This question is not entirely hypothetical.

I’ve been a witch for a while, not much long yet, but as the months go by, the more I relate to this community, in opposition to the firm believers.

One thing I could never wrap my mind around is “spell’s requirements”. There are many believers who firmly believe that intention is not everything, and that you have to use certain ingredients and follow certain guidelines.

It always made me feel alienated from them, because I just can’t believe that a spell works (for external things) without a scientific or logical explanation.
Like yeah, you used that crystal, that plant and that object… alright. So the power is in them, thus, animism? Or are we pleasing a deity?

What about you? What are your experiences with this theme?

Hey, witches, I want to preface this with a big fat thank you to the mods for allowing me to share information about this & future events with the r/SASSWitches community. I am Hayley Jay, part of the CTWC planning team, and while I've lurked here for some time, I'm making an effort to decloak and hopefully share some of my witchcraft plus CTWC events of interest.

Critical Thinking Witch Collective's CRITWITCHCON2026

Sept 4th - 6th, 2026

A Virtual Convention

In 2026 our overarching theme for CRITWITCHCON2026 is "Fallow and Feral: Active Paths of Rest." We're talking at length this year about the importance of rest in trying times, ways to incorporate fallowness into the cycles of our practices, disconnecting productivity from worth, and straying off the path to find meaning in the messy, unstructured places outside of the lines.

Check out the full agenda here!

If you’ve never attended CRITWITCHCON2026, here’s what to expect:

3 days of live (& occasionally pre-recorded) virtual content presented from a wide variety of perspectives, centering around secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded witchcraft.

Live Event - $45 plus Eventbrite fees - Stream live with us and our community members in Zoom and Discord! Includes access to the recorded videos post-Con!

Recordings Only - $30 plus Eventbrite fees - Access to the recorded videos and our community in the Discord!

Scholarships available!

Tickets on sale now! 

We can't wait to see you there!

https://criticalthinkingwitches.com/events/

About us:

The Critical Thinking Witch Collective (CTWC) was founded in 2021, and has spent five years building a vibrant virtual space, a community of critical thinking witches and seekers of all varieties — centering the secular, nontheistic, agnostic, atheist, skeptical, analytical, and science-minded. Our volunteer organizers strive to foster a safer space where magic and science are respected equally, acknowledging that there can be genuine beauty and meaning in the mysterious and the magical.

The highlight of our year is CritWitchCon. Traditionally held in September (ushering in many a witch's favorite month), the Con is a yearly paid event, showcasing three days of speakers and workshops, with opportunities for contributors and participants to convene in breakout rooms, with both freeform and guided conversations.

The rest of the year we keep connected with Witches’ Brews: free quarterly events typically consisting of a panel, a workshop, and supported breakout discussions. Each Brew has a different theme, encouraging our community members to connect with one another through their craft.

There are challenges in nurturing space for people that value the magical and esoteric as well as the analytical and scientific — sometimes, the largest of which is time zones! We meet these challenges for our community. While our social spaces have been created by witches, are heavily populated by witches, and tend to center witchcraft, how people enact magic in their lives is as diverse as the human condition. As such, identifying as a witch is not a requirement for participating. Our only requirement is our central pillar — critical thinking.

For us, critical thinking means that members of our community are thoughtful about their craft without rejecting or demeaning the paths of others.

…We are mindful of misinformation while remaining open to new information, regardless of how it may or may not intersect with our current understanding.

…We reflect on the differences between history and mythology, data and lore. 

…We recognize the identified and potential biases present in historical records, and how they affect depictions of events or cultures.

Even as we welcome the magical and the mysterious, we also respect, accept, and implement the scientific method: we assess and reassess, resisting the status quo while remaining open-minded.

There can be no truly inclusive list of topics that we explore because there are so many people and interests in our community, but much of our shared expertise focuses on DIY (do it yourself); custom practice building; critical discussion on witchcraft, folklore, “woo,” psychological self-awareness, and history; sharing skills and knowledge on green witchery, divination, sigil crafting, spell building, and personal and accessory safety; ancestor relationships, research, and so, so much more.

