Episode 65: The difference between magick and witchcraft

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On today’s episode of the A Pinch of Magick podcast I share my thoughts on the difference between magick and witchcraft.

How you can use them separately and what happens when you use them together with intention.

This came up during week 1 of the free Magickal Summer School – you can check out the replay here.

The first class was all about the fundamentals of magick and the question came up about diving deeper into the difference between magick and witchcraft, so I thought I’d record an episode on it.

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to the Pinch of Magick Podcast with me, Rebecca Anuwen.

So, this question came up in Magickal Summer School.

So, we started Magickal Summer School, which is 6 weeks of magick, it’s free to join.

We’ve only had our first class, our second class is on Tuesday.

And this week, we had a look at the foundations of magick.

On Tuesday, we’re looking at energetic health. And as you know, if you listen to this podcast, it’s one of my favourite topics. So, if you want to join us, links in the show notes, come and join our community, everything is held in our community. We will be talking all things energetic health, if you have questions, if you want to join me live, if you want to submit your questions, if you want to know what you can do to keep your energy running free, if you’ve had wonky energy, all of your questions are welcome.

However, back to this week.

So, we were looking at the foundations of magick. And one of the things we were talking about was the difference between magick and witchcraft.

And after the event someone posted on the replay, and they asked me to go into more detail. So, I thought, oh, let’s do a podcast, because if they have a question, no doubt other people have a similar question too.

So, I want to start by saying, this is my experience and my belief, obviously, because it’s my podcast, but this doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

This is how I experience it currently, and just as with everything else in my podcasts, it doesn’t mean to say in 5, or 10 years’ time, I might change my mind. But this is about starting a conversation.

So, I’m going to share my thoughts on the difference between magick and witchcraft, if there is one.

And if you want to share your experience, whether you agree, whether you disagree, whether you resonate with parts of it, but not all of it, come and join the conversation over in our community.

Like I say, this is not me saying, this is gospel, this is the only truth, not at all, but this is my experience. And hopefully something that I say, something that I share, will allow you to deepen into your own understanding.

Even if it’s like going, ‘I don’t agree with you Rebecca, what I think is this…’, because throughout life, sometimes it’s really good to have something validated, and be like, ‘oh, that’s what I felt but I didn’t have the words for it’, or for someone to go, ‘oh yeah, that’s what I think, oh, thank goodness, someone else thinks the same that I do’.

But equally sometimes when we don’t agree with something that is equally as important because it helps us find out what we really do believe.

So, magick and witchcraft, to me, magick and witchcraft are separate things.

However, we use magick in witchcraft, but to own your magick every day, you do not have to do witchcraft.

Now, in our first lesson, I kept calling it an episode, I’m so used to doing podcasts…, when I was teaching the class, I was like, ‘oh, in this episode’, I was like, ‘no, no, in this class’…. I talked about witches, I talked about whether it was important to claim our titles. And so, if you want to listen to that replay, just come over into our community, the replay is there, fairly easy to find, if not tag me and I will point you in the right direction.

What I think about magick, magick, I believe is inherent in everyone.

It is in you; you are the magick.

People often think that we need the tools. I always say this, but as I look around my office, there’s I think I counted 13 cauldrons on my window. So, an altar just in front of me, no doubt, there’s some behind me too. And crystals and candles and herbs and all of that good stuff.

We can use that for magick, to connect with our magick, but it is not the magick.

You are the magick.

You bring the magick to everything that you do.

You already have it. It is inherent.

It is that energy you hold within you. It is that energy that weaves around the world around us. It’s how you interact with the world. It’s your unique essence, and I think the word ‘unique’ is the important part.

It might look different to other people, so you might not actually notice that it’s your magick.

But if you ever meet someone who just has that something about them, you know, they might call it like the ‘X Factor’ or they have a presence or an aura or there’s something magnetic about them, that’s that person fully embodying their truth.

And when we embody our truth, when we hold our power, when we have that confidence, that’s our magick.

Now it doesn’t mean we have to be 100% confident all of the time, but it’s, we have to be comfortable in our own skin so to speak.

That is the magick.

The magick is that ability to create change, using that energy within you, and understanding how it weaves with the world around us.

That’s the magick.

It shows up as mindset and being able to reframe something, from being able to notice when old patterns show up, and we can go ‘oh nope, stop, let’s not go down that path’, ‘how can I look at this differently?’

It shows up in synchronicities; ‘oh, my goodness! I was just thinking about that person’.

It shows up as air quotes “coincidences”.

