize we stop being a by-product of it and become co-creators, more likely not at a god level, but the more we practice visualisation, the better effect we have on that plane.

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   In what ways can we improve our visualization? Mainly by meditating, guided meditations are usually very useful when it comes to improving our visualization capacity, but I also have to clarify that the word visualization is a bit metaphorical since visualizing in magical terms does not always refer to seeing images with your mind, Sometimes visualizing consists of thinking that you are licking a lemon and letting the body react as if it were true or allowing yourself to open to hearing the voices of your guides (although this also falls into the area of ​​channelling). Everything that has to do with expanding the perception of our senses to astral planes belongs perfectly to the practice of visualization. Also understanding that it will not be with the physical senses that we are going to perceive most of our experiences but with the senses of the soul and of the mind.

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Clean

   Having a space (both bodily and external) that is energetically clean (and physically as well) is essential to advance in magical practices. I'm going to tell you how I do it but I think that each person should explore until they find the way that resonates the most and finds results. To clean the environment, I have tried smudging with various herbs (from rosemary to palo santo) and the one that has worked best for me is sage. I also use it to clean new tarot decks. Cleansing my body and space with sage is, in my opinion, the best remedy against any energy overload or bad vibes. Still, since sage has a not-very-friendly smell, I recommend finishing the smudging by passing over it some other herbs that are more pleasant to you. 

 

   Other alternatives that witches usually use are putting salt in the water that they will use to clean the floors, making a sound bath with a bowl or bells, putting crystals such as selenite or desert rose in the corners, entrances or in your body and doing reiki.

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Protect

   Having a clean space is the first precaution that we must keep in mind when starting magical practice, the next is to protect ourselves. Like cleansing, protecting yourself will allow the connection between your will, your goals, and the ritual itself to remain as pure as possible, not pure as in innocent but as in chemical language, in which the degree of purity refers to not being diluted or interfered with by external forces, pure in this context is synonymous with concentrated. Therefore, if at any point you feel that your ability to concentrate during visualization exercises decreases, pay attention to whether your space or your body needs cleaning or protection.

 

   How can we protect ourselves? There are also many ways. We can imagine that a bubble begins to grow from the centre of our body and with each breathing cycle that bubble strengthens and expands until it is above our head and below our point of support. That bubble looks golden, iridescent or shiny from the inside, but from the outside, it looks black and does not allow others to glimpse what is inside. While you are inside, try to remember moments in which you have felt safe and at peace. Let's breathe with peace of mind and the feeling that no one can hurt us and with the certainty that everything in our day is going to turn out well. We can inhabit that bubble for as long as necessary (or as long as our itinerary allows us to) and finally start feeling that bubble compress until attaches to our skin and merges with it, in such a way that even if we do not see it, it is still there throughout the day while we continue our lives regularly. This same technique can be applied to the space one inhabits and leave the bubble attached to the internal walls of our space.

 

   Another form of protection is to carry tiger's eye crystals with us as it is an old protection secret of witches, you can also use jade.

 

   Any visualization that involves a shield of some kind also helps, but it is better if that shield does not block everything but only what is of no use to us.
 

Create an astral temple

   As I said before, as above, so below, something that will help you a lot to give strength to your rituals is to create an astral temple. The more detailed that temple is in your mind, the better results it will give. You can draw the plan of the temple on paper, you can have a board on Pinterest with images that help them visualize what you want in it, you can generate images through artificial intelligence that help you with that visualization and you can study the architecture of ancient temples. The important thing is that you take the time necessary to make it feel as real as possible and that you do a visualization with it before starting a ritual to feel that this ritual not only is happening on this plane but on that one as well.

 

   Astral creations are sustained and gain power by nourishing them with presence, so I also strongly recommend going to the astral temple when we simply want to practice meditations and visualizations. You can also create a magical passage to reach it, this can be a mirror, a book, a sigil, a photo or a painting, the idea is that you start the meditation in the room you are in and little by little see how you get into the astral realm through some of these aforementioned elements. You can also do it even more fantastically by feeling that your body becomes a star that rises to the heavens and then descends over the astral realm to gradually materialize into humans again. The limits are practically none when it comes to visualization, but it is important to prioritize those methods that work best for you.

 

   Some useful questions when creating an astral temple are the following: is it dedicated to a God or Goddess? Is the roof closed or open? Where is the altar located? How are the four elements present? Does it have only a single room? If there is more than one room, where is/are the other/s? Are they on the same level, above or below ground? Where do you keep your magic tools? Do you have books? Which ones? How many people fit in it? What landscape is it immersed in? Is it on a beach, forest, or mountain? Does it have windows? Do animals live there? What colour are the walls, floor and ceiling? What material is the altar made of? Well, I think you have enough questions, I hope they help.