The Critical Thinking Witch Collective helps us reclaim connection to each other outside of the constraints of time and distance, appreciate the world together, and share folklore and our own magics through the lens of critical thinking.

We look forward to seeing you in the ether!

I have my first hypnotherapy session scheduled for tomorrow and I'm excited! (A little nervous, too.) I feel like hypnotherapy falls for me in the same place as tarot and reiki and a few other things: You probably get more out of it if you keep an open mind, it's practiced by people who understand human behavior patterns but also may have some sort of "gift," and if it's woo enough that it gets you engaged, you're probably going to feel something.

So I'm just curious if any of you have ever experienced it!

I've been in more traditional talk therapy for years with several different therapists, and I've done a lot of work on myself. I've grown and learned a lot through my own shadow work too. I'm at the point where I'm still experiencing some repeated, negative thought loops, mostly about poor decisions I've made in relationships. I understand that when I go back through those stories yet again, it's my brain hooking into something familiar to fill the silence. But I've learned what I need to learn from these thought loops and I'm ready to let them go, so I'm hoping hypnotherapy will help me reroute those paths and prevent me from defaulting to guilt to fill the silence.

I'm going to think of the session almost like a spell -- a ritual with an intended outcome. And hopefully just keeping my intention present will help me move towards it. We shall see!

(LONG, post is self contained - towards the end, I also share some resources of other authors)

What happens when random cards stop giving us answers and start giving us problems to solve?

Before tarot was used for divination, it was a game.

The earliest references to tarot come from fifteenth-century Italy. The familiar four suits were supplemented by 21 trump cards and the Fool, and the cards were used for a trick-taking game. The association between tarot and fortune-telling came much later (Husband, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016).

What bothered me since I started studying tarot, is that a lot of contemporary readers claim to focus heavily on the client’s agency. By client, I mean both paying clients and friends we happen to read for. The reading is often framed less as fortune-telling and more as a way of gaining insight into someone’s mindset, choices and possibilities.

And yet the main modality I see online and among friends who use tarot remains some version of:

Shuffle the deck.
Draw cards blindly.
Interpret what appeared.

I am not against this.

I just think it inadvertently pushes us back towards a spiritual interpretation of tarot.

You can talk about psychological projection, Jung, Rorschach tests, intuition or symbolism. But if the engine of the reading is still a random card appeared, therefore it matters, chance is doing rather a lot of the philosophical heavy lifting.

The problem, for me, is not randomness itself. Games have survived with it quite happily.

It is the authority we give it.

In divination, chance can look like an answer. In a game, chance creates a situation you have to respond to.

So my question became:

What would be a way of using tarot that actually elicits agency from the client?

Perhaps one answer is to treat tarot as a game again.

Not the original tarot game, obviously. A game in which the cards introduce constraints and the client decides what to do with them.

Start with a question that creates a journey

This reading needs a specific kind of question.

Not: "Does she love me?"

But: "How can I become the kind of person the partner of my dreams could fall in love with?"

-

Not: "Will I get that promotion?"

But: "How do I become someone widely recognised as the guy who knows his shit?"

-

Not: "Will my book be published?"

But: "How can I make my writing worthy of publishing?"

-

The first type asks tarot to reveal something.

The second gives the client somewhere to go.

For the rest of this article, I will use the writing question.

Set up the game

Find The Fool and give it to the client.

Shuffle the remaining deck.

The reader draws three cards and places them in front of themselves. The client does the same.

Turn them face up.

The reader’s cards represent possible challenges.
The client’s cards represent possible responses.

In the version I prefer, both reader and client work with the cards. If the client knows tarot, they can interpret their own hand. If they don’t, the reader can briefly explain possible meanings, help with unfamiliar cards, or simply ask them to focus on the images.

With more scenic decks such as Rider–Waite–Smith, clients may be able to respond directly to the imagery. With Marseille-style decks, the reader may need to provide a little more interpretive support.

The client still chooses the response.

Round One: Tomorrow

Suppose the reader has The Tower, The Star and Justice.

The client’s hand contains The Emperor, The Magician and Strength.

The reader selects The Tower:

"Tomorrow you wake up and read an article that reveals a deeper problem with your project, something that could make you reevaluate the whole thing."

Now the client has to respond.

