As we navigate the beginning of our witchcraft paths, it's always helpful to have some guidance! The internet is saturated with "witchy" content these days, but not all of it is helpful or even truthful. I've reflected back on my journey and have compiled this list of tips that can potentially assist you along your path. These are lessons that I've learned and wisdom that I've downloaded that can bring you clarity and new perspective shifts.
Here are 13 tips for beginner witches
1. Learn
Read books, take classes, watch videos, seek new experiences, and ask questions. Begin learning what you can so that you can gain more knowledge and confidence in the things you potentially value.
As well don’t limit yourself to just content labelled as witchcraft. There is tremendous value in learning about other topics such as the moon cycles, wicca, paganism, masculine and feminine energy, ascension energy, spiritual awakening phases, divination, shamanism and sound healing. Take your time exploring and getting to know yourself more as you connect with all this wisdom. You will inevitably design your craft around the practices and topics that inspire you and your growth!
At the same time, try to release the need to know everything. I spent many years obsessing over collecting experiences, books, and doing classes but I wasn’t integrating or absorbing the information as well as I could have. Rather, I was so focused on "collecting" knowledge. In doing this, I ended up repeating old patterns for a long time. So even learn from yourself, your mistakes and your awareness.
2. Find Mentors
Begin seeking out mentors that you can learn from. A mentor can be an author, a thought-leader, someone you look up to, or someone you apprentice under. A mentor doesn’t need to be someone you know or work with in person, they can truly be anyone that you learn from.
I have had several mentors through my spiritual journey. I often connected with people who I considered to be a mentor of some sorts and then as I shifted, my mentors also shifted and changed. I had a mentor that I apprenticed under, in person, for 4-5 years. But, I also have had mentors that I’ve learned from online who I've never even met or spoken too!
3. Journal
Journaling is such an amazing way to record your experiences, reveal your shadows and to heal. For many witches, having something like a grimoire, a book of shadows or a Spellbook is important to them. These journals can hold reflections, experiences, astrological events, and keep safe your spells, rituals and introspections.
Another witchy way to journal is to have elemental journals. This is a practice that I do and I really love it. I have individual journals for each element and I take them into nature with me. I draw in them, write and keep pressed flowers and plants that I find. This is a great way to get to know the elements and dedicate time to your exploration.
4. Discover the Wheel of the Year
Begin learning about the different equinoxes, solstices and the sabbats. Wether you're a practising Pagan or not, the beauty of the wheel of the year can live within all of us! When we observe the cycles of the earth, we can get to know her rhythms more deeply and understand her language. When we can speak the language of the earth, we unlock unlimited possibilities for our own growth, expansion and magic.
Learning the earths cycles and moving into alignment with her, can also allow us to connect with her empathically which can create a greater awareness for unity consciousness.
To start discovering the wheel you could:
Create a seasonal journal
Read an almanac
Get to know the moon and her tides
Do sun and moon magic
Celebrate the 8 Sabbats
Observe the seasons without judgement
5. Connect with Nature and the Elements
This tip kind of goes hand in hand with the last tip. The earth and her nature is the mother that we all share. Connecting with her will allow you to connect deeper within yourself, witness the magic around you and and download the wisdom of the universe! When we’re in nature, or connecting with her spirits, we are reminded that we’re not alone on this journey. There is so so much magic and wisdom within the earth that help us unlock our own potential.
Connecting with nature can look like going outside distraction free, foraging for herbs and flowers and learning from their wisdom, nurturing a garden, pressing flowers for your journals, or caring for your house plants.
Connecting with the elements can look like exploring their different forms, creating those elemental journals we chatted about, following the weather so that you can intentionally witness and experience the elements in the wild and exploring divination. The options are pretty endless when exploring nature and her elements. As well, Earth magic is a wonderful way to witness the abundance of nature that lives within you. I have a post in my online spellbook all about earth magic and you can read that here!
6. Spells aren’t everything
The reason that I say this is that the internet is saturated with witchcraft content that focuses heavily on spellcraft and aesthetic. All things I love to enjoy but, witchcraft is so so much more than spellcraft and a witches craft is not limited to just spells. It’s also about learning to reclaim your power, heal yourself, and expanding your consciousness. A lot of the time spells are used for manifestation. But, just doing a spell and expecting it to manifest isn’t always helpful or fruitful. There are often blocks that we need to remove from within us, belief systems that need to be transformed, shadows that need to be revealed, energy that needs to be released before our spells can serve us.
7. You don’t Need a Bunch of Stuff
Having a collection of cool witchcraft bits and bobs is honestly super fun, but it’s not necessary at all. Anything and everything you might need could be found within nature or around your house. If you’re just starting out and feel overwhelmed because all the witchy influencers have cool oils, cards, crystals, jewelry, bones or whatever - just know that they probably have been collecting those things for years.
I have a lot of witchy things but I started collecting curiosity items for my apothecary 10 years ago, I also worked at a witchcraft company that made products and, in the past, I actually spent a lot of money I didn’t have collecting witchy things.
Prioritize yourself and your relationship with nature and the ingredients and items you need will find their way into your life.