 

Invite a Goddess to join you

   Is it necessary to work with Goddesses to be a Wiccan? Yes, not to be a witch but it’s absolutely needed to be a Wiccan, we Wiccans work with Goddesses and it is part of our ritualistic structure, but that doesn’t mean that to perform pagan or witchcraft acts of magic you need to work with Goddesses, it is only relevant for Wicca.

 

   Why is it necessary to work with a Gods in Wicca? Even though I am not in Gerard Gardner’s head to be able to answer that question for sure, from experience I can say that generally has to do with three elements: the first is that Wicca is a reconstruction of several pagan practices (with some poetic licenses) and Gods in the pagan world have a strong presence and predominance. The second element is that Wicca tries to rescue, revalue and resignify the Feminine Divinity by adapting it to the current times, and trying to encompass it in its entirety is almost impossible for a simple mortal, which is why studying aspects of that Divinity through Pagan Goddesses helps to cover it more feasibly. Finally, the Goddesses are the archetypal representation of a power that humans have lost and therefore working with them helps us connect with areas within us with a power that is difficult to reach.

 

   How do we invite a Goddess to our practice? This is a difficult question to answer because it requires some clarification and taking the magical practice to a slightly higher level. The word witchcraft is composed of the word witch and the word craft; Therefore the work of a witch necessarily requires creativity. There are of course books with rituals that other witches have made and you can use them, but creating our rituals contains a power that should not be underestimated.

 

   A few years ago, while I was in Italy, I decided to do a ritual to call seven Goddesses to support my magical practice, one Goddess for each chakra, having studied what each chakra meant, I sought Goddesses according to that meaning. I'm not going to provide much detail about the ritual because I don't want you to copy it but rather find your own way. In general terms, the ritual consisted of lying on the floor naked and surrounded by candles, pouring different oils related to Goddesses on each chakra to activate it and reciting a phrase I had created to call each of them. While I did the first chakras I did not feel any change but when I reached a specific chakra that I assigned to the Goddess Isis, I heard her voice and she told me to end the ritual since from that moment on I would work with her and her only, a reality that lasted for about 3 years, since later I incorporated two other Goddesses into my practice.

 

   This is simply one of many examples of what you can do. Other people do an open ritual, which means that they do a ritual expressing the desire for a Goddess to manifest and after a few months they begin to see some animals or plants repeatedly as signs, when they research what they mean and they discover that the signs belongs to a Goddess in particular.

 

   Once you find your deity, if you can't get a statuette of her to put on your altar, make a sign with her name or a drawing of her. It is important to research their history since that will be pivotal in knowing how to treat them and what offerings to give them. It is always positive to write a prayer that you can use to greet the deity in the morning before starting your day.

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Energy control

   I had the privilege of having been initiated into Reiki before starting my Wicca path and that helped me a lot to know how to master and channel energy through the hands and different parts of my body but you don't need to be initiated into Reiki to be able to do it, you just need to be able to visualize very well, maintain diaphragmatic breathing and use that breath to see and feel in your body an impulse of energy movement towards the desired place. It also helps to place your hands facing each other as if they were holding a ball and visualize that you are holding an energy ball. Imagine that with each inhalation the energy from your environment is concentrated in your heart and with each exhalation that energy is propelled from the heart through your arms until it comes out through your hands towards the energy ball.

 

   Try to develop a routine that allows you to have daily practices to see results. At the end of creating this energy ball, take it with your hands towards your heart again.

 

   The better you can master energy control through your body, the easier it will be for you to charge a ritual or consecrate a tool when you need to do so.

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Memorize

   Unlike studying any other more intellectual area, such as philosophy, where it is important to break down and understand in depth what is being done, having some degree of unconsciousness in magic is useful, since if we could consciously control all the factors so that something happens, then we wouldn't do magic, we would carry it out and that's it. Magic needs a certain degree of mystery, it is in that darkness that the impossible becomes possible therefore being able to do rituals without having to read a paper, being able to have the lights dim and flow with our movements and tools, helps a lot to create the magical atmosphere that is needed to activate our power. There may be things that one inevitably needs to read but if we know how to call the guardians and the words of invocation by heart, I cannot emphasize how much it helps a ritual. Knowing something by heart allows you to do some things without thinking, and in magic, creating moments in which the mind does not interfere is very useful, because the mind believes it knows everything but it has a very vast realm left to understand and it is in that realm that magic lives.