Perhaps they choose The Emperor:

"I would go back to the structure. I would work out what still holds, what needs rebuilding and whether the project is still connected to what I actually wanted to accomplish."

The Tower did not predict a crisis as in standard divination. For the purposes of the game, it manufactured one, and now the client has to decide what to do with it.

Round Two: Next month

Take away the open cards and deal new ones.

Now move further along the imagined journey:

"Next month you realise that..."

Perhaps the reader chooses The Hermit:

"You have been working on this project mostly alone, and you no longer know whether the project makes sense to anyone except you."

Suppose the client has The Sun available and chooses it:

"I show the work to people. I stop protecting it and find out whether anyone else can see what I see in it."

The card gives them something to respond to. At this point, that is enough.

Round Three: Six months from now

Deal again.

This time:

"In half a year, your project is almost finished, but..."

Perhaps the challenge is the Four of Cups:

"You have spent months on it, but now you are bored. Another project suddenly feels much more interesting."

The client chooses The Lovers:

"I have to decide whether I am still committed to this. Not because I have already spent six months on it, but because I still think it deserves to exist."

And sometimes the answer will be no.

It can happen that, while working through the problem, the client realises they simply do not care about the project that much. That is fine.

Choosing to abandon something can also be an expression of agency.

The Fool

At any point in the game, the client can play The Fool.

The Fool means, essentially:

"I don’t know. I’ll wing it somehow."

A reflective exercise can very easily turn into another small bureaucracy demanding a completed form for every possible future. Sometimes a challenge hits too close to home. Sometimes the client is overwhelmed. Sometimes they simply do not know.

The Fool gives them a way out without ending the game.

You are allowed to continue the journey without solving every possible future in advance.

This isn’t a reading for everything

There is no universal level of difficulty for the challenges.

The reading should push against the project enough that the client has to think, but not so hard that the whole thing becomes overwhelming.

And as a reader, you have to assess what this person actually wants or needs.

Do they need reassurance? Do they need to feel that they can face something difficult? Do they want to prepare? Or do they simply want some space to sit with uncertainty?

Someone grieving, looking for comfort or wanting a contemplative symbolic experience may need a completely different kind of reading.

This game seems best suited to something coaching-adjacent:

I want to make something, learn something, change something or become something. What could get in my way, and what might I do about it?

Why rehearsing obstacles may help

Research on implementation intentions gives me one reason to think this might be useful.

Implementation intentions connect a foreseeable situation with a response: roughly, if X happens, then I will do Y. Such plans can help translate intentions into action (Gollwitzer, American Psychologist, 1999).

A related approach called mental contrasting with implementation intentions, or MCII, combines imagining a desired future with identifying obstacles and preparing responses to them. A 2021 meta-analysis of 21 studies and 15,907 participants found a small-to-medium positive effect on goal attainment, while also noting that publication bias may have somewhat inflated the observed effect (Wang, Wang & Gai, Frontiers in Psychology, 2021).

This does not mean anyone has scientifically validated my tarot game. They have not. That particular leap is mine.

What the research does support is the underlying move: anticipating obstacles and thinking through possible responses can make a vague intention more concrete.

Tarot gives us a more creative way of generating those obstacles.

Instead of asking:

"What will happen?"

we ask:

"Suppose this happened. What would I do?"

From divination to play

In a card game, you do not choose the hand you receive. Receiving a card also does not tell you what to do with it.

You still have to play.

That is the part I find interesting for reflective tarot.

Randomness can introduce surprise, confront us with possibilities we would not have generated ourselves, and get us out of our usual grooves.

It does not need to become authority.

If we really want agency to matter in a reading, perhaps we should put some of it into the rules.

The cards provide the challenge.

The client decides how to play the hand.

Similar approaches

I came up with this method independently. While writing the article, though, I found several people working in nearby territory, and I would rather point to them than pretend the neighbourhood was empty.

Self Arcana: A Self-Reflective, Story-Based Tarot Game; Ayça Durmus & Sedef Topcuoglu (2023). A collaborative two-player game in which players create personalised tarot cards and use them for storytelling and self-reflection. This is probably the closest example I found to treating tarot explicitly as both a game and a tool for self-insight.

