Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

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Oddball
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Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by Oddball »

Welp, I'm panicking.

Once again, I'm wondering if this magic thing is even for me. I don't even know if I'm meant for magic in the first place.

Sometimes I get "aha" moments, or think I do, mostly it's just loads of "maybe it worked, oh wait, it didn't." Do I use this candle? I don't feel anything if I use that crystal. Tarot? Again, sometimes, there seems to be a message; mostly I feel like I'm picking blindly. How do you work magic when you're surrounded by people you don't want to talk about your magic with?

Contact a spirit guide for help? Just get static and confusion; probably just my imagination. Contact a deity? Well, I don't feel like I'd click with them, and I'm terrifying of offering them the wrong thing/setting up an altar and getting caught. All I'm getting is confusion and panic and more questions than answers.

"Don't do this during the wrong moon period! Read this author; no wait, they're fake/controversial/a sham; read this one instead! Do Wiccan, do shamanism, do druidism, no wait that's offensive, no wait that's inauthentic.

You talk to a deity by speaking out loud, no, you talk through your thoughts, no don't speak with your thoughts because you might make them angry with silly thoughts"....

AGGH AGGH AGGH AAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH. I've tried grounding with crystals, I've meditated, I've done tarot readings, I've gone to shrinks and seers and I feel like I'm going NUTS.

How do you get through this?!!!
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing!

Post by planewalker »

Check your PM's.
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SnowCat
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by SnowCat »

I don't recall ever having a deity get angry with me for trying to communicate. I'm pretty sure I've provided some laughs. There's nothing wrong with being unsure about your path, no matter what it is. Talking about magic in a muggle world can be difficult. Sometimes more so for the muggles, when you slip up and say something that's completely outside their realm. An old adage says that you have to crawl before you walk, walk before you run, and have a safety net before you get out on the tightrope. Try to relax and let things happen. Pretty sure we've all been in your position.

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SpiritTalker
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by SpiritTalker »

I can sympathize. Information overload. Sometimes you just set the books aside for several weeks and reflect on what you've read so far & what it means to you, what sense you can make of it, and ditch the guidelines. Simplify. All the things you mentioned are opinions & suggestions from other folks experiences. To sort it out you focus on your own experiences and repeat what works for you. Learn one thing at a time. Then move to the next. Scatter shooting is useless.

Slow down. Simplify. Give yourself space to get in touch and let that intuition guide you instead of the headology from books. You won't have wasted the time you'd spent reading all that stuff. You'll find out how to use the best parts.

It sounds like you’re trying to start in the middle and not at the beginning. You’re unlikely to contact a spirit in a meditation unless you’ve built a foundation of recognizing your mental signals & telling imaginative musings from spirit contacts. Take a minute to assess your own incoming receiving sensors. Gut feeling? Thought voice? Images? Scents?
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TimberLily
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by TimberLily »

I think a lot of "wicca 101" authors are so concerned with making sure a beginner is cautious that they tend to come of a bit scary. I've been doing this since I was 10, I can say with complete certainty that I've probably done things on the "never do" list without ever realizing and I've been just fine. The nice thing, and sometimes frustrating thing, about magic is there are no concrete rules and a lot of it can be trial and error until something works for you. I think the rest of it is confidence, I have that problem too.
As far as not having anyone around to talk to about it, that's a problem a lot of us face. If it helps to have someone to talk about your path with, I'm here, just shoot me a pm :)
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Shireside
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by Shireside »

Yeah, I feel you, Oddball. When I was just getting my feet wet, I thought hedgecrossing was a great starting point because I was so miserably ambitious, hurhur. I had to stomach a bunch of humble pie after a whole lot of nothing happening, and reroute back to the basics....I hadn't even really sketched out how much I believed in magic to begin with at that point, so there was a lot of confusion in the brainpan.

You get a lot of contradictory info from the myriad of communities because there's about 50 million different traditions out there, and new ones are being born every other day. What one group or individual feels is important or has power, another might not, and either will declare their way as right and proper because it's what works for them. Magic is highly flexible, and it can be frustrating to have so much freedom when all you want is a bit of rigidity to make you feel like you're doing it right.

My experiences taught me this: Meditation is pretty much necessary, and since there's hundreds of viable ways to go about it, I'm free to pick and choose what ways I like to get into the magicky gnosis state of mind. Secondly, everyone who breathes has ancestors, and starting a relationship with human spirits is a good first step into working with other entities. Sometimes even good enough to just stop there... you're not just limited to your bloodline. They're more immediately concerned with your success as kin, but broadly speaking, all of the species is ancestral to all who currently live, so... Yep David Bowie counts.
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autumn swan
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by autumn swan »

I get through it by not listening to people at all, haha. :wink2: I go with my intuition. If you read two things that are controversial just ask yourself what is right for you. You will see every possible issue has supporters and non-supporters...
May the Lord and the Lady bless you.
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JaceGem
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by JaceGem »

I think one of the main things you need to remember here is that magick, like many things in life, is something you have to do YOUR way. There are literally hundreds of thousands of traditions and different ways of doing it out there and no one way is the 'right' one. It's right only if it feels right to the practitioner. The best thing about Wicca and Witchcraft is there is no structured path. You're not walking along a dirt road someone dug ahead of you, you're given the shovel and told to dig in any direction you please. True, it's tricky to study and not run into a bunch of opinion pieces but as time goes on you'll find it easier to spot opinion pieces from just pure information. And even if you end up agreeing or disagreeing with the opinions you find, it's still all up to you and what you think is right for your chosen path. Don't let others dictate what your path and opinions should be, and you'll be just fine. :)
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SnowCat
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by SnowCat »

I had a dream last night, that seems to relate to this. I was charged with the responsibility of a Zen garden. I had to keep reconfiguring and raking get the paths to meet the needs of all the different visitors. Our paths are very individual. What works for one, isn't right for another.