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Tools

   We witches are not characterized by having a very minimalist way of life, in fact, we are closer to maximalism, because unlike new-age practices, witchcraft requires things, not simply positive thinking to manifest. Although the tools are not the ones that have the power, we do, the more we can be immersed in a magical environment and state of mind, the more our unconscious can be unleashed to channel that power, therefore tools like the athame, the wand, herbs, candles, cauldron and cup are elemental components for a ritual and its magical effectiveness. You can get antiques at flea markets (clean them well energetically though), buy them online or create them yourself, it doesn't matter how you do it, the important thing is that you consecrate those elements and that you do not use them for anything more than magical practices.

 

   A very important thing once you have chosen a tool is that you create an astral double of it and place it in the temple that you have already built.

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Be specific

   I understand that starting to practice magic can be overwhelming for the newcomer, as they will soon discover that there are so many things to learn. To do witchcraft it is necessary to know astrology, herbs, crystals, history, metaphysics, also languages ​​does not hurt, chemistry, craftsmanship, music, poetry, poisons, mythology, cycles of the earth, sigils, runes, tarot... I think I made myself clear, there is a lot to cover and before you start trying to cover it all at once, I recommend starting where you feel more curious about and delve only into what is necessary. For instance, if you like astrology, focus only on that until you know it well and if for a ritual you need specific knowledge of other areas like herbs, look for the specific thing you need instead of putting another entire area on your shoulders and trust that through practice you will learn more and more.

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Keep records

   Since, as I said before, many of the rituals you are going to do are going to be created by you, I strongly recommend keeping a personal journal along with a book of shadows. The book of shadows will be where you describe in detail the ritual you’ve performed, but the diary will have to record your internal sensations and results after a while for that same ritual.

 

  It is also very important to write down formulas when we experiment, whether we create incense, perfumes, balms, or anything else. I learned this the hard way since I like to make incense and oils by improvising and when I finally found a combination that worked for me I realized that I was totally unable to reproduce it again because I had not written down the formula. Learn from my mistakes, and write them down! And if you are like me and you create through intuition, keep a pen and paper next to you all the time and write down how much you add to a recipe while you are in the flow, it only takes a second.

 

   Having these records is not only useful to later study what works and what doesn't, but also to help future generations to also improve their experiences since witchcraft is not only a practice, it is also a legacy that is passed from generation to generation.

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Start with little

   In addition to writing down the formulas, it is important to keep in mind that is preferable to make small quantities of what we are experimenting with, because if the incense we use does not work in a ritual as we would like or does not produce the desired result, it is a waste of material having to throw away the rest. Doing witchcraft requires both tools and materials and all of this has its costs, not only for us but also for the ecosystem, therefore wastings are uneconomical and anti-ecological and is not a great gesture of gratitude to Mother Nature either.

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Books

   Finally, we come to another question that I get asked very often. Which books do you recommend I start with? “The Witches' Bible” by Janet and Stewart Farrar is a considerably complete book when it comes to understanding the way Wicans do their rituals. Although both writers are not Gardenians but Alexandrians, they asked Doreen Valiente for permission to publish certain texts that do belong to Gardenian practice. This book has so much valuable information that some High Priestesses refuse to initiate you if you tell them that you have read it since they consider that you have broken their initiatory mystery (although I do not agree with that opinion). Truly all the books they published are an immeasurable contribution to the dissemination of Wicca and none would be a waste to read.

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   The next person I want to mention again is Doreen Valiente. Not only did this woman have a fascinating life story but she is also considered the mother of Wicca. Given that Gardner was a very bad writer, Doreen had to rewrite several texts that are today considered canonical in Wicca practice. No woman was more relevant in the history of this religion than Doreen and among the books I recommend are “Natural Magic”, “An ABC of Witchcraft” and “Witchcraft for Tomorrow”. Not only is Doreen a person with a very special magical capacity, but her intellectual level is extraordinary and therefore all her books live up to her prestige.

 

   We now arrive at a classic suggestion: Scott Cunningham. Although Scott is not a Wiccan initiate, and at the time he published his books, the word Wicca was used interchangeably to refer to any type of witchcraft, the tips he proposes are still extremely useful for witches who have solitary practices, and the book “Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs” is an absolutely essential book for witches of any kind.

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   And last but not least, I would like to recommend the writer and academic Thorn Mooney. If you are interested in learning a little more about traditional Wicca specifically and how it is currently practised, her first two books are excellent. Now she is working on a final book that will be an academic study about what it means to be a witch in these times and what spiritual influences (from the New Age to the Occult) contribute to the archetype of today's witch. Which I find a fascinating concept since it is not a book specifically intended for witches but for whoever wants to understand us.

 

   Well Wiccurioses, these are all the tips I can think of for now. In the future, if I come up with more tips this article will magically change so stay tuned!