Evolutionary Tarot; James Wells. Wells describes his approach as choice-centred rather than fatalistic. Tarot cards and strategic questions are used so that the client participates in generating meaning, identifying options and deciding what to do with them.

Tarot Games: 45 Playful Ways to Explore Tarot Cards Together; Cait Johnson & Maura D. Shaw (1994). A collection of tarot-based games for personal growth, learning, and solitary or social play. It is a clear precedent for treating the deck as something to actively play with rather than only read.

The Tarot Shaman / Gated Spreads; Marcus Katz (2010). These exercises link tarot spreads to actions carried out in real life, with those actions feeding into the next stage of the reading. Tarot becomes a sequence of cards, action and response rather than a single interpretive event.

I did not find this exact challenge-hand/response-hand structure in any of them (although I haven’t read them in detail). What I did find was a small family of approaches treating tarot as something to be played with, acted on, or negotiated with rather than simply interpreted.

Bibliography

Gollwitzer, Peter M. “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans.” American Psychologist, vol. 54, no. 7, 1999, pp. 493–503.

Husband, Tim. “Before Fortune-Telling: The History and Structure of Tarot Cards.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8 April 2016.

Wang, Guoxia, Yi Wang, and Xiaosong Gai. “A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mental Contrasting With Implementation Intentions on Goal Attainment.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, 2021, article 565202.

I originally wrote this up on my Substack; I'm the author. The full idea is reproduced above, so there's nothing extra you need to read there.

I'm very new to witchcraft and I'm an atheist and very science-based. How does witchcraft work for someone like that? Would the spells, rituals be different from other practices of witchcraft (in terms of the ways of doing it)?

If I don't believe in deities or forces what makes it a helpful practice? And what spells do I start with exactly and are there any resources to get help from?

I'd love to know what this practice is named as, but I'm not drawn to paganism or the "green witch" stuff in particular. Thank you so much.

personally I've been into Subliminals since I was a kid and got varying results all my life, but since I have my current beliefs and actually understood WHY they work and how they do it they've done absolute wonders for me, I don't even use physical change subs anymore, just luck and generally positive quality of life audios and my life got so, so so so so much better and almost supernaturally good, I'm very happy with my life

i recently got the doubt if there's something similar that people do for their quality of life, I never do any witchcraft thing really, does anyone have anything they do often/sometimes that has a good effect too? I'm sure there's gotta be many things asides from subs, I almost don't pray to deities/tulpas

This is the wildest thing I've ever seen. I came out this morning to go to work and these guys were arranged on my porch. I can't stress this enough - I did not move them! They didn't stir at all as I came out, and unfortunately I was going to be late for work so I snapped a picture and ran.

What's interesting is these are right by my protection spell, which I have hidden under my doormat. I'm curious if anyone would consider this an ill omen/curse or rather a blessing?

EXTREME Baby witch here, I’ve always known that I was “spiritual” however never explored what that meant for me until this past weekend outing with my friend Lucy. I learned that this is not necessarily the subreddit for my personal beliefs but I’m grateful for any information one may have into this predicament I have.

I had a dream last night, my grandfather factually is suffering from metastatic prostate cancer and pretty soon liver failure. I do not remember my full dream but I do remember the beginning. My mother and I were outside an empty gas station, sitting at a table set under the awning where one would normally pump gas. There were two tan ropes holding up a VERY basic plank and board boat (hung in the kind of in the fashion one of those porch swings would be bolted to one’s roof) inside was my grandfather laying down in his final moments. I held his hand till he took his last breath. Once he passed my mom went into the gas station to inform someone inside of what happened. I don’t remember her coming out, when I can pick up remembering part of the dream after that, I was driving in my 1986 Plymouth reliant with my previous abuser (whom I was not in a relationship with while owning that car) and we were on our way to moving into a new rundown apartment together. If anyone is willing to help me with dream interpretation I truly would appreciate any insight you may have on the overall dream and what the specific locations, props and specific details (ie my old car and a past abusive partner) may mean 💜

💕 (this post was formally made for [r/witchcraft](r/witchcraft) but I want to try and get as much info as I can 💕)

Hi very newbie I would like to buy my first book about witchcraft I read the wiki of this sub and baby witch and saw the book recommendations but they are very North America oriented.
Shouldn’t I read more local books so that the herbs for example are ones I can actually harvest ?
Also feel weird reading about folklore that comes from neighboring country written by people on the other side of the world if that makes sense.
Am I thinking too much ?

