Fear Mongering in the Witchcraft Community 

The Satanic Panic is so interesting. I was born in 1985 and it definitely spilled into the early 90s and I clearly remember the fear of society. Its also interesting to see how its currently taking place today. Christianity and Satanic Panic are all the same in that, its a way for people to explain things they don't understand or they can't control.

My favorite that always makes me laugh is “ you must sage with the window open or the evil won’t leave” … huh does that even make sense.? A closed window doesn’t keep them from getting in but getting out forget about it. I think you wanna open a window for ventilation sure that makes sense but that crap is stupid ….. loved this video btw❤

Somewhere toward the end of Scott Cunningham's Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner, he said something about not being worried about making a mistake and having an angry deity get you. His take on not doing it right is the worst that might result in nothing happening.

The whole psychosis thing scares me. Like I’ll have what I consider a spiritual experience and then it feels ruined by the thought that it could just be me losing it.

I run into this a lot when researching a magic topic and asking witch groups for input or suggested places to research. I get a lot of: That isn't a thing (despite other people in the group mentioning it) You can't do that. Who would do that. And when I try to ask how or why, it tends to be "that's just how it is. We been doing this longer just listen." 🙄

Uuuh I know right! I actually made a video about this a while ago! I think it's called "Don't be scared to start your witchcraft journey" or something like that... I was honestly so sick and tired of people fear-mongering in the witchcraft community... I know most of them probably have good intentions, but it comes across as very "gatekeepy" and just wrong. I love that you touch on this phenomenon as well because I haven't seen many practitioners do that. Thank you

From my experience and personal opinion:- I think a lot of quick fixers and magic dabblers or dogmatists don’t realise that the magic comes and happens through themselves. I’ve got a daily practice and have studied for years, I’ve broken all the rules of dogma and have had either great successes or the odd hot and cold results. I’ve learned so much more from just exploring and so on.

I heard things like: "If you curse someone or do any type of baneful magic it’s gonna turn back on you and everybody you love and hurt them 3-times as much, because that’s karma." or like: "Never say - bodaj by ... - (in our language it’s similar to - oh, I wish you ... - but in a really spiteful or malicious way) or it’s gonna happen and then it kills them and then the karma finds you and kills you too." That was 10 years ago when I first started to learn about witchcraft. And then later on, I found somewhere that the eclipse is like the universe turns around and can’t see you or something like that and I was like "oh, so eclipse is like the perfect way to do some baneful magic." (at that time I was holding back from doing anything like that, because of the "everything you do, comes back to you 3-times" but I tried to do it and suddenly it worked perfectly and the toxic person I wanted to bind stopped harming my friends in school - just ignored them for the rest of the year and then changed school) It took almost 2 years for me to find out there are more paths than wicca (which I wasn’t even following properly) so I could just find more practices and even after 10 years I learned just recently that my practice is mostly full of chaos magic - thanks to you and your video about chaos magic, so THANK YOU!

I love that you mentioned “Well, When will their path start” and “having caution is not a necessary bad thing”!!!

I must be old at heart, as I only use YT for any witchy info or learning. I don't do TikTok as that's not my thing. I've not run into any fear mongering as I keep to myself and do what I feel is right. I let the Universe be my guide when I need to call upon it.

Thanks for this video. It was an interesting approach about this topic. Sometimes I believe that people scare other to they don't do magic. I think it can be an ego thing.

👏👏👏 There's so much bs around witchcraft and there always will be because too many people want a quick fix and won't take the time to truly understand witchcraft. For every "don't do this" there are 1000 success stories of people doing exactly that. I do think some things aren't great for beginners but mainly because it will just put them off if it doesn't work because they just haven't had the practice at the basics yet. It really bugs me when I see people treating deity work as if it's something for only "advanced" witches. Great video!

On things encountered: When I was a new/novice Pagan, the big "no-no" was, never, NEVER use widdershins in ritual or magickal work. Because, bad things would happen; portals opened; cats and dogs, living together..... Deosil was the only approved direction to move in. No one ever came up with a clear, reasonable explanation for this.