Today, I decided with the new puppy, he had his vaccinations and he could go outside of our own garden yesterday for the first time. And so, we went for a particular walk. And then today, I was like, ‘oh, let’s go for a walk’. Like literally just across from where I live, there’s a footpath that I have never been down, I’ve been down all the other footpaths, never this one footpath.

And I was like, ‘oh, let’s take the puppy down that footpath and see where we end up’.

I’ve been wandering around my area, my garden, looking for plantain leaves, ripe plantain to make a salve out of. And I’ve seen some little plantain leaves, not a huge amount.

This one though, this footpath, which clearly is not very used because where I live, it’s not overly populated, had huge plantain leaves, huge. And I think I might have even described them as juicy. And I was like, ‘oh my God, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for, for when I go to make my bump balm’, like a salve. Because plantain is really good for stings and cuts and grazes and things like that. And I’ve been looking for it. And now I found like the perfect place, and it was the whole floor of this whole footpath, you could barely see the grass for the plantain. Things like that. That is the magick.

I was awake very early the other morning. And I was chatting to a friend in New York, because the time difference kind of worked out that she was just coming home from a night out, I was still awake in the morning. And it was about four o’clock in the morning. And the birdsong was phenomenal.

I mentioned this to my friend and she asked; ‘what’s birdsong?’

I said ‘the dawn chorus when the birds wake up this kind of time of year May, June, July time, at four o’clock in the morning’.

It’s so noisy, I mean, it’s absolutely spectacular and beautiful. And she hadn’t heard it. And so, I just recorded it, I opened the window and recorded it. She described it as her place of Zen.

Things like that, that’s the magick, the sunset, the dew glistening on the grass. It’s like the way that you notice the world, the way that you choose to interact with the world.

It is that energy of noticing.

The magick then becomes even more accessible because you have that magick in you anyway.

But when you start to notice it at play, just with anything, what you put your attention on, you have more of, you start to notice.

I could have just walked along the field or the footpath and not noticed the plantain that was on the floor. But I want the magick in my life, I notice these things.

All day long, I’ve heard this red kite like, coring, what do they do? Crying? Squawking? I don’t know what they do. But it’s just being tapped into your environment noticing. Noticing the tree roots cracking the pavement in the city or the grass, or that flower growing halfway up a building, and noticing the magick.

Just noticing the things that maybe we pass by, the things that remind us of our own inner power, of our own resilience, of our own beauty, of the variety of life, the richness of life.

And then that magick, with that magick, we can direct it.

We can say to ourselves, ‘what is it I want to create?’

And we can direct our time, our energy and our resources for that purpose.

And so, we can do that with discipline.

We can show up even when we don’t feel like it.

We want to write a book, we show up to write even when we don’t feel like it.

We want to train to run a certain distance, we show up even when we don’t feel like it.

We keep showing up. We sit with the discomfort, we learn, we grow, we expand, we recognize where we can improve our lives.

All of that, to me is the magick, and it starts with that inherent magick within us.

We all have that, that special thing, that thing that makes us unique, that thing that wants to express ourselves as our soul purpose. To me, that’s the magick.

The ability to create change.

The ability to live with integrity with your own values.

When you can do that, when you’re clear on your values, when you’re clear on the feelings, when you’re clear on how you want to show up, when you’re clear of the kind of relationships you want to have in your life.

All of that is in alignment with your unique blend of magick.

So then, if we look at witchcraft, absolutely, we can take that magick and we can use that in witchcraft. And we will have the most potent magick/witchcraft.

This is where I kind of get lost for words right now… It’s like that magick is within us, but now we take that magick and through using witchcraft, which looks like the layering of intention by using tools such as cauldrons, or wands, or brooms, or athames, any kind of tools, whether they’re candles, whether we’re adding herbs, any other correspondences that feel appropriate to us to work with, whether we’re using those candles, those herbs, those correspondences in spells, all of those things direct the magick.

Now, here’s the difference, when we use the tools, the candles, the herbs, the crystals, the moon waters, you know, whatever it is that we’re using, when we use that, we are tapping into all of the people that have used that also.

So when I teach people how to, I suppose it is witchcraft, when I teach people how to use the tools and how to use the candles, I will always say, traditionally, a red candle has been used for passion or for energy or for whatever you associate red with, whatever typical energy red would be. Because when we use that, we add to the energy of all the people that have used red for passion, for courage, for fire, for creativity, who have used that in the hundreds and hundreds of years before us.

