Magic, Witches and Paganism - A Venn Diagram
I read a random question on social media, “Are Pagans addicted to magic?” I found that a fascinating question because it assumes so many things. It assumes that all magical practitioners are pagan, and all pagans practice magic. The comments went to referencing witchcraft and magic and paganism all as the same thing. It’s not the same thing, you can claim all three things, but they are stand alone and deserve their own definition.
Magic – My definition is; intent combined with belief and actions toward a specific goal that is seemingly outside their normal influence.
Merriam-Webster gives magic this definition:
1a : the use of means (such as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces
b : magic rites or incantations
2a : an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source
- Both pitchers, although they are older, haven't lost their magic.
b : something that seems to cast a spell : enchantment
- all the mystery, magic and romance which belong to royalty alone
- —J. E. P. Grigg
Pagan – My definition is; someone who practices a polytheistic religion outside of the Judeo-Christian, Islamic traditions.
Merriam-Webster gives pagan this definition:
1: heathen 1; especially : a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)
2: one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person
3: neo-pagan : witches, druids, goddess worshippers, and other pagans in America today —Alice Dowd
Witch – My definition is; a self assigned title to someone who works with the unseen energies around them to empower themselves and others to create the life they desire.
Merriam-Webster gives witch this definition (which I disdain):
1: one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially : a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar : sorceress — compare warlock
2: an ugly old woman : hag
3: a charming or alluring girl or woman
4: an adherent of Wicca
These three titles are all interrelated and are part of a description, yet they are not synonyms. A witch is not necessarily pagan. She/he may not actually practice magic. She/he may be a healer in their craft, a seer or a counselor. A Pagan may be wholly focused on their religion and their connection with the earth and not cast one spell or magic. They may not consider themselves a witch. Magic can be performed by anyone no matter your religion or personal status.
To get back to that original question, are pagans addicted to magic? No. Can a person be addicted to magic? Yes, with a qualification. Anything can be an addiction or an escape from personal responsibility. If you are using magic to avoid your own accountability, then it may be a problem for you. If that person is also a pagan, that is a coincidence.
I know several pagans that are so focused on the goddess, everything is a hymn to Her, the goddess. It’s such a blessing to watch their connection with the feminine mystery and the awakening of the divine within themselves. I am humbled by them. They feel intentional magic isn’t necessary if you are in the flow of the goddess, because everything within her flow is magic.
I have met a few witches that are fine herbalists and healers. That is their magic and yet they do not call it that. They get in the rhythm of the body and nature and help the body do the healing work. They move energy and bring blessing but would never call it magic.
I have customers who are devout Christians who believe in the power of magic and spell work. They work their bible and lay on hands and conjure up magic.
I also have many clients who claim none of those titles and believe in working with the unseen energy around us to facilitate change. The laws of attraction, positive thinking and getting in-tune with their inner divinity is at the core of their spiritual practice. I love it when they say, “I’m not sure if I believe in magic”, because my answer is always the same.
MAGIC BELIEVES IN YOU
To me, in my spiritual practice, magic, healing, intent, and blessings are all part of the same connection we have with divinity. I see that we co-create with our higher powers and there are many ways to get there. In the end, I believe we are all Witches. It is this desire to reclaim and redefine that term that inspired me to start the Witches Union. We are all magical and we can all be witches if we choose. I imagine a witch being the empowered woman of the tribe, the badass that is not waiting for permission to live her life, the one that makes the difficult choices to take right action. I see the witch as the woman with healthy boundaries and empathy for the greater good. I see the Witch as the wise woman, social worker, healer, guide, counselor and ass kicker. I see a witch as woman or man, transcending all gender.
I proudly wear my Witches Union patch and hand out Witches Union membership cards to every person with a spark of intent within them. We are all individuals carving out a blessed life and if we recognize that within each other, we will be a strong community.
Step into your witch power and find your magic! It’s life affirming! Start with this little magical combination:
Intent = Magic spell
Prosperity Blessed Herbal Candle
Inner Balance Blessed Herbal Oil
Witched Union Adept Membership patch.
Anoint the candle, the patch and yourself with the oil. Think about the areas in your life you are prosperous (for the good and the bad) and where in your life you want to be prosperous. Write out where you want your prosperity to shift to, anoint the paper with the oil and place it under the candle holder for the Prosperity candle. Place the patch next to the candle. Let your intent for this new prosperity fill you, spill out of you and into the greater universe and into the patch. Let the candle burn for a few hours and make sure to extinguish it before leaving.
Carry the patch with you and pay attention to the subtle shifts of energy as your prosperity moves into the area you desire. You are now a witch who practices magic! Enjoy, wear your patch proudly and let your power stand tall and bright!