My knee jerk reaction at the start of this video was that I’d only experienced fear mongering online. But as the video went on I realized that’s not true. At different kinds of events and metaphysical gatherings I’ve seen or experienced those kind of comments. And reflecting on each instance I think the person’s doing the fear mongering had spiritual businesses and wanted to be seen as an authority. Outside of work and very geographically distant family, I don’t have a ton of contact with very religious people. So that’s been my experience YMMV 👍🏼

This happens mostly with initiated and/or closed groups and traditions and it drives me INSANE!! And the thing too is that most of us are not saying that there’s most definitely caution and responsibilities to keep on the look out for especially with protecting our subconscious/spiritual psyche, it’s more, in my opinion, to do with “you can not do xy&z because ___dogma/superstition/race/ethnicity___” … on the other hand, working with deities, pantheons and spirits, I feel, is a totally different subject because we are attempting to have a relationship with them, and we need to understand how to be respectful and to understand that they are their own individual/s, have their own personalities and intentions and sometimes this or that may not work out - and let’s just keep it real some energies work, others don’t, some are malicious others not. This territory is probably the most controversial because closed groups are based upon “religious practices” which base their absolutes on dogma. At the same time if I’m approached by an initiate or another witch that says “such and such” entity is difficult to work with or on the contrary is wonderful to work with, I’m going to do my diligent research versus someone telling me “you can’t work with this deity because they’re bad”, there’s a difference.

A lot of the time, people also forget to think of what their Ørlög/hàmingja (norse pagan and practicing astrological witch, kind of a dense path to explain) in that they may javelin a karmic bl9ck currently that backfires their spell or causes it to dud. Part of the meditation is to check the spirit and see if any contrasting energy is residing within that one first needs to work through in order align energetically. Hope that made sense 😅

Working with the fae. When I first started discovering the fae I wanted to see if others had also. And I got alot of fear mongering. Don't do this and don't do that and how to scare them off. Very few voices came from any type of experience either like you said it was a bad one time experience or it was parrot talk. How I ended up communicating with the fae was also a hot bed of fear mongering, using a black mirror. I'm not saying that every instance is the equivalent of having English dialog with tinkerbell. Actually it's never like that. But there are aspects of their realm that appear terrifying to humans but are normal to them.

Yes girl, I’m here for the eye makeup ….I like it 🙌🏾

THANK! YOU! Tiffany, you’re such a breath of fresh air. I agree with all you’ve said here, and you articulated it all so well. These are things I’ve been thinking in response to fear mongering in the community for years now. Personally, I’m deeply interested in spirit work. I’ve always been a bit sensitive to spirits (to varying degrees through my life), I work in a funeral home and am around them a lot in my daily life. I’m trying to learn how to work with them and coexist in a fulfilling way. The amount of fear and misinformation online about spirits in general, and any kind of interaction with or craft around them is mind boggling! And so frustrating! Don’t even get me started on all the things people say about Ouija boards - thanks a lot, The Exorcist. No one should be discouraged for exploring areas of spirituality and witchcraft that they’re interested in - everyone has different skill sets, and natural aptitudes for things. Let people explore and learn. I think that most people are coming from a good place, but it’s certainly true that there are plenty of others who are arrogant, controlling, and only interested in their own superiority and gatekeeping. And it’s sad.

Yes to all of this 😂 I've been practicing for over 10 years, but mostly in only a handful of realms (I like to keep it simple). One of those is working with spirits of the dead. Need I say any more? 😂 to me it isn't any more scary than going to Walmart. Set boundaries, probably don't invite anyone to move in with you, and you may want to ground and center when you get home. Of course there's more to it than that, but that's the most helpful advice I can think of to give someone when they're starting. The rest is mostly experiential, especially if you're already regularly cleansing your space and protecting it from ickiness.

The sugar coating of grey and negative Magick is the reason why I left the occult...

Re: why you shouldn’t cast spells on a full moon: Some people that I follow in the astrological community have said that this is because the full moon represents the culminating of events, as opposed to new moons which represent new beginnings, so if you try to manifest on an eclipse, it simply won’t come to fruition because it doesn’t translate as a culmination if it’s something new, if that makes sense.. so, it’s not necessarily “bad”, it’s just ineffective.

OK Tiffany, this helped a lot for my email. I think I just have to do it and not let the fear hold me back. Thank you so much.

If I offered wine to a trickster and tell ‘em to leave after, will it be a respected manner?

I have a question. What is the deal with female witches looking down on male witches? I want to learn not take over. This is what i hear a lot. You can not do that because you are a man or this will not work for you because you are a man or men should be warlocks or mages or sorcerer but not a WITCH. Any suggestions for me and men going through what I am.