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Darkest Auldearn
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by Darkest Auldearn »

It seems that your biggest problem is that you're unable to sort out the gibberish you've been reading from what's actually worthwhile, and perhaps don't know what magic fundamentally is in the first place. When you go off in multiple directions, the reality is that you simply don't get anywhere at all. I'm here to tell you, as a fact, that one good source on practicing magic is better than a hundred bad ones.

That being said:

The ability to perform magic is hereditary, and the majority of people on the planet (particularly nowadays) haven't got the ability - that means that, sadly, the odds aren't in your favour. They're not in anybody's. If you can find one source that resonates with you, but still feel that you're getting nowhere, well... It's probably time to move on to something else.

That's life.
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SpiritTalker
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by SpiritTalker »

Darkest A., can you recommend one good source on magic? Your point on going in too many directions at once is something I agree with. What I don't agree with is that all magical ability is hereditary, unless you meant it's inherent to the human species (please don't gag :) I don't think you did). What's the basis of your comment, if you wouldn't mind? I've heard of witch blood and being part Fae, and of 3 human types in parallel evolution, and once a witch-always a witch. Heck, throw in alien stock too. I've never known the reasons for believing them, so I'd be interested if you could explain a bit, since you obviously do believe something specific.
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Mr Crowley
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by Mr Crowley »

Darkest Auldear wrote:The ability to perform magic is hereditary]
On the other hand, if something works extremely well, why drag religion into the picture?


ST. I'm not a fan of one-size-fits-all. Can magic be learned? Don't ask me! Take it to another level, can it be practiced without being learned?

Here's my problem, and it' a personal problem. What about people who didn't believe in magic, didn't seek magic, and didn't ask for magic? What about people whom didn't sign up for the program? How do they fit into the picture? Again, it's a personal problem, not someone else's concern. Just looking for feedback.
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JaceGem
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by JaceGem »

I think Darkest A. definitely has a few notes backwards somewhere, and let me explain why. The ability to perform magic is not hereditary as far as I'm concerned. That'd be like saying "the ability to perform music is hereditary". It's not hereditary, it's a learned practice, much like writing or drawing. Some people are at different skill levels than others, but if you've put time and effort towards learning the craft and are working towards getting better and learning more, then you as a witch will get better and your magic will get stronger.

I'm the first witch in my family's history as far as I know, and in the short amount of time I've been practicing and learning I've already been successful at working magic, both for myself and friends. If their claim was true, that would make about 99% of the people on here liars, now wouldn't it? So no, magic and the ability to perform magic is not hereditary. It is learned, experienced, much like most other things you'll do in your life.
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by Firebird »

As others have said theres is an overload of info out there. Especially when you are searching. It is confusing.
You may want to find a group for awhile and see how it fits.
I have grown into the idea that a witch is born not made. If you have ever been initiated, it is a ceremony of re-birth, thus born again pagan/witch! And anyone who finds this paths works for them can be born into it. Sometimes it feels as though the literal sense of things are getting umm, too literal.
We all do not know the fine details of our lineage back 2 thousand or more years. Once upon a time practices (well call it magic) were the way of life. I imagine everone has a dab of ancestral whatever in their blood. It's especially sweet when a direct or close relative passes on a tidbit from auntie whoever wo got it from greatgrandpa so-and-so who learned from his second cousin Bacchus, but it doesn't matter. Because we are all connected, here there and everywhere. And what happens to the web happens to all of us no matter what craft you practice, bottom line is know thyself, and be excellent to each other.

@ Crowley :D some of us got blond stringy hair, some a real talent for rocket science, others can see between the worlds, then a few have green eyes, it's what we were delt. But even with all those additional dna attributes which also can be accepted, or not, all have a connection to Spirit (which manifests our magic) whether we realize "the force within" or not, some sense it stronger than others, and it can be nurtured or it can be rejected.

Bb, Firebird
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SpiritTalker
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Re: Witchcraft is So Confusing! :(

Post by SpiritTalker »

Hi Mr Crowley
You asked me: Can magic be learned? ... can it be practiced without being learned?

I think the answer to both is yes.I don't think magical ability is as much a biologically inherited trait as it might be a matter of consciousness, and/or physics and energy. Maybe parts of the brain develop differently under certain conditions that activate or suppress these changes in consciousness. Consciousness has a lot of impact on learning to develop magical ability. It's like subliminal time jumping to visualize an intent as already fully accomplished, but when we manage that state of consciousness, the desired change occurs. That's the best I can express how I experience it. I think we all have some level of capacity. The learning part is in developing more awareness of what we've got.
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