What is a Witch?

A witch acknowledges the forces that are present in nature and understands that The Spirit is present in all: The universe, the earth, every element and every animal and human being. Yes, witches are men AND they are women. There is a secret that witches benefit from the most, and I will share it with you now: We are all one. Every person, every tree, etc is connected to each other by The Spirit of the Divine (often referred to as The Spirit, The Universal Spirit, The Light, The White Light or The Universal Light). It's from this level of understanding that the witch bases all beliefs and lives his or her life, both spiritually and mundane (day to day physical living). The witch has great respect for nature, the Earth, people, animals, etc.

Part of the practice of Earth based spirituality is celebrating the wheel of the year and communing with the universal energies with monthly Esbats (full moons). Due to the history of holidays and celebrations in general, some of the Witch's holidays (Sabbats) do coincide or come close to what have become modern holidays today.

The witch believes that each person has a right to his own beliefs, practices and opinions, and often enjoys learning about the differences and similarities. The witch's motto is: With harm to none, do as you will. Basically, believe what you would like to believe and live how you want to live, as long as you're not harming anyone (physically, mentally, emotionally or in any other way possible).. You'll hear several adaptations to this mentaility from practicing witches. No matter how the paths of witches differ, this belief remains constant.

Most witches are pagans. That is, they believe in more than one God or Goddess. The Witch believes that The Spirit is depicted as 2 equal dieties, one male and one female. No one sex rules over or gains more respect than the other. These two are usually referred to as The God and The Goddess or The Lord and The Lady. Some people feel the need to relate to the specific purposes and personalities of deities, not just an open "God" or "Goddess" energy, so they adopt pantheons, or groups of Gods and Goddess to work with, like Greek or Roman classical Deities, Egyptian Deities, Celtic Deities, etc. Some witches combine them. Some don't personify The Spirit at all, and just commune with and revere the energy of The Spirit. While the witch obviously may believe in a variety of Gods and Goddesses, the witch does not believe in Satan or the Devil, the lord of evil as defined by Christianity.

A witch takes responsibility for his actions. He doesn't blame anyone else for his mistakes. He also takes responsibility for resolving obstacles or problems in his life. He may ask for help from other people or from the Divine, but he won't wait around for someone else to fix it or waste time and energy placing blame elsewhere!

Many witches believe in reincarnation. That is, the soul can come back to Earth after death through rebirth as a new baby. Each time the soul is reborn (each life time) is called an incarnation. So, most believe they have lived on this plane before. The reasons they believe the incarnations occur differ. Some believe that we are reborn so we can continually perfect our souls, others believe there are endless incarnations, and there are other beliefs as well.

Witches believe in Karma. In other words, whatever you do comes back to you. If you spread negativity, you have to deal with the consequences. If you spread positivity, you reap the rewards. However, no witch ever does a good deed expecting to be rewarded. The goodness is spread out of love and respect for mankind, the Earth and all it's inhabitants.

You'll find a lot of differences as you talk to witches and read about witchcraft. This is because witches believe that you should follow your heart and what feels right for you at the time, with harm to none (there's that phrase again). If someone tells you that his way is THE way, I'd be very leary of this individual. I'd be leary of anyone who told me that what I truly believe in my heart is wrong. It's one thing to say, "I don't agree with you." it's another to say, "You're wrong." There IS a difference. Because of all the choices you have as you're forging your path through witchcraft, many people refer to witchcraft as a spirituality, not a religion. Religion brings thoughts of structured beliefs, whereas a Spiritual person beliefs whatever feels right in the heart, even if it's a mixture of several beliefs, or of no structured system at all. Some witches don't find wordplay quite so important, and use Spiritual and Religious interchangeably.