Beginner’s Guide to Witchcraft

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 Introduction

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 Welcome to Witch in a Weekend!
I’m so honored you chose this program to call in your magic!

This course couldn’t possibly contain everything there is to know about magic

and witchcraft. Instead, it is my hope that it will be a solid foundation for you to

build upon and grow your practice from.

What is Magic?

A connection to nature. A connection to your power. A way to bring about

harmony and peace in everyday life. A way to manifest or create the life you want.

Do You Have to Call Yourself a Witch to Use Magic?

Absolutely not. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to labeling.

In fact, you don’t even need a label. You also aren’t required to share everything

you believe and practice. The most important thing to consider is your comfort

level. Although this is one of the safest times for a witchy person to live and

practice magic, there are still people who don’t understand. Some people may

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have preconceived notions that it’s something that must be stopped and it’s their

mission to stop it. Remember, it isn’t our job to change their mind or understand

them. Our job is to live our lives according to our own paths. What you choose

to call yourself or tell others is entirely up to you.

High Magic vs Low Magic

Natural Magic, or High Magic, is magic that is used for good purposes, to

bring about change that affects you directly, or betters the world. Dark Magic,

or Low Magic, is generally used for selfish reasons or with the intention to harm.

It is my firm belief that any magic practiced should be High Magic. I do not

endorse using any forms of Low Magic in your practice. It should also be noted

that trying to do spells involving other people who are unaware, no matter how

good the intentions, could be a form of Low Magic. Sending positivity or loving

intentions to someone who is unaware isn’t harmful though, as their energy field

isn’t going to allow something in that doesn’t vibrate with what they believe or

are willing to accept.

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 The Foundation

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Trusting Your Power

Your power and intuition are everything when it comes to magical work

because it is such a personal journey.

We all get feelings throughout the day that alert us to whether something is

good or bad. This feeling easily gets suppressed for various reasons, maybe from

another child making fun of us in school, or from a parent telling us we were

wrong when we knew in our gut that we were right. Even if you haven’t trusted

your intuition in years, you can get that back. The first step is to begin listening

to those feelings and trusting them, strengthening that connection

Mindset work

One of the biggest hindrances to seeing results from spells and other magic

work is mindset. You might have the best tools and the most meticulously

thought out spells that portray exactly what you want to bring into being, but if

you don’t truly believe the spells will work or if you have blocks about what you’re

trying to do spells about, you will unfortunately get in your own way.

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 Grounding

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 Grounding connects us to the Earth, to the universe, and to the collective

consciousness of the world. The more connected and grounded we are, the more

able we are to draw in positivity, have a great mindset, and make magic.

When working with magic, it can be easy to have a “head in the clouds”

feeling, but grounding will help combat that. Grounding also helps us live in the

present and be more aware of the world around us.

Ways to Ground and Connect:

- Work with black stones, such as obsidian, tourmaline, or jet.

- Do a grounding meditation, like the morning invocation in this program

- Visualize roots coming from your feet, extending to the center of the Earth.

- Work with your angels, guides, or ancestors.

- Walk barefoot outside or wear incredibly thin shoes such as FitKicks.

- Light a candle or incense. Scents like Frankincense, Cedar, Fir, or anything

from a tree can be incredibly grounding.

- Practice deep breathing, focusing only on your breath as you inhale and exhale.

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 Spell Crafting

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 You can’t force something to happen to another person. Instead, spells need

to be about what you can control, or sending positivity to another person. Their

energy field will only accept it if they want it and it resonates with their energy.

Rhyming words have been an integral part of spellwork throughout history.

They’re not vital to a spell’s success, but rhyming helps with memorizing.

Memorization is important because the more you repeat a spell to yourself, the

more you are in the proper mindset to be open to manifesting and the more

you’re putting that energy out into the universe.

Don’t sweat it if you have a hard time easily coming up with ideas. The

best way to grow your own imagination is to jump in and begin practicing.

Remember, if you’re practicing alone, no one can see you or hear your thoughts

so don’t worry about feeling like you look silly. Once you can let go of any self-

doubt or insecurities, you’ll be amazed at how your confidence and power grows!

