1. Get to know yourself and your own Spirit
It's always recommended for folks, no matter who they are and what path they come from, to begin their practice by cultivating a relationship with their ancestors.
Now, that is for good reason but what good is communing with your ancestors if you don't know how to trust the Spirit that resides within? How will you be able to trust yourself and experiences once you start actively seeking Spirit communication.
Get to know yourself, your body, your intuition and what it feels like. Pay attention to your thoughts, how they made you feel & how they're influencing your reality. Journaling consistently is a great way to start. Open up to a blank page, don't think about what you want to say, just write and allow your heart to speak to you.
- Don't compare your paths to other peoples
One of the best things about the internet is it's ability to connect us with people who have similar interest & lifestyles as us, who don't live where we are. This allows us to expand our consciousness in ways we don't realize, on a daily basis because of the different cultures and realities we have the opportunity of being exposed to. Unfortunately, it can be just as easy to see what someone else is doing Spiritually and compare our personal practices and routines to theirs.
If you see someone online that seems to always be performing a ritual, consistently changing offerings and manages to upkeep a beautiful, expansive alter, don't feel as if you aren't doing enough for your Spirits. Everyone's lifestyle is different and people are meant to work with their Spirits in many different ways. Most practitioners love and devotion of Spirits comes from that Spirit helping them through something difficult or from a lifetime commitment.
Does it make any sense to compare yourself to Spirit Worker who has had 10+ years of spiritual work under their belt? No!
"There are as many paths to the Divine than there are people on this planet." - I forget where i got this quote from.
Just because you are doing more or less than someone else, doesn't mean that either of you are wrong. it means you have found two different but magical routes to the same destination.
- Know when to keep things private
It's easy to get excited and want to post your spell work of confirmation from the Divine before it's time to do so. It's incredibly important to know when it's time to share and when things are meant to stay between you and the Spirit that bestowed that knowledge or warning onto you.
Wait till after the ritual is over to post its glorious energy, be espcially considerate if it's work for a client. If you insist on posting your ritual as it's working, ensure to put up a few protections so no one can influence your results.
It's worth mentioning, if you did a transmutation spell or something that draws in the energy of onlookers, to transform it into something beneficial, then of course post the working and draw in as much attention and energy as you wish.
- Mind your own practice (continuation of point 2)
When it comes to Witchcraft and The Occult, there is no such thing as one true way. The path of magic is raw and free flowing.
But because we share so much and get our inspiration from social media, we can’t help but to compare what we’re doing to what someone else is doing
It could cause us to judge the magic we’re witnessing and prevent us from seeing the spirit that’s flows within it.
Put 10 witches in a room and tell them to cast the same spell, I promise you each one of them will go about it differently. That doesn’t mean that any of them are wrong but that there are many different ways to work magic to get the same result
- Karma, free will, & the 3 fold law
Karma is specific to the religions Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. Understanding this is important because there are a lot of people who will tell you not to work certain spells because of its karmic consequences, even if neither party practices a religion listed above. it's also important to note that Karma is a very complex spiritual system that is built on infinite lifetimes of karmic debt, which include both positive and negative experiences.
Unfortunately in the West, it's been watered down and stripped of most of it's cultural and spiritual significance, people use this as a way to condemn the behavior of others. It's almost a repackaging of "If you do x,y & z, you'll go to hell!" Which is always interesting come anyone, let alone a Spiritualist or Occultist.
Many people are against doing love spells or anything that could influence another person's free will. Depending on the Witch you ask, they might say every spell no matter what influences another person's free will. I say coming up with the answer to this question is as personal as the spiritual walk into the journey of the Witch itself. Look within and ask the Spirits that surround you.
- Developing a daily practice
The only way to be a Witch is to be active and do the work. That can be as big as performing rituals under the moonlight and giving thanks and offerings to Spirits or simply anointing yourself and home to keep yourself protected.
Examples:
- daily and nightly prayer
- 3 card oracle or tarot pulls, as often as you wish
- creating a small devotion area or altar, not for any Spirit but to remind you of the conscious commitment you're embarking on