The popular modern rhetoric of witchcraft refers to our calling as both a craft, a practical thing to be done through concrete steps, and a kind of spiritual art, guided by vision and inspiration. Think of the words we use to describe what we do: “the craft,” “the old craft,” “the magical arts,” “the occult arts.” These are more than evocative phrasings, for they appear in old grimoires and manuals from hundreds of years in the past. We are, all of us, guilty of perhaps overemphasizing the “craft” element of our calling, neglecting what makes witchcraft an art. And yet, most of us recognize that our work is more than a mere series of actions, that its culmination is more than the sum of its parts. After all, if it were so, merely speaking an incantation would produce the desired effect, which is, as we all know, the stuff of fantasy novels.
No, there is more to our craft than a series of actions, but defining that something is tricky. For many of us, acts of magical power are sensed out intuitively, which is why many folk and traditional witches begin their learning by working through old charms and operations, meeting a mixture of successes and failures, often without knowing why. We know instinctively when the work is potent; there is a tangible feeling of excitement and arousal of spirit when this is the case, and yet, that sensation resists definition, evading our attempts to identify the variable that results in our success. What we want is to replicate that effect at will, but without understanding its nature, we are simply casting darts at a board.
It is in witchcraft-as-art that we find this missing piece, and if we accept witchcraft as a spiritual art, we can now reckon with certain principles that aid us in our search for success. One of the things that good art does very often is render the familiar unfamiliar, to allow us to experience something mundane through new eyes and senses. Think of a portrait that captures a side of someone only the painter could convey. Think of a piece of music that conjures deep emotions in a way that feels new to us. It isn’t simply that good art replicates experiences familiar to us already; that’s just imitation. Good art presents the known and familiar to us as something strange and wonderful, allowing us to feel young and unjaded, wrapped up in the sensation of the moment for what feels like the first time.
Potency in witchcraft is like this. If the execution of the charm feels raw and immediate, it is usually good. If our words and actions feel strange to us, all the better. If we feel like a strange, new person in the process, even more so. This is part of why we see so many psychoactive plants like henbane, belladonna, wormwood, and even cannabis in the old grimoires, for it is not so different than the bohemian artist chasing their green fairy in bottles of absinthe. We seek a raw experience, an ecstatic experience, to feel fully both the need and the charm to answer its ache. In incantations, we seek to feel the texture and weight of the words themselves in our mouths, to feel their impact upon the invisible listener behind and within the candle’s glow. In crafting talismans, we seek to feel fully the shaping of the object in our hands and the sinking of the charm within it like ingredients kneaded into warm dough. We construct elaborate altars and surround ourselves with evocative aesthetics all to this effect, but ultimately, all of these tricks and trinkets cannot do the work for us. They’re just things, after all. A dancer’s power is not in the costume or the set, but in controlled and intentional movement, set alight by feeling. In the course of time, many of us find that simple charms conducted slowly and deliberately, with care and appreciation, are more potent than all the ritual garb and expensive candles in the world. This is why so many experienced witches shed their elaborate baubles after many years, finding that they simply no longer need them.
Conversely, art without the discipline of craft is like fire without fuel, feeling without form. While the experienced witch is certainly capable of accomplishing more with less, having grown to know and understand the nature of potency, it is only through the structured discipline of craft that we acquire this taste, like a cook who no longer needs measurements, but simply knows when the flavor is right. And like cooks, we come to our skills by following recipes, tasting as we go and savoring them fully along the way. Like a saucier, we must learn not only how to build a béchamel and a hollandaise, but to understand what they feel and look and taste like when done well, to appreciate how the components within them come together, what principles guide this act of creation. In folk and traditional witchcraft, we observe over time the principles of contagion and sympathy in our magics, these two concepts being the engine within so many charms, and we come to understand the nature of ecstasy, which brings us into communion with the otherworld and carries us to our hidden sabbat. Overlooking the pragmatic fundamentals of craft-as-process robs us of these and many other valuable lessons, leaving us full of fire and longing, but with little practical knowledge to muster achievement.
We also find that trying to complete the work with speed or efficiency strangles our efforts, as does following step-by-step instructions too slavishly. We cannot allow ourselves to view the ingredients or actions in a charm as mere procedure, mere commodity. What we’re really after is art. This is part of why many of us choose to grow or forage our own ingredients, assemble our own tools, and burn our own dried fumigations. We could buy these things if we wanted to, but would our work be the same? The raw and vibrant experience we are seeking is not fast work, but slow work: to sow and to harvest, to dwell within the charm as we work it, to soak in it, to perform it while appreciating its flavor fully, slowly, intentionally, to savor our awareness of it, not unlike the movements in a dance. The art is not simply in the end result of our magics, but in the process of the charm itself. We want its sensations to surprise and arrest us. We want to be shaken from our modern “time management” consciousness, to feel and perceive our craft like the first charmers who performed it in the ancient dark, sensing and longing our way through its gestures. In this way, witchcraft is, at its core, resistant to commodification, for its rewards can only ever be won slowly, and a potent charm can never feel cheap or tawdry.
Often, we ask ourselves the old question: are we witches because we perform witchcraft, or do we perform witchcraft because we are witches? In other words, is witchcraft, at its core, something we do, or is it something we simply are? Simple, reductive answers to this question miss the point. A sculptor would likely say that they became what they are through practice and discipline, that in practicing their art over many years, sculpting naturally became a part of who they are. We witches often come to the craft feeling “called” to it, frequently with a predisposition for its demands and an instinct for what “feels right,” but this alone is not enough. It is only in the course of practice that our craft becomes a part of us, that it slowly awakens something within us, sharpening our instincts and enabling us to achieve potency in our art with fewer bells and whistles. And so, it seems the answer to our question is actually both: we become witches by practicing witchcraft, and we continue in this act of becoming, this ongoing awakening, through discipline. We are much like the sculptor, both doing and being as we try to understand what our art is and means, relying upon the discipline and structure of good, sound craft to guide us in our work along the way.
Roger J. Horne 