Where ever you fit on the venn diagram, whatever you practice, embrace it and let it bring balance into your life.
Remember, if you keep your magic close with a daily practice, it will keep you close in it effectiveness and speed.
Live the Magic with Jacki Smith though her blogs, books and products. www.coventrycreations.com.
You’ll always be guided home
I think we are all much more scared than we admit to. We have fears that have hidden themselves in intellectual reasoning. We have fears that mask themselves as common sense (only common to ourselves). We have fears that look like failure or inadequacy. All these fears are roadblocks to achieving what we want. They are not the only road blocks we have, but until we deal with the fear, no other blocks matter. Yup, we are scared. We either put on a brave face to the world and/or have buried the fears so deep we have lost touch with their presence.
When I help clients (and myself) with these fears we often tap into the emotion of being lost and alone in our journey. These fears are scripted in many ways with the same plot twist; “you will be alone, you will lose yourself and the divine will turn away from you if you don’t heed this fear, stay small, and stay home”. That is how fear works, they are a tool of the ego to keep us safe from any hurt, even when hurt that is necessary for our growth. What I remind myself of and take my clients through is the exercise that; we can always find our way back to our soul, our destiny and the divine never turns away from us.
This sense of being divinely guided is what inspired the Divine Guidance patch. That small still voice inside of us is what will guide us true. Just like when we are using a compass we must be still to find true north. We have to be still to find our inner divine guide.
Not every spiritual journey is to be taken on an untried path. Many of our journeys are built upon our past experiences and the experiences of our ancestors of blood and ancestors of spirit. We can use their road map and take the journey just a little deeper to a new discovery of the self. We do this by being grounded in our root chakra. It is here we find the connection to our ancestral past and the building blocks of success.
When we have a deep root into your life and a connection to divine guidance, we can never get lost.
No matter how far your roam, you will always be guided home.
Mapping your future spell
Ancestor Blessed Herbal Candle
Large sheet of paper
Colored markers
Draw a circle in the middle of the paper and write your name in it. Place the Divine Guidance patch and the Ancestor candle in its holder in that circle. Spray yourself with the Success Chakra Magic sprays.
Take the time to quiet your spirit and your mental chatter to find the small still voice within you. Connect with that voice and allow it to help you connect to your root chakra and your ancestral heritage. Bring up the power of the earth into your entire body. Come back to your inner voice and allow it to help make the larger connection through your crown to the divine and your spiritual ancestors. Bring that energy down into your body and blend it with the earth energy.
Bring your entire spiritual essence into your body, making your aura tight around you. Feel the power fill you up completely and then bring your attention to the large paper in front of you.
Using colors that make you happy, start making a mind map of all the things you want to manifest, accomplish and love. Using one subject at a time, see where all your dreams connect and how you are mapping out your future. Tap into the deep emotions around these dreams and let your fears try and talk you out of them. Write your fears out and where in your future map they land.
There is no right or wrong way to do this. You are letting your higher self show you what your potential is and where you will sabotage yourself. As you look at this map from above, ask the Divine to show you what your next 5 steps will be to manifest your dreams. Circle those on your paper.
Write out, on a clean sheet of paper, how you feel about these next steps and think of the most unusual ways you can manifest them. This will take you out of your normal thinking and allow new ideas to come forth. Spray this paper with Success Chakra Magic spray and save this large mind map for review in the future.
Put the Witches Union Patch where you can see it every day. For the next week, light the candle, spray yourself and look at your list of what is next. Be mindful of these goals as the candle burns. Three hours a day is optimal for getting the most out of your candle. Never leave a burning candle unattended.
Go make magic! The future is yours to create!
Remember, if you keep your magic close with a daily practice, it will keep you close in it effectiveness and speed.
Live the Magic with Jacki Smith though her blogs, books and products here.
Wear your Crown of Glory
“Crown of Glory” seems such a self-explanatory title. It gives a sense of being fully vested in your power and reveling in it. “Crown of Success” is equally self-explanatory; giving the sense of activating that power and knocking your goals out of the park. I get a charge every time I even say those phrases, let alone work their magic. Ponder on that a second. Close your eyes and visualize what it does to your energy when you place either or both of those crowns on your head. How would you feel? What could you do? The possibilities are endless.That is why I created the Crown of Glory candle and the Crown of Success patch. They are designed to create the push we need to feel the inner power and permission to put our own crown.
Often, we forget that power is in our hands. Even myself, after doing some big healing work and unpacking some of my repressed emotions I started to wallow in the sadness that I needed to have these emotions. I got stuck in the “Poor Me’s” and my personal power just leaked out of me. I forgot how to put my crown on. I forgot how to be the queen of my own life.
