I'm a #witch, a practitioner of #witchcraft, although not of the #wiccan variety. It has been called “folk magic”, but I prefer to refer to it as “traditional witchcraft”. I'm also a man. I do not call myself a warlock, or a wizard. Both terms are just... stupid. While the overwhelming majority of witches are women, it is a gender-neutral term.

I'm a witch.

Witchiness started when I was around twelve or thirteen years old, with lots, and lots, of déjà vu. Recognizing moments from my dreams, sometimes dreams that I'd had months beforehand. Often, I will have completely forgotten about the dream, until the moment arrives, and all the details will come rushing back. I've known my way around houses and buildings which I've never been to before, because I'd dreamt about them. What is actually happening there is still a mystery to me. There may be some astral projection going on, but I can't say for sure. I'm still experimenting with it.

As a kid, I was much more open to the experience, and recognized it for what it was. As I got older, though, I started dismissing it as a whole lot of coincidence. This was partially due to the fact that it's just what people do as they get older, and partly because of my Christian upbringing, and being so thoroughly immersed in that culture every day of my young life. I was a kid all through the 1980s, and got to live through the Satanic Panic, up to my eyeballs in Christian Fundamentalism, which meant there was a lot of fear and suspicion revolving around anything supernatural.

In my 20s, I started noticing that I could anticipate what people were going to say or do. I'd be having a conversation with someone, and would know exactly what their response was going to be, just before they said it. I'd be sitting at home, and suddenly someone would pop into my mind. Normally, there is a trail of thoughts that you can follow, a flow that you can trace back to how someone became a subject in your head. In these cases, that wouldn't happen. I'd just suddenly be thinking about them with no prompting of any kind, and then the phone would ring, or there would be a knock at the door, and there I am having a conversation with that person.

Again, I blew it off as coincidence, for years.

Around this same time, my aunt started sharing similar experiences with me, only she was much more in touch with them, as women tend to be. She knew what was happening, and was much more open to letting it happen, and honing that ability. Sometimes I would take it seriously, and really start delving into it. Other times, I'd think I was just being stupid, and I'd blow it off.

I've always been a skeptical person. I want to see proof, and the more extraordinary the thing, the more extraordinary the proof needs to be. Another monkey wrench in the works here was my Christianity. I can honestly say that I never really believed. I tried to, but there were just too many questions, and things that never made sense to me. After I launched from my parents' home, and started my own life as an adult, I became less and less inclined to call myself a Christian. It has now been more than 20 years since I stood in my living room, alone, and whispered to myself “I am not a Christian”.

That journey is a subject for another post, but I will say that the fear instilled in you by the church, fear of god, fear of hell... it never completely leaves you. That fear kept me from accepting who I am, and the things I can do, for a very long time.

One thing that is still with me, from being on that side of the Satanic Panic, is the fear of Christians in large numbers, with idiots and bigots leading them. Events in the last few years, done at the hands of Christians and Qanons, right here in the US, have only heightened that fear. So I practice entirely in secret.

I do not worship Satan, nor do I believe that Satan or God exist.

I do not believe in heaven or hell.

I do not believe in angels, at least not in the biblical form. I do believe there are things akin to angels, but that is also for another post.

Likewise, I do not believe in demons. I believe in souls, which were once living things, that have become so lost that they are nothing more than animals, ruled by their anger and fear because that is all they still know.

I do not believe that I can cure disease, or heal broken limbs, or fly, or move things with my mind.

The list of tropes surrounding witchcraft, which I do not ascribe to, goes on and on and on.

What I do know, from years of reproducible experimentation, is that I can affect the world around me in very subtle ways. I can exert some influence over other people, of a certain malleability, and that I often know things that there is no reason I should or would know.

Up until now, I've been a solitary witch. I study and practice alone, because people generally cannot be trusted, and many “witches” out there are morons playing a part, and generally just being ridiculous.

I haven't decided if I'll stay solitary, or explore covens. In any case, what I'm doing with this blog is reaching out. I'll be posting my thoughts and experiences moving forward, relating to my witchery. If anyone wishes to email me at tomblueleaf@protonmail.com, feel free. I make no guarantees I'll respond, but it's always worth a shot.