Hello Magical Souls,

“There’s a little witch in all of us.” – Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic 

On your spiritual journey, you may have felt pulled into exploring witchcraft. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be an Enchantress 🧚🏻‍♀️ when I grew up, but also an angel, and also a princess. Then I was introduced to movies and TV shows like The Craft, Practical Magic, and Charmed and realized the closest to enchantress nowadays was probably to be a witch 🧙🏻‍♀️. But I became a paleo-climate research scientist instead. However I was still very interested in learning (some kind of) witchcraft and, from a spiritual perspective, it makes so much sense why women would be naturally attracted to witchcraft. As Halloween approaches I wanted to look at its connection to witchcraft and witches and what it means to awaken our inner witch.

As a side note, my favorite witchcraft movies are:

The Craft, Practical Magic, Hocus Pocus,
Bedknobs and broomsticks, Kiki delivery service,
Spirited Away, Halloweentown

And TV shows:

Charmed, Agatha all along, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (on Netflix)

Halloween and its witchcraft connection

Halloween comes from the Celtic druidic celebration of Samhain in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Brittany (France), observed to celebrate the passing from the light half of the year to the dark half of the year. It was not then necessarily celebrated on October, 31. At this liminal time, it was observed that the veil between the spirit realms and the living was at its thinnest throughout the year – allowing for departed loved ones to visit but also other malicious spirits such as fae and demons to roam free and cause problems. As the veil was thinning, the druids believed it was also a good time for divination, leading later to various popular divination rituals to be performed on Halloween, such as divining the first letter of your future husband with an apple peel.

The link between Halloween and dark spirits and divination called for an easy association with witchcraft and witches later on when the celebration was transported to North America by pilgrims in the 19th century.

Nowadays witches are more and more a symbol of feminine empowerment and resistance over patriarchy and religious patriarchy, as well as a reclaiming of ancestral practices and re-wilding (decolonization).

As the veil is soon at its thinnest, how do you feel about awakening your inner witch?

Awakening your inner witch: why?

When I was a little girl, I was not raised catholic but I was raised in a catholic environment and willingly or not I picked up a few things from catholicism. For ex. in 2nd grade at recess my classmate Gregory told me that he didn’t have to listen to me or any women, as we were evil because of Eve tempting Adam with the apple, all the way back in the garden of Eden and that we deserved bad things and especially a difficult and painful childbirth, and that we were doomed to go to hell anyway because nothing could redeem us in the eyes of God. And that he learnt that at Sunday school. I was appalled and thought he was lying but upon checking, it seemed to be true (back in France in the 1980s). That was the first time I thought God was stupid and unjust and that I wanted to do nothing with Him.

Another thing that stayed with me for a while was in the prayer Notre Père: “Délivre nous du mal”: the last sentence of Our Father, deliver us from evil. In French, it doesn’t exactly say “evil” but “bad things” as I understood it as a little girl. So it seemed to indicate that life gives you a challenge, you pray God, you be a good girl, and then God does His thing and make it stop. But it is also so incredibly disempowering – like there is nothing in your power you could do to shift or overcome your situation, you have to wait for God, who is your Father, to do His thing, and He will but in His own timing, in His own inscrutably ways, and only if you are a good girl.

So my early (mis)understanding of catholicism was that it was a very disempowering belief system – if you adhere to it – especially if you are a girl. You start with a handicap that boys don’t have: as soon as you are born you have to redeem yourself for something someone else did a long time ago in the garden of Eden and if bad things are happening to you, God will help you but only if you are a good girl and it doesn’t apply to childbirth, for this you have to suffer, it’s one of God’s rule – Gregory from 2nd grade was very snarky about it.

Therefore as a young adult when I started to get acquainted with witchcraft, by way of Titania Hardie’s books like Hocus Pocus (Passion Magique, 1999) – it had a velvet cover book, I was obsessed 🤩 – I found rituals and spells to attract your soulmate, successfully pass exams, protect yourself and your home, attract abundance, wealth, success at work, find lost objects, etc.,

and the power shifted back to me!!!

I was not a little girl doing my best to be good, hoping that God may have a look at me and reluctantly decide I was worthy of His help, but I was a young woman reclaiming her right to do something that may shift my situation, may help me overcome my challenges, and I could declare that I deserved happiness and success, not because I was good enough, but simply because I was. I was given the option to take accountability for my situation, for my life, for my destiny.

And that’s why so many women around the world are attracted to witchcraft: the power shifts side. YOU can do something to change your situation. You have the power – whether you are good or bad. You can do, express, whatever you want – you don’t have to be a good girl – but you have to accept and expect consequences for what you put out. You still invoke the Divine to co-create your story, but this time, it is not your Father, it is the Mother, the Goddess, Mother Nature. You use the moon phases and natural objects like flowers, crystals, wooden sticks, sea shells, from your foraging for your spells, reconnecting you with Nature.

And yes, there are spells for easy, painless childbirth Gregory!

But it goes beyond than spells, rituals, and potions, and reclaiming your power over your life: it is about reconnecting with this part of you that is Divine and understanding how you may serve in a way that delights you body, mind and Soul.