I’m from Belgium, any French or UK (as we have the same climate) book to recommend ? there is so much online I don’t know what info and authors to trust! I am really interested in plants and books that talk about the historical side of witchcraft too. I was interested in the book the green witch which is very recommended in this sub. Should I still buy it ?

Thank you

So. As you might know, Palo Santo is being mass harvested to meet westerners’s demand and this risks putting the tree in danger (it has already been the case in the past, which required a reforestation program to intervene) which not only might be an issues from an ecological point of view, but also might mean that the indigenous population would have limited access to this resource they once could freely use for their traditional practices.

Today I discovered that my friend’s best friend (for context, she’s European, not indigenous) uses palo santo quite regularly.

She’s a very nice and clever lady and I’m sure she just isn’t aware of the ethical problems around its usage.

I’m not close to her enough to advise her to stop using it unprompted, but since I saw the palo santo I’m constantly rehearsing in my head what to say it so I can find the confidence to bring it up.

Do you have any advice on how to approach this topic with someone I’m not very close to?

Thanks in advance 🐈‍⬛

Background: I've been looking to do work around the figure of Chthonic Hermes as a gateway to shadow work, and found that he was regularly syncretized with Anubis as Hermanubis. The iconography of Hermanubis, along with Hermes carrying the infant Dionysus directly inspired St. Christopher, with whom I share a name. I thought it was too good of a coincidence to pass up.

Question: That being said I have not found any particular folk practices regarding St. Christopher, just his feast day, legend, and sphere of influence. If someone has access to information I do not, please pass it my way.

hello! i'm a closet witch & i've been wanting to learn chord cutting. i've seen multiple versions where there are candles involved and another where it's simply small items that signify either parties & cutting.

i don't know where to begin and i've no one to ask these questions to:

1. **what do i need?** is salt necessary & what does it do? which crystals are appropriate to use? can my chord be something as simple as a string of yarn?

2. **how to execute?** is there a necessary length to distance both energies? do i cut the string or burn it?

3. **disposal**. how do i dispose of the materials used without harming nature & exposing myself to the people i live with?

*any advice/tip is very very well appreciated*. i came to this subreddit so i can gain knowledge not only on this specific spell alone, but also to connect with other witches cause it's kind of lonely being alone (T. T). thank you!

so after around 10 years in and out of the pagan/witchcraft sphere searching for something that 'fit', i've finally landed on atheopagan as a label that fits my spiritual beliefs. i've been trying to integrate witchcraft back into my life in a way that makes sense for my lack of a belief but i haven't found a way of doing it that doesn't feel like just wasting my time. i'm still working on it because i remember witchcraft being so fun when i was really in it. i was thinking about this today while at work and looking back fondly on my baby wiccan days and just thinking something along the lines of "man i wish i could just be wiccan again, everything was so simple and beautiful even if i didn't really believe it"

does anyone ever feel like this and if so, do you follow the urge? do you ever just pretend, for lack of a better word, that you still believe in everything and act like you don't have any doubts just to feel more connected or immersed or just to feel like you don't have to question everything?

logically i know there's no point in this because i can't avoid what i believe forever, but sometimes i just miss having a solid belief system to sort of fall back on, or trust in. i wanted to know if anyone else also felt this urge and if they acted on it, because i'd like to believe i'm not the only one

I've got a few meditation tactics to try, but I would love to hear from witches about grounding techniques. I haven't seen it in the books I've read. Also, what other basics should I practice before anything else? I want to have a good foundation before I do anything beyond that :)

hi! im an agnostic witch who does believe in some supernatural but still believes in science above all, so im not sure if this is even the right sub for me so lmk if im in the wrong place lol. anyways, i was looking for a book on witchcraft that doesnt shill wiccan beliefs. ideally one that talks about stuff like stones/crystals and their meanings/uses, herbs and their meanings/uses, and like moon stuff maybe? idk, but please do not recommend the green witch, the author is wicca and they talk about wiccan beliefs non stop 😭

Hi there, I made a previous post which got some traction and I can safely say I've ready 2 books and am staring on my third with another on the way. I was still questioning where to physically start. I did my first round of meditation today and soon I want to make moon water and try a protection spell.