The people that have used rosemary to go, ‘oh, this is really good for clearing the energetic smog, for helping us to think clearer’, peppermint for clarity, for upset stomachs.

All those things, it’s like we add to the energy of saying, ‘oh, red means this, orange means this’, ‘we would use this crystal for this, and this crystal for that’.

We add to that collective energy. So that, every time we use red, we tap into an archetypal energy as well as the individual energy.

And so that’s great. So even if you aren’t connected to your own magick, you don’t know what your own magick looks or feels like, you’re still giving your power away to other people, because that’s a very important factor of owning your own magick, is, that is magick and power are absolutely entwined.

And I talk about that quite a lot in the class, and I know that I’ve done previous podcasts on the importance of reclaiming our power, but those two are absolutely entwined.

However, if you don’t, if you’re not owning your power, you’re not owning your magick, you can tap into the energy of a red candle or using these herbs or using these crystals, and you can still create change because you’re tapping into that collective energy.

And so, you can follow a spell. I like to think of spells as recipes, because that’s what they do. They’re like, do this, do this, do this, do this and do this. Here’s a recipe tried and tested, try it yourself, you can do this.

And so, we do that. And with that, quite often you’ll create change.

However, I think that when we work with witchcraft, and magick, it’s about relationships.

So, when you think of the colour red for you, perhaps it’s not about power, perhaps it’s not about courage, perhaps it’s not about passion, perhaps it’s about anger. And actually, you don’t want any extra anger right now, or perhaps it’s about something else.

And so, even if you’re creating, if you’re following a spell like you would do in witchcraft, and you were following someone else’s recipe, and you are using things because you thought you should do it, because that’s the way you have been told to do it, you may get a good result, or you might get a hit or miss result, because actually the things don’t really correspond to those meanings for you.

It’s like if you were told, ‘oh, you should have banana bread, because it’s really good for you’, for whatever reason. Perhaps you don’t like bananas, it might be good for some people that love bananas, but for you, it’s not going to be that great

Or if someone says, ‘oh, yes, you should make this recipe with the ‘devil’s food’, rum and raisin ice cream’. Let’s say if someone said, I’ll make crepes with rum and raisin ice cream for X, Y, and Z, and I did, I would eat that, I’d absolutely hate it. Well, I wouldn’t eat it at all actually, it’s disgusting. But if you love rum and raisin ice cream, you’d have a very different experience. And it’s the same with witchcraft.

So for me, the magick in witchcraft, when you can align with your own magick, when you can look at witchcraft and go, ‘oh, yeah, actually, what I need for this is an orange candle or a yellow candle’, or ‘actually, I don’t want to use rosemary, bay leaf works better for me’.

Because you know yourself.

You know your magick, you trust yourself.

And with that comes that intuition, that comes that inspiration, that’s when the witchcraft takes your magick to a whole new level.

Because it allows you to channel and more deeply focus with intent, your own magick, I think of witchcraft as layering your magick.

So, you have your magick anyway, everybody has their magick, but now if you want to take that to another level, and you start bringing in the witchcraft, so you are basically crafting your witch energy, your wise woman energy, your inner knowing energy, and you are crafting that.

So, you’re not just following a recipe mindlessly or buying something on Etsy, not that there’s anything wrong with that, you know, we all start somewhere.

But when you’re like, ‘oh, no, I’m ready to craft my magick’ and you start learning and developing relationships with your own tools, when you’re developing relationships with the herbs and the crystals. And I say crystals, but they might be rocks and pebbles that you found in your own garden.

That’s when you are becoming a master of your craft, instead of a cook.

Instead of just following a recipe, you’re now going, oh yes, and what I actually want to work with

how I feel in my life right now,

how my energy feels,

how I feel with this time of the year, this time of the month, because of the moon phases, or maybe a menstrual cycle.

How I feel about this actually, what I want to bring in, is this elements.

And I want to bring in this and you just know, like the perfect pinch of magick, the perfect pinch of air quotes, “salt” or a little sprinkle of cinnamon, just to shift the whole flavour of the work that you are doing, the change that you are creating, because you are now crafting.

So, for me, that’s the main difference between magick and witchcraft.

Everybody has magick, everybody has access to their inherent way of being in the world.

Some people choose to access it, and some people don’t. Some people live their life through like a magickal lens, and some people are like, ‘nope, not having any of that’, ‘that was just coincidence’, ‘everything is awful’.

Whereas when we want to craft, it’s like that’s when we hone our ability to wield and weave that energy in the world.