Because Christianity and other organized religions tell you that you can’t speak to the Divine directly yourself. You need a supervisor, an intermediary, a person of authority, and you need a book. What you are feeling inside, that wants to awaken, that is gaining power as you are releasing everything that is not you, is meaningless, maybe even demonic. Do not rely on your feelings, rely on the book.

But we don’t fall for that! We know! The Divine Within has always been there, sometimes dormant, sometimes weaken, veiled, so we could be safe, sometimes forgotten, when it was too painful to express, … but never broken.

And we rise …

And we reclaim our inner power, our Divine self expression, our magic, through witchcraft, or Angel healing, or other spiritual explorations.

We reclaim the power to connect directly to the Divine without a Church – no permission sought or needed.

We reclaim our Divine gifts, the wisdom we gain from past-lives, our Soul essence, our Divine expression.

We reclaim our right to co-creation with the Divine, to serve the Divine in a way that fulfill our Divine essence, to serve the Divine not according to a book, but following your Soul’s path.

We reclaim our inheritance from our ancestral line. My grandmother could see ghosts, her aunt was a healer (une souffleuse de maux), my mom is an intuitive and healer, … There is a little witch in all of us. Reclaim your folk’s magic, your ancestors’ cunning craft. I remember when I open my father’s Tarot deck for the very first time, I remembered, I knew instinctively how to use it, what it could do, and i remembered using it before.

We heal from religious trauma and past-life memories of persecution and torture.

We return to Nature and reclaim folk magic (including indigenous practices wiped out by Christianity).

Awakening your inner witch is reclaiming this witchy part of you that is connected to the Divine and Nature.

Awakening your inner witch: how?

We reclaim our inner power by becoming aware of what is …

✨ be aware of everyday’s magic

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper” – William Butler Yeats. 

Take notice of the little things that are magic: the synchronicities, the little “gifts” you find on your path (golden charm, a coin, a feather, a shiny stone, repeating numbers, etc.), the “being at the right place at the right time” moments, the messages that feel like a wink of the Universe to you, and more. As I was finishing writing this post, I went out and found an earring on the street: a four-leaf clover. 🍀

✨ be aware of your own power on things, life, energy

You can shift the energy of a room, a situation, a challenge by reclaiming your power, by praying, by lightning a candle, by asking for guidance, by putting up strong boundaries, and more.

✨ be aware of your forgotten wisdom

There are things you inherently know, you are inherently are good at without learning it” these are your Divine wisdom from another lifetime.

For ex. for me I intuitively remembered how to use Tarot even if it was the first time I was given one. I also remembered being in Avalon while reading the Mists of Avalon book.

✨ be aware of your family’s hidden power, psychic power, divination, healing, …

Your ancestors may have had gifts that were then transferred to you. Ask around if someone in your ancestral line was gifted in the healing crafts.

✨ be aware of how Nature speaks to you

You can have an animal spirit guide or totem. You may have already a familiar. You may intuitively already use plant magic, crystal magic, moon magic, solar magic etc. Become aware of how Mother Nature is already working with you and work on deepening and understanding this connection.

✨ experiment – play – trust yourself and your guides

Explore your gifts, your wisdom, your Divine nature, as long as you do not have bad intentions, and understand that others have freedom and boundaries, you are safe to co-create, to manifest and most important of all to reconnect to your Divine essence and understand how it wants to be made physical into the world.

As children, we were already doing magic.

We knew the power of words, of repeating the same word over and over again.

We collected sticks, stones, and shells we found on the beach, as a message or a prayer.

We laid below the trees and shared our hopes and dreams.

We heard the birds and the crow cawing and we knew.

We used daisies, water, cloud or ink patterns for divination.

We, as women, feel the different energy of each moon phase.

We feel the subtle shift in energy when we enter a sacred space.

We feel subtle presences such as ghosts, or Angels, or guardian spirits …

We have intuitive insights.

We feel “vibes” – and we can shift vibes.

We just need to reclaim the connection to our Divine (witchy) self, reconnect to our own Soul wisdom and gifts from past-lives, and explore how we can serve for the highest good of all in this lifetime.

Let me know in the comments if it resonates and if your story is similar. 😊

If you want to explore more, learn about the different types of witchcraft by reading this blogpost for ex. by Fiona Duncan at The Magickal Path. It’s worth a read.

I might be considered an angel witch or an energy witch with a little bit of an elemental witch.

Or take a quiz. Or read a book about awakening your inner witch for more concrete advice on rituals, spells, divination methods, casting circles, and more.

Witches of Japan

I was surprised and delighted when I was wandering around town during my son’s guitar lesson to find a witch shop: The Green Thumb in Motomachi.

And I was even more surprised when I met the owner: she looks like a witch. White hair, glasses, a hat, dressed in dark green and black. She looks exactly like the witches’ dolls she sells.

I later learnt why: she makes them herself. 😄

See for yourself on her Instagram.

This the witch my husband got me for my birthday!

Japan has many traditional figures resembling witches but they are not the traditional  western witches. They are spiritual guides bringing messages from the Gods like the Yuta from Okinawa. They are cat shape-shifters – bakeneko – who transform into women for nefarious intents. There are snake witches like the Jakotsu Baba and fox witches know as kitsune-mochi. But no broom riding witches of the West.

Thanks for reading. 🤗

Wishing you a Happy Halloween. 🎃

Catch my Halloween reading on Facebook or Ko-fi.