What a witch should know

A brief syllabus for the practice of Magic.
By Mama Rose.

A complete Syllabus for Sylvan Wicca, complete with exercises, is available from Circle of Winter.) None of what follows is about the religion of Wicca; it is about the practice of Witchcraft. One may follow the religion (which is described by other people, elsewhere) and still not be a Witch, a practitioner of magic and priest/ess of the Gods. A different, shorter, and older version of this is called Thirteen Goals for Witches. These musings on the whole question by Morgan Ley are also of value.

Like Greek for Christian priests, these are the tools of our Craft. This is what I learned, and what I believe.

The first set of things prepare the mind.

know how to meditate 
This is the art of stilling the jumble of thoughts that distract a person from her purpose. In order to work magic a person must know exactly what it is that s/he desires to occur. A person must have a single clear thought. Meditation clears the playing field of all other desires. 
be ruthless about knowing one's self and one's own psychology 
Because a person needs to know exactly what it is that s/he wants to accomplish, s/he must know what s/he really wants, and why. Most of us hold completely contradictory desires on many issues. A great deal of time and energy can be wasted, for example, on trying to achieve high public office when a person doesn't really want the responsibility but DOES want the approval of her parent. 

know how to be flexible 
Because we live in a chaotic and shifting world, trying to take rules from one spot to another will only result, finally, in standing with Chanute before the waves -- and lacking even his sense of humor about the situation. 
Imagine the child's song "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." Without a doubt you can imagine it for a single voice, or two voices.
Now imagine it being played by a flute.
Now, imagine it being set for an orchestra.
Try it as jazz. And as Zydeco.
This is the kind of flexibility that must be brought to the practice of magic, if it is to be effective and meaningful. 
know how to ground and center one's self 
~To ground is to link a person's own energy field and sense of self to that of the Universe. In a sense it is like an electrical ground: there is a safe place for excess energy to flow to, preventing burnout and/or irritability. In another sense, it also duplicates an electrical outlet, providing a much larger pool of energy from which to draw than the resources of a person's own body. This obviously helps prevent or lessen exhaustion.
~To center is to stabilize on a person's own axis: to perceive one's own self AND one's own body, and bring the two into parallel congruence. To be less formal, this is the act of stopping the lop siding of the aura, smoothing down all the peaks and pulling everything back to the center. It is done with perception and imagination: perceive how one really feels, and then firmly imagine that coming back into balance. Experience has shown that magick works better when the magician is centered. 

know how to shield 
Shielding is the act of protecting the soul from outside influences. It is done after grounding and centering, and there are several techniques. One is to imagine a solid ball in a person's core. I like silver; others work with swirling color, or no color. The ball is then expanded and hollowed, passing through the body of the person until it surrounds her. In its expansion, it pushes out all outside influence with it. The person then imagines a locking device -- I use a knot being tied, others use a padlock clicking shut, some use a door closing -- which, when locked, holds the shield in place until the person takes it down. This is a solid shield. There are other types. 

The second set of things prepare for the actual working of magic.

be well-grounded in interpersonal ethics 
Starting from the Three-fold Law -- everything a person does returns to her three-fold -- and from the Wiccan Rede -- Harm none, and do what thou wilt -- it is necessary to develop a sense of what is proper between people, and why, BEFORE one goes into what is proper to work for magically, and why. Knowing before one begins whether or not one's purpose will exact a cost, and what manner of cost it will exact, goes a long way toward eliminating unexpected headaches. Among other things. 

be well-grounded in interpersonal and interspecies politeness. 
This also goes back to the Wicca Rede: rudeness harms other people, and thus (by the threefold law) harms the rude person. Courtesy toward all is a good way to begin; courtesy toward fellow practitioners is necessary; and courtesy to non-humans is vital. Immediate non-humans to consider are the Elements and the Goddess and the God; less obvious are place-spirits, household spirits, and the resident spirits in each separate thing; most spectacular are those non-humans inaccurately called demons, or Big Black Nasty Dark Things (tm), or, by me, Critters. Knowing politeness gives one more, not fewer, options in dealing with all of them. 
know how to raise energy 
Energy is necessary for all magical workings, and can come from within the person, from the Universe, from music or dance or chanting, from sex, or from other sources. A person raises energy preparatory to channeling it into a working. 
know how to move energy 
Channeling the energy a person has just raised is the most obvious method and purpose of moving energy; another method and purpose is to imagine it passing around you as water passes around a ship, so as not to be caught in it; a third is to comb it with your fingers over a person's body, in order to smooth out tangles in that person's own energy field. There are, of course, many other methods and purposes. 

