I was taught not to share. Specifically, I was taught not to share who my familiar spirits are, to not share the exact names of my deities, not to share what my unique abilities are, not to share recent spells I\u2019ve performed, and to only talk about my tradition when asked (especially by elders) and never say more than the absolute least I possibly can. You\u2019re probably laughing at me because I write a witchcraft blog that\u2019s all about sharing knowledge, practices, and experiences\u2026 but hold that laughter. Have you ever seen me state exactly what all of my animal and plant familiars are? Have you ever seen me list the names of all the ancestors I work with? Have you ever seen me state exactly which traditions I trained in? You may have even noticed that I tend to use nicknames and epithets for the deities I work with rather than their actual names. I tend to skirt around a lot of things about myself. This blog is more of a giant Sarah iceberg and you\u2019re only ever seeing the tip.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I see her point, although what I see in too many Craft blogs is just recycling of other people’s stuff instead of sharing secrets!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One coven that I used to circle with when visiting their city was big on the old Magicians’ Pyramid: To Know, To Will, To Dare, To Keep Silent. Sarah Lawless, the “Witch of Forest Grove,” thinks that there should be more silence, writing in a post called “Oversharing Witches“: I was taught not to share. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,29],"class_list":["post-2889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blogging","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-KB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11001,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11001","url_meta":{"origin":2889,"position":0},"title":"Have We Indeed Reached “Peak Witch”?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I doubt it. But that is the kind of significant question that the New York Times is asking during Witchcraft and Paganism Media Month: \"When Did Everybody [sic] Become a Witch?\" Witches are your millennial co-workers doing tarot card readings on their lunch breaks, and professional colleagues encouraging you to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6142","url_meta":{"origin":2889,"position":1},"title":"1971: Witches in Bellbottoms, Talking Heads","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a 1971 documentary from the BBC that is supposed to be about witches. But at the time it was made, no one was making much effort to sort out the new Pagan Witches, anthropological and folkloric witches, and Satanic witches of the Church of Satan variety. So what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1117,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1117","url_meta":{"origin":2889,"position":2},"title":"Review: Good Witches Fly Smoothly","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a lot of books about religious Wicca out there. There are a lot of books about practical magic, spells, etc. There are very few books about what happens next, but Good Witches Fly Smoothly: Surviving Witchcraft is one of them.Mistake 27: Using a mind key that can be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":267,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=267","url_meta":{"origin":2889,"position":3},"title":"H\u00e4xan Continuing our sporadic investigation\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"H\u00e4xan Continuing our sporadic investigation of cinematic paganism, M. and I watched H\u00e4xan (\"Witches\"), a 1922 silent Swedish film that is available subtitled in English as Witchcraft through the Ages. Released just before Margaret Murray swayed English-speaking readers with her \"survival of the Old Religion despite persecution\" theory, this film\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13560","url_meta":{"origin":2889,"position":4},"title":"Helen Cornish on Witchcraft Drumming and Chanting","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The article \"Musicking and Soundscapes amongst Magical-Religious Witches Community and Ritual Practices\" by Helen Cornish is available as a free download from Religions journal. Abstract Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2190,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2190","url_meta":{"origin":2889,"position":5},"title":"Can You Prove that Witches Exist in Canada?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Somehow I missed this, but last September an organization of self-proclaimed Canadian skeptics challenged the world to prove that witches exist\u2014along with Bigfoot, voodoo, and the Easter Bunny. OK, all this fun hinges on the difference between \"anthropological witchcraft\" and capital-P Pagan religious capital-W Witchcraft. But still. Of course, if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2889"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2892,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2889\/revisions\/2892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}