Beginner Practices

When you're ready to start figuring out a practice that fits you, it's helpful to start with what generally interests you while also exploring how you learn best. Do you enjoy learning by reading books and blogs? Maybe you're a visual or audio learner and start at YouTube or a podcast for information. When it comes to your interests, stay curious and try everything out! If you're interested in divination then consider going through a list of divining methods and trying a new one every month. If you really enjoy gardening, consider incorporating plant magic or herbalism into your first learnings.

There's no rule about what should be learned first, nor are there any real rules about lengths of time spent on something, or that you have to have specific items to practice. There are many practitioners that try to impose their own ideals onto others, and while their rigid beliefs may work for them, they aren’t for everyone and they’re most often not shared beliefs by the majority of practitioners. For example, one of the most common misconceptions is that you can’t buy your own tarot decks because it has to be gifted to you. You absolutely can buy your own tarot decks and other divination tools. Many practitioners, including ourselves, have bought and use our own divination tools without any ill effects. Gatekeeping is a large issue in this community so use your best judgment with everything in your craft. It's best to validate what you learn across multiple sources and vibe out what feels right to you.

While we say there are “no musts" when it comes to your practice, we personally believe there are a few key pieces to everyone starting their craft. The first step is reading through the history of witchcraft and understanding why it was used, who it was used by, how people were persecuted, and so on. It's important for growth, deconstructing beliefs, and for paying respects to those who have used it historically (such as minorities and other oppressed peoples.) If we don't learn about and protect the history of the victims, we give more power to the oppressor and commit some of the same acts through our weaponized ignorance.

The most important piece of practicing and research, though, is that you learn when something belongs to a closed practice, and you must respect that practice and culture accordingly. This can easily be done by researching things before you do or use them. There are many cultures that people appropriate and use, many of these cultures and traditional practitioners have directly asked practitioners to stop. Cultural erasure is a very real threat and it takes everyone's participation to help preserve these precious parts of humanity. There's a big difference between appreciation and appropriation. It's okay to learn about a culture and their practices, and we should so that we're more aware of others that we share the world with, but to borrow things from them by then using that information or their resources is not okay. There are some instances in which the specific group has collectively agreed and made it widely known that certain items, wording, or practices are okay, and encouraged, to be used and shared amongst others outside of the practice. These can be understood and discovered through frequent research.

This path is truly such an empowering, fulfilling, and fun journey. You'll learn so much about the world, the people around you, and yourself. While there are many beginner practices ideas and research topics already out there, some are as follows:

• Divination (such as cartomancy or bibliomancy)

• Plant Magic

• Kitchen Witchery

• Ancestral Practices and Veneration

• Planetary Magic

• Color Magic

• Deities

• Folklore

• Runes

• Sabbats