There is this mentality that anyone can be a witch, and that is far from true. A witch is a profession or a set of job skills. There are tasks that people are just not any good at. Not everybody can be anything. So not everyone can be a witch. There are mental characteristics that you need to be a witch and many people don't have those characteristics. This modern day everyone is a winner mentality is counter productive to being a witch. Just like you can do whatever you want in your Pagan path is utter bullcrap. Not everyone can be a witch, that needs to be realized first and foremost. Life is full of difficulty and so is witchcraft. Paganism is like a rose it has beauty but it also has thorns. There is this little grey area that causes some troubles for many. Wicca might mean witch in old English, we no longer speak old English. So Wicca is just a proper name for one of many Pagan denominations. Just because you follow Wicca doesn't make you a witch, it only makes you to be a Wiccan.
Being a witch requires you to have a great deal of inner strength to handle all of life's challenges and ordeals. Being shallow and unable to handle a different point of view is a sign of weakness. I commented on a few YouTube videos that a couple ladies made. They didn't like my opposing comments because it challenged their views. How did they handle the situation? The disabled the comments on the videos. One video told people to make comments, but she disabled all comments after I questioned her qualifications. We gain strength through adversity, but instead of responding to my comments they took the easy way out and disabled comments. This is called "Non-platforming" remove the ability of others that think differently than you to express themselves. This is an attack of Freedom of speech. Now witches and pagans love our freedoms, so it is a hypocritical move. And when you act in opposition in how you feel it takes away from who you are as a person.
The ability to see all sides of a topic are vital in magic and life. We must be able to view each situation and goal from different perspectives to make sure everything is well thought out and our intent is correct. Weakness in character is also about taking that adversity and handling it with mature actions and understanding. On wonderful facebook, I believe that if a topic is open to discuss , I should discuss it openly and honestly. Some people take any and all opposing views as an attack. If I post a well worded comment without any insults or threats, you should be able to respond in kind. Far too many of these self-declared witches make claims that they are being harassed or trolled because someone didn't agree with them. If you are too thin skinned to handle an opposing view, you are too thin skinned to handle magic. Think about this, you are willing to post to the public your views on a subject, someone decided to talk about their point of view and you act as if they attacked you. If you are making claims to the public but can't handle the concept of someone disagreeing with you, you are too weak to do magick. Take the Goddess Cerridwen, she is known for being an in your face demanding goddess. She is powerful and very wise. If you can't handle someone disagreeing with you, how in the heck are you going to handle a goddess that is way more demanding.
Ethics are important to being a witch, a pagan , or just a person. You have to have a personal code that you live by. You must develop these codes of laws for yourself and the people in your life then uphold them. You can't demand that nobody will silence you, but you will demand only those that agree with you can speak out. If you want freedom to speak, you must be willing to give it and defend it for others. The only time that you can stop defending others right to speak is if they try to take your rights to speak away from you. If something is wrong to do, then it is wrong for all people to do it. There can't be exceptions to the rules. We have people that declare that they have this code of ethics, but when it comes to friends or family, they never try to enforce it. Every time you allow someone you know to do something that is declared wrong by you, you are taking away from yourself. You are showing weakness.
Discipline is a major factor in being a witch, a pagan, or a good person. How can anyone really trust you if you can't develop the discipline to invoke trust. That same discipline will determine your ability to focus your energies when performing spellwork. Being a witch or a pagan is a personal path that only you can walk. If you can't walk the path as you claim to follow or refuse to follow, then you can't walk the path on being a witch or a pagan. It doesn't matter if you have 4 friends or 4,000 friends, if you can't be true to them or yourself you will fail in being a witch. Eclectic Wicca has told you that you can add anything to your path, well you got lied to. Everything in life has limitations. Some things don't fit into an earth based religion that honors the changes in life. It is like a recipe, you can make a few substitutions to a recipe, but you have to remain true to the recipe as best as you can or you will end up with something different.
Doing it the easy way... That is one of the biggest issues that I have with eclectic Wicca. So many people want to do it the easy way. If something is worth doing it is worth doing right. There are challenges that we are meant to face to gain strength and test our abilities. We can't just cherry pick what we want to know and ignore the rest. Being a witch demand a level of commitment. Just like many forms of Paganism require a initiation ceremony, many different forms of witchery require an initiation. Many schools in Paganism and witchcraft use a year and a day to measure your required duration in advancement. You can't just ignore days 76-81. So it is time to show growth and going the tougher route and seeing what needs to be seen.
Education is important in life. You can not go around living a life of being out of the loop. Do you want people to respect you for your good qualities or laugh at you for your bad? Recently I have seen many YouTube videos were people are taking that easy route and giving poor information to everyone. I am not perfect, but I try to research a topic before I post about it. One guy was talking about his magical crystals. Not every polished stone is a crystal. Crystals have a specific structure that repeats throughout the object. That is why quartz is a crystal , you can easily see the crystal structure. If you are refusing to educate and question what you read, you will never have the mental strength to perform magick. Magick can be very demanding in its structure. Without clear concise meaning and intent, you spellwork can and more than likely fail. I was told of the lady that thought she needed plastic surgery to look prettier, she performed a rushed ritual trying to get her plastic surgery. She was in a car wreck and got burns on her face, she got her plastic surgery.
There is being a witch. you are capable of doing great acts of good or evil. It just depends on what your intent is. Stop with the white and black magick whining. There are times where you have to get a little dirty to do the right thing. Harming none is important to you, cool, but are you going to let that rule your life. Harming none and doing the right thing are to different things. There are times were you have to pick up the sword and defend those that can't defend themselves. Because it is the right thing to do. Harm none means you run away and let those that can't defend themselves suffer. Life is not always beautiful, life can be so unkind to you and others. and unless you are willing to life in harmony and balance with those difficult moments, you are not living in the world around you able to harness the energies of the world around you.
Asking for help is a part of life, there are times where we need a helping hand. Some people can be so stubborn and refuse to accept help when they really need it. However the opposite is true as well. So many people are asking for this healing energy or a spell to do blah blah blah. If you can't do it yourself, shut-up and change it. This weak minded crap has to end. For magic to work some simple things are required such as a name, or a picture of the person. We have to focus and shape the energy. Telling me to send healing energy to your third cousin's best friends daughter who has a cold is stupid. There is no connection for others to work with. There is no name, picture, or location to work with. But I see this stupid act done multiple times a day. If you ask for yourself, then we can picture the person, know the name and location. People that claim to be witches don't stop and think on how spellwork is performed.
So as I said, not everyone can be a witch. You have to have an inner fire and a strong mind to develop the abilities and understandings to be a witch. It isn't easy, there will be times where it is boring learning about the structure or purpose of certain procedures. But they are there to protect you or others. Such as washing your hands before you cook, sounds simple and boring, but it has to be explained to many people everyday. So are the steps in casting a circle. You can't skip the boring and not fun parts. You can't do and say the easy things and expect people to respect you or to better yourself.
As Robert Frost stated. 'I choose the road less traveled and it has made all the difference.' If you can't handle the rough road, you can't handle being a witch.