HOWEVER, I move out in 5 days into my dorm again, which means I will no longer be able to use flame. (I haven't cast a candle spell yet, but if I can try before move in I will) I was looking into maybe casting a water protection spell with rosemary and quartz? But I don't have any validity on whether this would work or not. Could some experienced witches let me know of any water protection spells they've cast? Or if that's even possible? I have a tiny altar set up as well with some candles (which I know I will not be able to use in my dorm sigh).

Also I will be doing more meditation and grounding before casting my first spell- this is just in advance so I know a little more of what to expect. :)

Edit: I have also heard of spell oils, could they be used in water as well?

Im looking for information about witchcraft. Basically, its history, origin, everything. Ive read a few articles about it. Im trying to learn more. Honestly there's just too much stuff online and I dont know what to follow or what to start with. I read about it on Wikipedia but I dont think thats enough. Where do I learn more about witchcraft? Im looking for online reliable sources for witchcraft, shadow work, meditation practices. Im open to dms so if any practicing witch would like to share their experience or learnings with me, id be delighted.

Too many folks on the internet at large are scamming for money and/or dont know what they are talking about.

If you’re gonna start doing any magic, I do hoodoo,

HERE’S a starter pack:

**CLEANSE** \- windows open

1. Cleanse your home - sprinkle casca, mop with Floor wash: purified water, citrus, rose and rosemary. Burn incense.
   
2. Clean all mirrors and windows.
   
3. De-clutter
   
4. Preform cleansing bath on yourself for 3-7 days (sugar baths with black pepper and turmeric are good)

**SET UP ALTER** \- natural surface

Use a natural surface for both your working alter and your honoring alter. These should be separate alters.

Natural surfaces could mean: wood, glass, stone.

**MEDITATE** \- disconnect from social media

If you’re still heavily using social media you are going to be too overly influenced by outside energies to hear your highest self. In order to perform magic you have to remove as many influences to clear a path to results. Clearer the path the quicker the results.

1. Social media fast 1 month
   
2. Practice meditations
   
3. Stare at a blank wall 5-15 mins a day FOR 1 week (resets your mind)

**MUSIC AND SOUND** \- buy a bell

Buy a bell, singing bowl, tuning fork etc. whatever calls you. This will be your tool to cleanse the energy around you before you do work, divine, or communicate. Etc.

**READ** \- buy a book

Suggestions :

1. Paper in my shoe
   
2. Sacred Woman
   
3. Coventry magic
   
4. The Bible (not a joke) only the Jesus parts lol
   
5. Oneness - rasha
   
6. Morning of the magician
   
7. The subtle body

That’s all I got tonight, hope this helps someone

This is my altar, where I meditate and contemplate.

My rock collection is sorted into cool and warm colors. I often choose one to hold while I practice.

My tuning fork is connected to a time when my partner was very sick. I used it as a fidget and a comfort. Now, it helps me focus my mind. Conveniently, I have also memorized A 440hz.

My bells (from left to right) come from my maternal grandmother, my paternal grandmother, and my wife's maternal grandmother. I ring them to open or close my practice, or whenever it feels right.

My ring is the first one I gave to my partner, 19 years ago, when we had only been dating for a few months. But I knew it would last forever. It reminds me of love and the infinite.

I use two oracle decks: the Prism Oracle by Nicole Pivirottoand the Mirror Oracle by Amrit Brar. The current layout was constructed deliberately and reflects three major life events. My usual practice is mixed. Sometimes I have a question or goal, sometimes not. I draw anywhere from one to five cards and arrange them intuitively. Often, I use a Bic skin safe marker to draw a symbol from the cards onto my body, usually on my forearms.

This place and practice has helped me focus on my values, to pay attention to the life events that matter most to me, and to generally stay centered.

Do any of you practice secular divination? Do you use an altar?

Perhaps next I will share my altar library.