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 Incorporating Tools

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Grimoire

A Grimoire, or Book of Shadows (BoS), is a collection of your spells, rituals,

and other information pages. It’s a hard copy reference book that you can

personalize and make into whatever you need and whatever fits your practice

the best. While this book can be called a BoS or Grimoire, the only real difference

is that a BoS is considered more personalized than a Grimoire, but this isn’t

really an agreed upon distinction so for the purposes of this class, I’ll use them

interchangeably.

One of the most famous Book of Shadows is the one used by the Halliwell

sisters in Charmed. It was filled with demons, spells, incantations, and recipes

and was highly sought after by various characters over the years.

When I first began putting my own Grimoire together, I wanted to make it

look like the Charmed BoS. I spent so much time figuring out what to use for a

cover, how to make the pages look perfectly antiqued, exactly what I’d put in

there, and the order in which I’d put it in. All of the time spent ended up being

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a waste because I became burnt out from the project and could no longer see the

benefits of having a hard copy of anything when I could just store my recipes

and spells in a Google Docs document or Google any info I needed.

Then several months later, I revisited the idea of creating a Grimoire. This

time, I picked up a binder from the store and began printing out pages that I

referred to often, such as: moon cycle dates, properties of herbs I commonly used,

the significance of colors, and more. It is so much easier to pull my binder off

the shelf and flip to the information I need! There’s also the added benefit of not

getting sucked into an infinite loop of looking up new information on the

computer instead of jumping in and doing the spells and rituals.

Make sure to print out the grimoire pages included in this course. Any time

you learn about a new subject, celebrate a holiday, come up with a new spell, or

use a new tool, create a BoS page for it!

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Crystals

Crystals and gemstones can be a powerful addition to your magical

collection. There are a seemingly endless variety of stones that cover every

problem imaginable, whether physical or emotional. The best way to get familiar

with a stone is to work with it. Working with it doesn’t have to be complicated, it

can be as simple as carrying it in your pocket or setting it next to a burning

candle while focusing on your intentions. Crystals can also be used in more

complex ways in crystal grids, but even grids aren’t as complicated as they sound.

I’ll share more about grids in a moment, but first, I want to cover what I consider

the top 5 stones to add to your collection.

- Clear Quartz This is one of the most versatile stones. Its primary function is

to amplify energy, but it’s so multifaceted that it can take on any intention

you have. If you are only able to buy one stone, get clear quartz.

- Citrine This is a powerful manifesting stone. It’s a form of quartz so it is also

a powerful amplifier. It’s wonderful for self-healing and is a lovely energy

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 cleanser.

- Rose Quartz This is the gemstone of love. Rose quartz has a very gentle

energy that helps facilitate peace and calm. I keep chunks of rose quartz

around my house to hand to anyone who’s feeling grumpy or down. It’s

great to hold to your heart while taking deep breaths and focusing on an

intention such as “I am peaceful, I am calm.”

- Labradorite This gorgeous stone reminds me of the Aurora Borealis with its

flashes of blue and yellow. Some are even purple! In my experience, this is

a stone that helps pull everything together. My favorite use for it is to hold

a piece in my left hand while writing down my new moon intentions with

my right hand.

- Selenite The purification stone. This is another stone I keep all around the

house for quick aura cleansing and to banish negative energy. I keep a

piece above my door frame that is charged with the intention of

transmuting negative energy before anyone enters my home. I have

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 noticed that visitors are more subdued in my home when it comes to

discussions on hot-button topics. This could be from a variety of factors in

how I have set up the energy around the house, but every single one is an

important addition!

The most important thing to remember when working with crystals is to use

your intuition. This is just a starting point and there are so many uses for

crystals. If you look up something like amethyst and find that it’s excellent for

balancing the crown chakra, but you really feel like it’s exactly what you need to

balance your sacral chakra, by all means use it for that!

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Crystal Grids

Grids are a way to draw in multiple energies at one time while focusing on a

single goal or intention.

