Can Anyone Be a Witch?

The word “witch” carries weight. It’s been feared, romanticized, commercialized, and misunderstood.
These days, it seems like anyone can buy a few crystals, burn sage, and call themselves a witch. Social media is filled with moon water tutorials and love spell trends, and while I believe that spirituality should be accessible, I also believe in calling things what they are.

Yes, anyone can become a witch.
But not everyone is.

And more importantly, you don’t become a witch overnight.

Witchcraft is not a costume you try on, something you do once a week under a pretty moon. It’s a lifelong commitment, and for some of us (like me), it’s something passed down through blood, bone, and spirit.
It is not about being better than anyone, but about being honest about what witchcraft is and what it is not.

The History We Carry

Witchcraft is not new. It’s not a New Age invention or a rebrand of spirituality. It is older than the borders on maps, older than organized religion, older than the languages we now speak.

The word witch itself has roots in Old English (wicce for a woman, wicca for a man), but the practice existed long before that. Across every culture, there were people who lived close to the earth. Midwives. Healers. Herbalists. Spirit workers. They spoke with ancestors, interpreted dreams, followed the stars, made offerings, and used protective charms. They weren’t calling it witchcraft; it was simply life.

But over time, those who worked with unseen forces (especially women) were painted as dangerous. Colonization, fear, and religious control turned medicine into poison and wisdom into heresy. Witch hunts swept through Europe and the Americas, killing thousands. Entire generations were taught to fear what we now reclaim.

Practicing witchcraft today comes with weight. It’s personal, it’s cultural, and sometimes, yes, it’s political too.

Why is witchcraft political, especially today?

Because choosing to reclaim something that was systemically oppressed, criminalized, and erased for centuries… is a political act, whether you mean it to be or not.

1. Witchcraft has been criminalized throughout history.

For hundreds of years, witches weren’t just shamed… they were hunted, tortured, and executed. Governments, monarchies, and churches created laws that made being a “witch” a crime punishable by death. Women were stripped of land, power, rights, and autonomy under the excuse of rooting out evil.

So when modern witches reclaim the word witch, or practice their craft openly today, they’re challenging systems that once made their existence illegal.

2. Witchcraft is tied to feminine power, and that scares the hell out of patriarchy.

Historically, “witch” was often code for:

• A woman who didn’t marry
• A woman with knowledge of herbs or medicine
• A midwife or healer
• A woman who owned property
• A woman who spoke up, didn’t conform, or just made men uncomfortable

Practicing witchcraft, especially as a woman, queer person, or marginalized identity, is political because it challenges patriarchal control.
It says: “My power is mine. My body is mine. My spirituality is mine.” That alone still threatens people.

3. It resists organized religion and state-aligned control.

Many forms of witchcraft operate outside of traditional religious institutions. That challenges the idea that you need a priest, a church, or a hierarchy to access the divine. That’s why historically, Christianity and governments feared it. It gave spiritual agency to everyday people. Even now, in some countries, witchcraft is still illegal or heavily policed.

4. It reclaims indigenous and ancestral knowledge that colonialism tried to destroy.

Practices like folk healing, plant medicine, ancestor veneration, and nature worship were erased or banned under colonization.
Reclaiming that, whether it’s Afro-Brazilian traditions, Norse seiðr, or Balkan folk magic, is cultural resistance.

Witchcraft can be deeply political when it’s used to:
– Reclaim land-based, earth-honoring ways of life
– Reconnect with stolen or silenced traditions
– De-center colonial spiritual norms

The Lore and the Lineage

Witchcraft has never looked the same in every place. That’s part of its beauty. From European folk magic and Norse seiðr to Brazilian benzedeiras, African rootworkers, Middle Eastern wise women, Celtic druids, and Indigenous spirit traditions, the craft has taken many names, many forms.

Some of us are drawn to a path that feels instinctual, like a remembering. And for some of us, that’s because we were born into it.

