Witchcraft is not a religion. It is a part of some religions but is not a religion in itself. Witchcraft is a practise, that anyone can take part in, no matter whether they have religious beliefs or not.
Many people assume witchcraft is a religion because often people use Wicca and witchcraft interchangeably. It is true that Wicca is a religion with a heavy involvement of witchcraft, but it has extra beliefs such as in the God and Goddess and the Three-Fold Law, which are added onto witchcraft rather than being an inherent part of them.
Atheism = believing there is no God or higher power, science is the only explanation for phenomena within the world (e.g. Big Bang for creation with no involvement of a higher power)
Agnostic = confused about religion, questioning whether there is a higher power, questioning whether there is a God or multiple gods. Basically being not entirely sure what sort of spiritual powers may be out there or whether they are out there.
Monotheism = belief in one true God (many major world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism etc.)
Polytheism = belief in several gods. There are many different pantheons of gods, such as Hellenistic (Ancient Greek) and Kemetism (Ancient Egyptian).
Paganism = another term for religions that believe in many gods. Typically used for reconstructionist religions that aim to recreate/revive religions from long ago, e.g. Celtic Paganism focuses on belief in gods and worship from the Celtic times. (Important to note that not all religions who believe in multiple gods are comfortable with the term pagan or paganism)
Animism = not necessarily religious, but a belief that things in the natural world have spirits inside them, like nature spirits, for example river spirits, tree spirits etc.
There is no right or wrong way to be religious and a witch.
A witch can be atheist. A witch can be agnostic. A witch can be monotheistic. A witch can be polytheistic. A witch can be pagan. A witch can be secular.
Some witches do hold religious beliefs but keep their religion separate from their witchcraft. For example, they might believe in a God, but not work with that God in their craft or leave offerings for that God on an altar, because they prefer to keep their religion and their witchcraft separate.
To sum all this up - there is no religion that you have to be to be a witch. There are many types of religion and many ways to be a witch.
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Witchcraft 101
Non-FictionHello! Here I am going to try to give a basic overview of where to start when first looking into witchcraft. As this is the basics, I will likely make a second book with more detail in certain areas. This is meant to be a simple overview. I would l...