That’s where the Crown of Sovereignty comes into play. Orion Foxwood, one of my favorite conjure teachers opened this idea up for me. I thought I had to put on the crown of sovereignty, but in its nature it is always there. This crown is not you being sovereign or being god, but about you being a part of it. This crown reminds you that you have divine within and you cannot kick it out. You can only ignore it. Once you tune back into it, even for a second, you get all of the divine back into your life. This is another kick in the pants to remind you to put your other crowns back on.
All it takes is a moment of mindfulness to back in alignment with that crown of sovereignty. A few breaths where you let go of your outer world control and let yourself be. You can feel divine energy fill you up from the top down. From this place, more than you imagine is possible.
Mindful manifestations are not easily dismissed or sabotaged because you are co-creating with the divine and giving up the control of the tiny details that can pull you off center.
The Motor City Hoodoo products are a powerful tool with your mindful meditations. They touch upon a deep rooted need and hold a safe space for you to move past the issue and make the change or manifest the goal. We all sabotage that next step when we are uncertain or not in our power. Our ego protects us from those scary changes that we fear. When we combine mindfulness with magic we calm the ego down and bring a clear focus and certainty to our goal.
A customer favorite is the Motor City Hoodoo Road Opener. This candle’s recipe is all about that next step, the new opportunity you are not seeing or the block you put in your way. When you light this candle and mindfully sit with it, writing out your thoughts or fears you are opening your road right then. I personally have done this more than once and had the phone ring, an email come in or someone show up that came through that newly opened road. I never expect anything to immediately come of the work because that takes me out of the mindfulness and trust in the magic. I just know it works - in the moment or in the near future if I keep up the work.
The Black Cat Motor City Hoodoo candle is a bit of an question for a few customers. Black Cat is that old though pattern that says your luck is in the hands of outside influences. Your luck is not determined by that cat across your path, it is determined by your faith in magic, in your intuition and your ability to make the right decision at the right moment. When you mindfully manifest with the Black Cat you are getting into the moment and taking inventory of the decisions you have made to get to this moment where you need to change your luck for the good. When we can see the steps we have taken, we can see the steps that are next. When we take inventory of the present we can find our gratitude and from that place, magic multiplied 100 fold.
There is no one in the hoodoo world more mindful than High John. He is fully in his power and he is reading every moment to get the best out of it. He is the crown of glory in action and he does it with such magical virility. When you bring High John Motor City Hoodoo oil into your daily magic, this helps you see what is going on around you in real time. Just wearing it on your feet helps you see where you are going with every step you take; into trouble, away from your goal, toward your goal or into someone else's business. High John helps you stay in your lane and when you do that, you get to your goal without distraction.
The Cedar trees reach high into the heavens, bringing the divine down to earth making it a powerful addition to your Crown of Glory work. Astrologically, Cedar is associated with Sun energies as it powers up your intent and strengthens your roots. If part of the glory you are manifesting has to do with money, cedar is your go to. Using this with your mindful exercises, it will help build your intuition and psychic abilities to know when and where to make your next move.
If mindfulness is new to you or even part of your practice, here is an easy meditation that brings in the power of candle magic and Crown of glory energy.
Mindful Manifestation Spell:
Use the Crown of Glory Motor City Hoodoo candle to bring focus to your mindful manifestation. Co-create with the magic of your breath, intention, surrender and divine influence. The Crown of Glory will help you let go of the fearful ego and refocus on your connection to the divine.
Get comfy in your favorite sacred space in your house. Light the Crown of Glory candle and place a pen and paper within reach. Start a short 5-minute meditation of mindful breathing. Breath in and out, 3 counts in and 3 counts out. When thoughts bubble in, let them keep going out and bring your focus back to your breath. This 5 minutes allow you to let go of the day, week, month, crisis that you are holding onto with white knuckles. The first 5 minutes is the most important time in your meditation, as it sets up your success for the entire mindful manifestation.
After that first 5 minutes, open your eyes and look at the flame on the Crown of Glory candle. That flame is a representation of all three crowns. It is bringing heaven (sovereignty) down to earth (success) through your beliefs, thoughts and actions (glory). Meditate on the flame of the candle and allow the color, scent and intent of the candle open you up to possibilities, ideas and willingness.
When you feel you have hit on something, write it down. Allow yourself to just write without interruption or judgment on the idea. Watch as your ideas open up to change and evolution. There is no time restriction on this process, write until you feel your inspiration is complete. Extinguish the candle.
Bring yourself back to the moment with 5 cleansing breaths while wiggling your toes.
Carry this paper around with you and as you move through your day, you will get more insight.
From this insight you will find yourself manifesting your idea or goal. You will see more opportunities that will help manifest it, you will be empowered to take action on those opportunities getting you closer to your goal, and you will recognize when you start to sabotage your success and stop it in the process.