Bloodline Witches

The term “bloodline witch” refers to someone who descends from a family of witches or magical practitioners. That doesn’t always mean their great-grandmother called herself a witch; often, the magic lived quietly, hidden in herbal teas, protective symbols, whispered prayers, and “old wives’ tales” that were actually potent rituals in disguise.

If your family line includes intuitive, spiritual, or magical women and men, that thread probably runs through you, too.
But having witch blood doesn’t make you better. It means you were born with responsibility.

You carry their knowledge, but you also carry their wounds. Bloodline witches often inherit silence, generational trauma, and fear of persecution. Learning to heal through that is part of the work. Honoring the ancestors who kept the flame alive (sometimes in secret) is sacred.

I had witches in my family. The craft didn’t come to me through a trend. It came through my roots, through the women who knew without knowing why. It came through intuition, dreams, plants, and pain. I didn’t choose it. I was born into it.

Even with a bloodline, I still had to study. Learn. Research. Practice. Respect.
Because lineage alone doesn’t make you a witch, but living the path does.

The Craft Is Not for the Lazy

Witchcraft is work, a lot of work. It’s not just instant spells, shortcuts, or aesthetic rituals that look good online. Real spellwork is grounded in knowledge of herbs, correspondences, timing, ethics, intention, and energy. It’s rooted in trial and error, humility, and a deep respect for what you’re tapping into.

Witchcraft is layered, complex, and powerful. And when people treat it like a joke or a Pinterest trend, they’re not “dabbling”; they’re disrespecting something ancient. You don’t need to be an expert on day one, but you do need to understand that magic is real, and energy has consequences.

The Different Paths – But One Truth

There are many types of witches:
Green witches, sea witches, kitchen witches, hearth witches, chaos magicians, hedge witches, divination witches, folk witches, lunar witches, eclectic witches. You don’t have to fit one label. You can explore, blend, evolve. That’s part of the beauty.

But regardless of path, the same truth applies:

You walk the craft by walking it.
Not by declaring a title, but by learning, practicing, and honoring.

The craft shapes you. It breaks your ego. It pushes you to grow. It will deepen your sense of self and reconnect you with the living world. It’s a relationship with nature, energy, your ancestors, and your own shadow.

The Wheel of the Year – Living in Rhythm

A lot of witches follow what’s called the Wheel of the Year, a seasonal calendar based on nature’s cycles. It’s made up of eight festivals, called sabbats, that mark the shifting light, harvests, and natural turning points throughout the year.

Some witches celebrate all of them. Some celebrate a few. But they’re not random holidays, they connect us to the land, to time, to energy that’s actually happening around us. Here’s a quick breakdown of the eight sabbats:

• Samhain (Oct 31) – The witch’s new year. A time to honor the dead and connect with ancestors. The veil between worlds is thin.
• Yule (Winter Solstice) – The darkest night of the year, when light is reborn. A time for rest, reflection, and renewal.
• Imbolc (Feb 1–2) – The first spark of life under the ice. A time for hope, new ideas, cleansing, and preparing for growth.
• Ostara (Spring Equinox) – Balance returns. Seeds sprout, days lengthen. A time for fertility, planning, and beginning again.
• Beltane (May 1) – Fire and passion. Fertility, connection, creativity. A time for love, magic, and setting intentions.
• Litha (Summer Solstice) – The sun at its peak. Abundance, clarity, strength. A time for gratitude and manifestation.
• Lammas or Lughnasadh (Aug 1) – First harvest. A time to give thanks, gather what’s grown, and reflect on effort and reward.
• Mabon (Autumn Equinox) – Second harvest. Balance returns again. A time to slow down, prepare for darker days, and honor transition.

Following the Wheel helps you move with the seasons instead of against them. You start noticing the small shifts in nature. You learn when to plant, when to rest, when to cut cords, and when to grow. It keeps the craft grounded in something real, what’s actually happening in the soil, the sky, and your body.