8. Expand your Consciousness
Expanding your consciousness means working to make an internal shift from living unconsciously to waking up to the truths of your soul, the world and the universe. Waking up means becoming aware that you’ve been operating on automatic based on learned unconscious behaviours and that aspects your spirit has been suppressed. When you begin to become more aware to these truths, your spirit can truly soar and you gain a deeper sense of self, move into alignment with your highest self and realize the abundance of your own magic.
Doing this work involves healing your traumas, your wounds and triggers and releasing this energy from within your body so that you can be a clear channel to the potential of your own magic.
The more that you expand, the more powerful and potent your abilities to cast magic and manifestations will become. This is a process and a journey, but when you devote yourself to it you are giving yourself choices on how you move through the world.
One of the most powerful ways to expand your consciousness is through shadow work, which is our next tip!
9. Do your Shadow Work
The Shadow self makes up the parts of our personality and our human nature that have been hidden away and even rejected. For many witches, this is a really really important aspect of our path because of the witch wound. The witch wound is a collective trauma surrounding the mistreatment of witches and healers in the past. If you identify as a witch now, you might carry an aspect of this wound within your shadows.
Our shadows are aspects of ourselves like desires, needs, ideas, characteristics, weaknesses and even strengths that have been suppressed but exist within our unconscious self and contribute to the way we operate and move through the world.
When we reveal our shadows, learn from them and bring them into our consciousness, then we become more authentic and a clearer channel to source energy. This amplifies our energy, our magic and our intuition. Every human on earth has a shadow self, there are no exceptions. For witches and lightworkers who have missions and purposes to heal others - making the shadow work a priority can be a necessity so that we can help others.
Definitely check out my video called ‘The Ultimate Guide to Shadow Work’ and download my free shadow work journal prompts guide. As well, I have a spellbook post all about shadow work too!
10. Embrace your Creativity
Embracing your creativity allows you to experience your own magic and spirit in new ways. Creativity is also a gate way to your inner child and impacts the way that you view the world. So connecting with your creativity as an adult can really alter your realities and perspectives.
As well, as a beginner witch we are often drawn to other people’s recipes, healing techniques and spellwork outlines which can be really helpful as we’re learning about our own craft. Imbuing your craft with your own creativity though will allow you to build on your confidence and begin to embrace your own originality.
11. Try New Things
When exploring witchcraft, and other practices that interest you, release the fear of trying new things. It’s okay to experience things and then realize it’s not something you want to continue doing. Figuring out what works for you and what doesn’t strengthens your awareness, your perspectives and, of course, your craft.
Trying new things is also a way to explore yourself and expand your inner world. As witch, you have the ability to create new worlds and trying new things and exploring other people’s worlds is a sure fire way to figure out what you value and what you want to leave at the door.
As well, there are several different types of witchcraft! Green witchery, kitchen witchery, shamanic witchcraft - there are so many different paths that witches align with. Explore what you feel drawn to but also don’t feel obligated to align with any labels. I mean, as your exploring witchcraft you don’t even need to identify with the word witch until it feels right for you!
12. You Don’t need an Altar
As a beginner witch, you don't need to have an altar set up in your home that you go to daily. When you do feel ready to explore the beauty of altars they can be quite simple or quite complex. So if you’re interested in beginning an altar, I recommend taking it slow and don’t put pressure on yourself to buy all the tools that you think you need like athames, cauldrons, vessels, crystals, statues and all that! Also, as you explore the wheel of the year, setting up seasonal altars that live in your space temporarily is a great way to begin learning about altars and their magic.
13. Learn to Trust your Intuition
You are an extension of source energy and thus the answers you seek are already within you and many times these answers are delivered or unlocked through our intuition. As a witch, our intuition can really amplify our craft, our workings and our understanding of nature. This is because our intuition is like guidance from our higher selves. So when we’re listening to and learning from our intuition, that energy is a direct line to our highest selves or the purest form of our consciousness. Your intuition is the highest form of truth, and this wisdom and energy will empower you.
Also, Our intuition speaks the same language as nature and the universe, so when we get to know this part of ourselves more deeply then we are also deepening our ability to understand the wisdom and knowledge of the nature spirits. As we all know, witchcraft works with nature spirits and thus connecting with our intuition can not only become apart of our craft but it can assist us with other aspects of our craft too.
I believe that every human, wether they are a witch or not, has gifts that are assisted by their intuition. So learning to listen to your intuition and understand what it is saying can empower you on your journey and also help to reveal your gifts.
Bonus Tip!
14. Explore Astrology
There is so much incredible magic in learning about astrology and the way that the movement of the universe affects us. Astrology is literally learning about how the planets, sun, moon, stars and the entire universe affects you which gives you the opportunity to make more informed choices about your own journey.
Astrology can not only impact your craft and your workings, but it can also affect you, your emotions, and how you move through the world. Understanding how the movement of the universe is directly affecting you can answer a lot of questions and also take away a lot of grief or frustration from your circumstances.
If you want to revisit these tips and hear a bit more about them, consider check out my youtube video of the same name!