Do you want to practise witchcraft but don't know where to start? Do you find it all too confusing? Maybe you've been practising for a while and want to go back to basics. Or perhaps you're a seasoned witch and want to explore more ways of practisin...
A lot of witches believe that the ancient gods of mythology still exist and can assist witches with their magick today. Gods and goddesses rule over specific parts of daily life and aspects of spirituality; they can be called upon to help with certain goals, or just be revered and respected.
While witches and pagans can have much love and respect for their deities, most of them prefer not to say that they "worship" them. Worship is a very heavily loaded term that implies subordination, inferiority, and dependence. A big part of being a witch is cultivating your personal power and realising your true self-worth. So we choose to work with deities, not worship them.
How deities can assist in your craft
> Providing guidance and advice > Boosting your spells > Assisting with personal growth & shadow work > Increasing your appreciation for nature and the universe > Gaining knowledge, insight, and enlightenment
Types of Divinity Beliefs
There are lots of different ways to view the nature of divinity. If you've grown up in the context of a particular religion (e.g. Christianity) it can be difficult to understand divinity from different perspectives. The all-knowing, all-powerful, judgemental God you may have grown up with is not the only way deities can be like - there are different perspectives of theism.
Equally, just because you're an atheist doesn't mean you can't work with deities in your craft. I've provided information on some atheistic beliefs around deity work too.
🛐 Theistic beliefs:
Classical theism - The belief that deity is an all-powerful, wholly good, omnipresent being that is separate from reality and transcendent (i.e. they are beyond human understanding and look down at as from above).
Personal God - A deity that is referred to like a person. This is how God is commonly depicted in Abrahamic scriptures; described as being a personal creator, speaking in the first person and showing emotion such as anger and pride.
Pantheism - The belief that divinity and reality are identical. Put simply, the belief that God is the universe, rather than God created the universe and is separate from it.
Henotheism - A concept where other deities can appear as "avatars" (or personalities) of a greater/monotheist deity. Wiccan deities are often considered henotheistic; Artemis, Diana, Gaia, etc can be considered personalities of the Wiccan Goddess. (The Hindu deities are also henotheistic).
Anthropomorphism & Immanence - The attribution of human traits to non-human entities is known as anthropomorphism. The Wiccan God & Goddess can be considered anthropomorphised forms of nature (the sun and the moon represent the God and the Goddess respectively). Deities that are immanent are part of the world we live in; tangible and knowable, not just looking down at us from above. Anthropomorphism and immanence tend to go hand-in-hand, as in the belief that divinity is intrinsic to the physical world. This is the opposite of transcendent, although most pagans/witches believe that their deities are both immanent and transcendent.
Egregore - The concept that if enough people believe in the existence of a deity, then the deity becomes real, in a metaphysical sense. (Egregores are basically Tulpas on a much larger scale).
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