The Rule of Three – Energy Always Comes Back

One of the core ethical principles in many witchcraft traditions, especially Wicca, is the Rule of Three (also called the Threefold Law). It’s the idea that whatever energy you put into the world (good or bad) comes back to you three times over. That means if you send out healing, love, or protection, you’ll receive it back in triple measure. But if you send harm, manipulation, or malice? That energy circles back, too, stronger than you gave it.

Not every witch follows Wicca or believes in the Rule of Three in a literal sense. But the ethic behind it is widely respected: magic isn’t free of consequence. You don’t cast spells recklessly, and you don’t try to control others without understanding the spiritual weight of that choice.

Witchcraft is power, but it’s also responsibility. You’re not above the energy you work with. What you send out always finds its way home.

If you cast without understanding, you risk harm.
If you work with spirits without protection, you risk opening doors you can’t close.
If you use tools you haven’t studied, you might not like what answers.

Witchcraft is not a game. It’s a spiritual path, and like all real spiritual paths, it requires patience, humility, discipline, knowledge, and care.

Tools Don’t Make the Witch

Having crystals, tarot decks, cauldrons, or fancy robes doesn’t make you a witch. Using them with knowledge and purpose does. You could be the most powerful practitioner with nothing but dirt, string, salt, and your voice. And you could also have an entire shelf full of tools and still be disconnected from the craft.
Witchcraft isn’t in the props. It’s in the way you move through the world, listen to your intuition, work with energy, and connect with the unseen. Tools can amplify. But they don’t substitute.

Initiation – The Quiet Ones

Some paths of witchcraft involve formal initiation, especially in Wicca or coven-based traditions. But for solitary witches, initiation often happens alone and over time. Sometimes it’s a moment of deep transformation: a near-death experience, grief, a spiritual awakening, or a sudden surge of clarity where you realize your path will never be the same.

Initiation doesn’t have to be ritualized, but if you’ve ever felt like the universe cracked something open in you, and everything after felt more awake, more intentional, that might’ve been your moment. And once it happens, the work deepens.

Shadow Work and Self-Awareness

You can’t be a witch and skip your own darkness. Shadow work is the process of facing your fears, patterns, trauma, and ego, which is essential. You can’t cast light without knowing where your shadows fall. If you avoid your pain or project it onto others, your magic gets messy, reactive, and self-destructive.

Witchcraft asks you to grow. That means questioning yourself, unlearning toxic patterns, and taking accountability for your energy. It means healing the parts of you that want control, revenge, or validation. The deeper you go into yourself, the stronger and cleaner your magic becomes.

Witchcraft Is Also Everyday Life

Witchcraft also lives in the little things:

• Making tea with intention.
• Cleaning your house to clear energy.
• Speaking affirmations like spells.
• Setting boundaries is like spiritual armor.
• Blessing your food, your space, your body.

It’s in the choices you make, the way you treat others, and the way you speak to yourself.
Magic isn’t separate from daily life; it is daily life, made conscious.

Witchcraft Is Not Satanism

One of the most common misconceptions (especially from people outside the spiritual community) is the idea that witchcraft equals Satanism. It doesn’t. At all. Witches don’t worship Satan. In fact, Satan as a figure doesn’t even exist in most Pagan or witchcraft-based belief systems. That concept is rooted in Abrahamic religions, not the craft.

Many witches are Pagan. Some are animists. Some work with deities from ancient pantheons. Some honor nature, ancestors, or simply energy itself. Some, like me, even believe in God, just not through a church. But worshiping a devil? That’s not what this is. That’s a misunderstanding passed down through fear, propaganda, and centuries of religious persecution.

Witchcraft is about connection to the Earth, to cycles, to intuition, to magic. It’s not evil, it’s not harmful, and it’s definitely not about Satan.

So, Can Anyone Be a Witch?

Yes. If they’re willing to do the work.
If they’re willing to unlearn, re-learn, and take it seriously.

But being a witch is not a right you claim, it’s a path you commit to.
It’s often lonely. Sometimes slow. Frequently quiet. But for those who walk it with heart, it’s transformative.