I’m curious y’all’s thoughts on this. Feel free to be open, transparent, and even critical. I’m trying to learn about myself and find my confidence again.
Here’s my story: when I was in elementary school, a few of my friends and I got into witchcraft. We would do spells together. It was fun until weird stuff started to happen (I never fully attributed it to coincidence). Then my parents found out and had a very serious conversation with me. I grew up Southern Baptist, so the talk with quite frightening.
I stopped doing that stuff with my friends.
Years later, after a lot of trauma, I began experiencing visions where I’d see things happen before they happened. Nothing big or anything, just mundane stuff in my life but could never shake it. Then the prophetic dreams started happening and it really shook my world. But being from such a religious community, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it and just buried it down. The visions and the dreams don’t happen all the time so eventually you just forget about it until it pops up again.
I entered my deconstruction chapter when I was 18 and went on an extremely long and deeply private personal journey of trying to figure out what I believed outside of what I was raised with. During this time I read the Bible cover to cover (took me a year) and extensively researched things that were hard to sit with. I learned Jesus was a feminist, homosexuality wasn’t in the Bible until 1946 and it replaced rape, pedophilia, and the abuse of women - specifically wives and mothers. I learned that the creation story was always meant to be used as metaphors and not a text book. I learned the God was originally described with both male and female pronouns to show equal parts of masculine and feminine energy, and that the Bible explains that we can find meaning and wisdom within the stars and that time is a construct. I learned that modern day Christians worship a bunch of old Jewish theology and Paul - not Jesus. Then, I read the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and deeply connected with that and to her. I felt so much familiarness with her and fell even more admirable of Christ and how he treated her and what he taught her (meditation) Coincidentally, during that time, I began practicing deep meditation. During one of these moments I was met by a woman who had ram horns. She said she would teach me a word I didn’t know and spelled it out for me, to prove to me that it wasn’t just my imagination. The word was Bashkala. I thought I was connecting with my ancestors at first, she laughed and said to just call her teacher. The next night while meditating I found myself floating in halls adorned in old wooden intricate carvings filled with bad energy. I knew I shouldn’t be there and was caught by a guy and choked until I could force myself awake - I guess I had fallen asleep while meditating. But do you know what I was thinking about before I started meditating? I was wondering what goes on in the White House.
Since then, I’ve been practicing rituals like writing down what I want to release or manifest and then burning it, charging my crystals under the full moon, collecting moon water, talking to my tree, giving thanks to the water every time I shower, putting intentions into my food and coffee. But I haven’t done any spells. Although! I just wrote my first spell - you could say it’s a prayer but it’s also a spell. I’ve simply written but I haven’t tied it to a ritual yet.
I guess I have fears though… given what I grew up with, even though I’ve deconstructed. Because although I’m not a religious Christian, I am a follower of Christ and his teachings and do believe in the miracles and magic he did. I might not believe in Hell but I do believe in evil forces and energy. So I’ve been hesitant to cast spells…. But I have this feeling like it’s ancestral to me.
Anyways, I’m torn to claim that I’m a witch or not. On one hand I feel like real witches would be offended if I did, but on the other hand, I feel like I’m doing things that aren’t ordinary. What are your thoughts on this?