know how to ground energy 
Here's where a person uses her ground to the Universe. The purpose is to dump excess or tainted energy that would not or no longer be useful where it currently is. The method is to imagine that energy running down one's body into the earth, or up into the stars. I personally like putting my hands on the ground and letting it flow that way. I do have an objection to "dissipating" it into the air, as people may pass through and pick it up accidentally. Grounded to Earth or to Stars, the energy gets cleaned and re-used. 
know the Elements and their symbolisms 
Earth, Air, Fire and Water are the four Elements, deriving from and supporting the fifth Element, Spirit. Each has its own symbol, its own area of governance, its own direction, its own proper Deities. Working with the Elements and their zymology helps keep us physical as well as mental, and reminds us of the overwhelming importance of the Universe. 
be aware of the Laws of Magic. 
Energy does flow in certain routes, and these routes seems to be fairly well agreed-upon cross-culturally. 
know a few Names of the Goddess and of the God 
Each Name of the Goddess reflects a different facet of Her, as each Name of the God reflects a different facet of Him, as the God and the Goddess both reflect different facets of the Universe -- and not necessarily the only two, either. Because this is true, and because we work only with a little bit at a time, knowing the Names of the Goddess and the God that reflect the area in which we are currently working helps us focus our attention more closely on what we're doing. 

Know how to establish a circle 
A circle is a magical working space. It acts like a shield, so that you can work without your personal shields in a larger space. I once developed, with an enquirer, the analogy that shields are like a suit of armor, while a circle is like a defended room. My circles consist of these elements (always moving clockwise):
a circle around the area in which I plan to work, drawn three times (once for each face of the Goddess) with a blade or a wand or my own body 
sprinkling the circumference with salt water 
spreading the smoke of incense around the circle 
carrying a candle around the circle 
invoking the elements, each at their own Watchtower, 
invoking the Goddess and lighting Her candle 
invoking the God and lighting His candle

Know how to create ritual 
Rituals are recipes for transforming reality in accordance with will. Not every situation will be covered in a cook-book or grimier  nor should any existing recipe be used without altering it in accordance with the situation. Knowing the basic elements that go into a ritual, and the ways they vary according to circumstance, allows a Witch to have a suitable ritual for any occasion resident within her own head. 
be able to deal with the manifestations of each Element with respect 
(i.e., what you do with Fire when you're done with it, and how you deal with stones.)
This goes back to politeness. Remember that everything one uses and invokes is Not a servant, but an ally. 

know some basic normal individual psychology and some basic normal group psychology (Not abnormal: that's for specialists) 
This is necessary for creating good ritual: what effects are desired, and how best can one achieve them? It depends on how the person to be affected reacts, and on how the group working together interacts. It is also, and more importantly, necessary for maintaining a working group.

The next set of things are background skills.
Witches have traditionally been the interceders between humans and both the spiritual and the physical world. These skills are the tools for doing that. 
know at least one divinatory system 
Divination, at its heart, is a map of influences. Some such influences are psychological, some are Fateful, some are physical. Divination can help to determine whether a ritual is necessary, and, if so, of what sort; it can help determine the motivations of all the people involved, and so helps as a counseling tool by itself; it can help warn of consequences in time to prepare for them or to avert them; and so forth. 
know the processes for dealing with herbs in both a magical and a medical sense 
The magical derives from and interacts with the medical. If one knows how to prepare an infusion, an extraction, and a poultice, and how to prepare a charm bag, a dream pillow, and a bath scrub, s/he can make a more long-term intercession for herself or for others. S/he also will make more of a linkage to her roots, which is good for grounding and centering. 
know a little first aid 
We were the first, and in some places the only, line of defense against death from wounds and sickness. This links with the herb work, and for the same reason. But the following is very obvious and basic.
Be able to keep calm in the presence of blood 
Know how to clean and bandage a wound 
Know when and how to call for help.
Anything more one learns how to do is all to the good; but at least know this much. 

The last set are the scholarly skills.
These are necessary in this time because of the fact that we live in the midst of other religions and thought-systems, some of which are hostile to us, others of which are ignorant of us, and many of which have things to teach us.

be able to tell the difference between myth and libel 
Myths are teaching stories, told to illustrate or illuminate a situation. Unfortunately, both our enemies and we ourselves have developed "myths" which lie about the actions and the motivations of the others, not from evilness, but from anger, from lack of knowledge, and from misapprehensions. In order to work for harmony, however chaotic or ordered, we must be able to recognize the difference no matter who speaks it, and challenge it. When we challenge on behalf of ourselves, we gain strength; when we challenge on behalf of others, we gain allies and harmony. 


study a little history of religion and a little history of nations. 
This interacts with the "myth" necessity, above, by replacing some myth with 'historical fact.' It also teaches how and why tolerance and intolerance occur, and that certain things are the result of law and not nature. As we understand how the Web is woven, we can act more surely within the Web. 
be aware of current scientific thought concerning energy. 
This last acts to train our own skills in working with energy. The work that is currently being done, especially with Chaos Theory, validates what we have been doing; at the same time it teaches us the pattern of it in a larger sense.

To be a Witch is to commit to learning forever; to commit to acting for the best we can perceive; to be a force for the Gods in the world, and a force for the world with the Gods. 
This is how I learned it, and this is what I hold to.