We’re just bringing our conscious energy to it, and we are layering all of those correspondences on to it.

We’re layering those relationships onto it, so that when we are creating change, whether we’re doing it with just our magick through mindset and intention, or if we’re bringing in the candles, and the herbs, and the rituals, and the chants, and the drumming and the invocations, what we’re doing is we’re creating channels for us to receive.

So, in either way, if you’re only working with magick, or if you’re crafting your witch energy, you are creating channels to receive.

You’re saying to the universe, ‘this is what I want, how am I going to create the energy to receive this?’

‘What do I need to do?’

And so, we’re sending energy out into the world like energetic cords out into the world, like little spider webs going, this is what I want universe. And what we’re doing is those webs then create channels for us to receive the magick, the things, the emotions, the opportunities, whatever it is that we’re asking for.

Whatever it is we’re working with, we’re sending out to those channels, to create channels to receive our desires.

And so, we can do that purely with our intention, with our mindset, with our thoughts, with our actions, with our behaviours.

Or we can create more/deeper channels, wider channels, bigger channels for us to receive by really crafting our energy and knowing ourselves deeply.

Because I believe that’s what witchcraft is.

And I was talking on our class on Thursday, about the tools that we use, and there’s an Instagram account that I follow, that makes the most beautiful brooms, I mean, they’re absolutely stunning witch brooms.

And each year, in the Witch Academy, we create our own brooms, little handheld brooms, and I’ve made them out of twigs, I’ve made them out of herbs, little herb bundles.

And mine, they have a certain beauty to them, I think they’re beautiful. They are like nothing compared to this Instagram account I follow, and yet I know that the tool that I create, and sometimes it’s literally a bunch of rosemary with a piece of string around the top, it doesn’t even have to be fancy. But when I’ve made that with intention, when I’ve made that with a circle of people in the Witch Academy, that tool has my intention, it has my desires, it has me in it, I’ve collected those tools, I’ve made them. I know that actually is going to have stronger meaning to me, rather than one that looks really pretty.

Of course, the pretty one will still work, absolutely. Consecrate it, you make it your own, but there is something really powerful about making our own tools, whether it’s, you know, sometimes I use a biro as a wand to direct energy.

It doesn’t have to be fancy.

But there’s also absolutely nothing wrong with buying all of the things, you need to. Buy that beautiful broom and buy the wands, there is a beauty in that.

But the tool is only magick because of the energy you bring to it.

So, if you’ve created it, it has even more of that magick into it.

I mean, maybe one day, I’ll learn how to work with metal to cast my own cauldron, but until then I’ll keep buying them… or actually, I won’t because I have plenty…

But it’s not about, you having to make your tools, but there is a magick and a potency that you bring to that tool.

Because again, it’s like you’re literally crafting your magick, you are crafting a tool that you’re going to work with.

You are crafting that witch energy.

So, let me know how this resonates for you.

Like I said, you are absolutely welcome if you haven’t already come and join our community to come and join our 6 weeks of magick.

I’m just showing up once a week and we’re having a deeper dive into some topics. This week, we did the fundamentals of magick. Next week, we are doing energetic health and hygiene. And the reason we do that is because I want to make sure everyone’s on the same page when we’re talking about magick, what it is, how it shows up.

Then we need to make sure our energy is clean, clean is the wrong word, clear, and that we are aware of how we use our energy, for the exact reasons I’ve just spoken about today.

When we want to work with our energy, we have to know what’s ours and what isn’t, what is our magick.

If you’re like, ‘but Rebecca, I don’t know what my magick is,’ you need to be coming to the class on Tuesday, as I say it’s completely free to join, there’s a replay available, it’s all available over in our community.

And then on the third class, then we’re talking about spells. Basically, we’ll be talking about spells, creating spells, and working with relationships. So that’s when we’re going to dive deeper into the idea of witchcraft, crafting your witch energy, crafting your wise woman energy. So, I hope you can join us for that. I hope you found this interesting. But I would love to know your thoughts on magick versus witchcraft.

So come over into our community, click the link in the show notes to join our community, and there’ll be this podcast in there and just comment underneath.

What are your thoughts?

I’d love to have that conversation because when I’ve done the interviews recently for the people that have contributed to the book The Modern Craft, I’ve asked them what magick is, and everyone has their own idea of magick.

This just happens to be my idea of magick and how it shows up.

So, I’d love to hear what your idea of magick is.

So, thank you for joining me, hopefully I will see you on Tuesday, if not, I will speak to you again very soon. Bye!