When you co-create with divine energy, your outcome is always greater than the original need.
Being magical is an everyday thing. We can live our magic moment to moment and you are your most powerful magic maker.
Remember, if you keep your magic close with a daily practice, it will keep you close in it effectiveness and speed.
Live the Magic with Jacki Smith though her blogs, books and products here.
I believe in magic
I love being a witch! I love believing in magic and magic believing in me. I love walking into a room of business executives and telling them that I help them awaken their inner magic. I love that I embrace my challenges with a mix of practicality and witchy-ness. I love that my desire to be living, breathing, walking magic is the inspiration for the Witches Union. I love that so many fellow witches are with me in this.
In February 2018, Devin Hunter and I taught a class at Convocation called “The Modern Witch”. Devin has a podcast, magazine and soon to be, book titles. Devin and I have a mission to make the words “Witch” and “Magic” household words; together we were a powerhouse of witchy inspiration. Times have changed and we don’t have to be as closeted as in the past. Thanks to Hollywood and paranormal romance, Wicca is a well-known word and although I am not Wiccan, I appreciate the stereotype that word has broken. The modern witch is genderless, timeless and brings magic into their daily life in little ways. You can find that modern witch touch everywhere. From your semiprecious stone jewelry, to Alex and Ani Bracelets to water bottles that say “Power” and “Believe”. Magic is all around us and we can grab onto it.
Magic is as Magic does and we are the doers of our daily intentions, actions and vibrations. This true embracing my magic, my witch-hood is shown in the Witches Union Adept patch and our Witch’s Brew product line. These products help us laugh with life, find joy in magic and be the badass witches we are.
The moment you set an intent, you are a witch. The moment you decide to be empowered, you are a witch. The moment your intent manifests, you are an adept. Embrace your inner witch! When you do, as stated in the Magical Adept Patch you get to do all these fun membership benefits.
Members of the Witches Union who choose to wear their adept series of patches do so with the following commitments:
- Will be true to themselves and in keeping with their soul’s purpose.
- Will be a champion of magical living.
- Will use magic to better their life and the lives of those around them.
- Will maintain a badass, superhero stance as often as possible.
- Will be the keeper of the sacred lyrics of Stevie Nicks.
- Will acknowledge other witches union members upon discovery
- Will watch every witchy movie available.
Now that you are feeling all witchy and empowered, tap into the power of the Witch’s Brew products. You will love the magical results:
Dragon’s Blood – What is it and what does is do? These are familiar questions concerning dragon’s blood. Dragon’s blood is a resin that has been used in for centuries as a cure-all as well as a empowering scent. There is a version of this on almost every continent and is consistently used to increase power, luck and love making this is an all-purpose intention booster. Whatever your need, Dragon’s Blood might be the answer for it. Burn the candle in any ritual to power it up, wear the oil anytime you need a boost of power.
Evil Eye – This candle and oil stop the evil eye in its tracks and protect your vulnerabilities. We all have walked into a room where everyone suddenly stops talking and gets a bit uncomfortable. We all have has the boss/co-worker that is the subtle saboteur, we all have the in-law that makes us defensive in our own kitchen. This is when you pull out the Evil Eye. Light the candle on your alter or in a place where you feel most empowered and know that your strengths are growing large enough to protect your weaknesses. Feel that divine energy fill up all the dark spots and make you glow. Then wear the Evil Eye Oil on your feet, heart, back of your neck, 3rd eye, and crown to shore up your soft spots to stay in your power.
Witch’s Brew – this is one of our most popular scents. Frankincense, myrrh and mugwort are the perfect combination to unlock your magic and imagination, making all things possible. We hide our power from ourselves until we are ready to handle the repercussions and responsibilities. The Witch’s Brew blend releases this power to you increments you can wield. The more you practice, the easier it gets. The more you use it, the more power is available to you. Burn the candle to help build confidence and belief in yourself and your magic. Wear the oil to stay focused and protected through you day.
Witch’s Purse – a witch’s purse is never empty. You may like living close to the land, but that doesn’t mean you need to be financially broken. A witch’s resources are as abundant as the rich green land. Where ever you need to increase your resources and abundance, set the intent and light the candle (or wear the oil) and watch as your coffers start bursting at the seams. Strega Nona’s spaghetti pot has nothing on the gems found in a Witch’s Purse.
Claim your Witch-hood with the Witches Union and Witch’s Brew. Be a witch all year-round and let the posers save it for October!
Remember, if you keep your magic close with a daily practice, it will keep you close in it effectiveness and speed.
Live the Magic with Jacki Smith though her blogs, books and products here.