To start with, figure out where you’d like your grid to be. It can be

something set up temporarily for a ritual and then taken down immediately

after you’re done with the ritual, or if there’s a spot where it could stay more

permanently, that would be great for ongoing energy work. I have an extremely

small house with extraordinarily little counter space so to find a happy medium

between temporary and permanent grids, I build my grid on something that

can be moved around as needed. If you choose to use a movable base for your

grid you get the added bonus of the energies from the material it’s made out of.

The two I use most often are wood, which is perfect for a grounding earth energy,

and a pink Himalayan salt block that was sold as a grill slab, but is awesome for

purifying energy. The amount of possibilities are endless when it comes to what

you can make work and how you can make it work.

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 Grids can be made in any shape, any size, and with any materials. The

most basic grid has a stone in the center with other stones radiating out in a

circle. Alternatively, the center spot can be an oracle card, a picture of something

you’d like to manifest, any item from nature, or an item that has significance to

you and what your grid will be drawing in or putting out into the universe.

Crystals can take on negative energy, especially when we’re using them for

energy work and to help us amplify positivity or filter out negativity. There are a

few ways you can cleanse them, including singing bowls, saging, putting them

out in the moonlight, or by using the method taught in the Emotion Code for

clearing.

Many teachings say that in addition to clearing, stones need to be charged.

I personally believe that a stone is going to emanate its properties without our

help. Citrine is going to be citrine with all of its power without our help so don’t

stress out over making sure your crystals are tuned to their proper vibrations or

healing states. They’re already jiving there naturally! That being said, charging

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them with our intentions can be a powerful way to carry your intention with you

in a physical form.

To charge a stone, or any item, with your intention, there are different ways

you can do this. An elaborate ritual could be done, with circle casting, saging,

and spells, or it could be as simple as holding the object while meditating on

your intention, imagining that energy flowing through you and into the stone.

Herbs and Essential Oils

Herbs and essential oils have many physical and metaphysical properties.

Lavender, for example, helps soothe the mind for sleep and it also is a powerful

herb for restoring balance. Herbs can be used fresh, dried, in teas, in tinctures,

and in oil forms, whether infused or essential oils. Simply put, any format of an

herb is going to help you in your practice. I’ve noticed health food stores have

begun carrying more and more herbs beyond culinary favorites, but if your local

stores don’t care them, Mountain Rose Herbs is my favorite online herbal store.

That being said, culinary herbs and spices have magical properties as well so if

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that’s all that is accessible to you, don’t worry!

You can also grow your own herb garden. I would recommend starting

out with one or two herbs that you regularly use and then expand from there as

you become more comfortable gardening. It’s so easy to buy seeds for 30 different

plants and then end up frustrated at the end of the season when nothing

flourished. Not that I’ve been there or anything!

There are a few different ways you can use herbs in your practice:

- Burning or Smudging White sage is the most common herb burned as it is

used for purification and removing negative energies. Other herbs can be

used in this manner.

- Essential Oils diffused or applied Following safe practices, essential oils can

be used to anoint items or people, or diffused during rituals. Essential oils

have the same metaphysical properties as their herbal counterpart.

- Sprinkling Herbs can simply be sprinkled around grids or used as integral

pieces within a grid to infuse it with specific energies.

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- Teas Steeping herbs in water is a delightful way to infuse yourself with their

properties. Add a little honey, stevia, or maple syrup to make the tea and

your results that much sweeter!

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 Thank You!

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 Thank you so much for joining Witchcraft in a Weekend! It is truly an honor

to be a part of your journey and I hope your path is filled with many blessings!

If you would like more guidance for honing your mindset and intuition, I

have an enchanting new program coming later this year to conjure a more

soulful, fearless practice so you can step into your most witchy higher-self!

Be on the lookout for more info on that soon.

Join the Alchemy Facebook group for updates, more magic, and community!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/599197910681223/

Spells, setting up crystal grids, creating a grimoire, and working with herbs

are definitely the fun parts of making magic! If you have one takeaway from this

class, I hope it’s that you are your magic, you hold the power within you! Mindset

work and learning to trust yourself are the two most important components of

making magic. You have everything within you that you need to create magic!

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