Which Witch Are You? Exploring Different Types Of Witchcraft Practice

From Green Witchcraft To Spell Crafting And Divination, Understanding What Draws You In Can Help You Build A Practice That Is Actually Your Own

One of the questions people often have when they begin exploring The Craft is: *What kind of witch am I?*

Green Witch. Ritual Witch. Kitchen Witch. Folk Witch. Intuitive Witch. Hedge Witch. Candle Witch. Divination Witch.

There are a lot of names.

They can be useful because they give you somewhere to begin exploring. But I don't think you need to choose one and decide that's what you are from now on.

Witchcraft isn't one single practice, and many of the labels we use today are modern ways of describing different interests and approaches rather than distinct historical traditions.

Your practice may also change.

You might begin with herbs, become fascinated by candle work, discover divination later and eventually realise that structured ritual is what brings everything together for you.

That's perfectly fine.

The better question may be: **What kind of practice actually interests you?**

The Green Witch

If you're naturally drawn to plants, herbs and the natural environment, Green Witchcraft may be a good place to begin.

Modern Green Witchcraft generally centres around botanical knowledge, plant symbolism and observing natural cycles.

That might mean growing herbs, learning traditional plant correspondences, creating botanical charms or ritual blends, or simply becoming more knowledgeable about the plants growing around you.

You don't need a huge garden.

A balcony herb pot, dried botanicals or learning about locally available plants is enough to begin.

For me, the important part is knowledge.

Don't simply buy 50 herbs because a list online says they're magical. Learn what a plant is, where its associations came from, whether it's safe and why you might choose it for a particular working.

That gives the ingredient meaning when you eventually place it into a ritual.

The Kitchen Witch

Kitchen Witchcraft brings intention into cooking, baking and household practices.

The label itself is largely modern, although food, the hearth, household protection and herbal preparations have long carried cultural, religious and folkloric meaning.

A Kitchen Witch might choose herbs and spices for their symbolism as well as flavour, prepare food connected with the seasons or create teas, breads and other preparations around a particular intention.

This doesn't mean every cup of tea needs to become a spell.

That isn't the kind of practice I'm interested in promoting.

For me, there is a difference between deliberately creating something with symbolic purpose and trying to turn every mundane activity into witchcraft.

Meaning matters more than novelty.

The Ritual Witch

This is probably the description that comes closest to my own practice.

A Ritual Witch creates structured workings around intentions, changes, transitions and significant moments.

The practice can include preparing a ritual space, working with symbolic tools, writing petitions, lighting candles, speaking words, performing deliberate physical actions and formally opening and closing a working.

A ritual doesn't need to be complicated.

What matters is understanding **why** you're doing something.

Why am I burning this?

Why am I tying this?

Why am I using this particular botanical?

Why am I sealing this object?

Why is this candle this colour?

Those questions are central to the way I practise.

Without the reasoning behind the actions, ritual can very quickly become a collection of empty gestures.

The Folk Witch

Folk Witchcraft is more complicated because folk magic isn't one universal system.

It developed differently between regions, communities and cultures and could include household charms, protective objects, prayers, healing customs, plant beliefs, divination, agricultural practices and local folklore.

Historically, many people who practised what we would now describe as folk magic wouldn't necessarily have called themselves witches.

This is also an area where research and respect are particularly important.

A cultural or religious practice can't always be removed from its original context and turned into a generic spell.

If Folk Witchcraft interests you, your own family history, regional folklore and local historical customs can be fascinating places to start.

The Candle Witch

If you love working with fire, transformation and strong visual symbolism, you may naturally gravitate towards candle magic.

Candles can be selected according to colour, carved with words or symbols, anointed or dressed and accompanied by petitions.

The burning itself becomes part of the physical working.

A candle begins whole and gradually transforms as the flame consumes it. That process can represent release, change, attraction, completion or another intention depending on the ritual.

Fire has held ceremonial and religious importance across many cultures for thousands of years. Modern candle magic draws from multiple influences rather than one single historical tradition.

And one practical point I will always make: adding herbs and oils can alter the way a candle burns. Fire safety comes before aesthetics.

The Spell Crafter

This is another area very close to my own practice.

A Spell Crafter designs workings using materials chosen for a clear purpose.

That can include spell jars, petitions, charm bags, botanicals, crystals, candle work, cord magic, protective objects, bindings, releasing workings and attraction practices.

The most important thing is that the **intention comes before the ingredients**.

I don't start by deciding I want to use rosemary, cinnamon and a crystal and then work out what spell I can make from them.

I start with the purpose.

Then I choose the materials and physical actions that support it.

Tying is different from burning.

Burning is different from washing.

Sealing is different from breaking.

The method itself communicates part of the intention.

The Intuitive Witch

An Intuitive Witch is generally comfortable adapting their practice according to personal experience rather than relying entirely on fixed instructions.

This can involve meditation, personal symbolism, dreams, divination and developing correspondences through repeated experience.

But intuition doesn't mean ignoring knowledge.

If I intuitively feel drawn to using a particular plant, I still want to know whether it's safe and understand its traditional associations.

Personal meaning can then sit alongside that knowledge.

Perhaps an ingredient or object carries a very specific association for you because of your own experiences.

That matters.

Intuition becomes far more useful when it develops alongside knowledge, observation and discernment.

The Hedge Witch

Hedge Witchcraft often centres around trance, meditation, dream work, spiritual journeying, divination and threshold or liminal symbolism.

The modern concept of “hedge riding” commonly describes moving across a symbolic boundary between ordinary awareness and a spiritual, trance or deeply meditative state.

There isn't one fixed historical Hedge Witch tradition, and modern practitioners interpret the practice differently.

Some understand these experiences spiritually. Others approach them through meditation or psychological journeying.

Either way, grounding, boundaries and discernment are particularly important when working with altered or highly focused states.

The Divination Witch

A Divination Witch may work with tarot, oracle cards, runes, pendulums, scrying, dreams or other systems of divination.

And divination doesn't have to mean predicting the future.

It can be used for reflection, guidance, recognising patterns and exploring a situation from another perspective.

The history behind your chosen system is worth understanding too.

Tarot, for example, wasn't originally created for occult divination. The earliest tarot traditions developed as European card games before tarot became associated with occult and divinatory practice centuries later.

Understanding where a practice actually came from makes it more interesting, not less magical.

The Spirit Worker

Spirit work is an extremely broad area and can include ancestor veneration, deity work, offerings, prayer, invocation, divination and other forms of spirit communication.

How this is practised depends heavily on the spiritual, religious or cultural framework involved.

This is another area where I think discernment matters enormously.

Not every dream needs to be a message.

Not every coincidence needs to be a sign.

And not every spiritual practice belongs to everybody.

Some traditions are culturally or religiously specific, so understanding where a practice comes from and respecting its boundaries should be part of learning it.

The Eclectic Witch

And then there is the Eclectic Witch.

I suspect many modern practitioners eventually find themselves somewhere here.

An Eclectic Witch builds a practice from compatible areas that genuinely resonate with them.

You might grow herbs, create structured rituals, practise candle magic and occasionally use tarot.

Someone else may combine folk practice, divination and seasonal observance.

You don't need to practise everything.

The important part is that your choices make sense together.

Eclectic shouldn't mean randomly collecting practices from different cultures because they look interesting. It means learning, understanding and making informed decisions about what belongs within your own Craft.

You Don't Need One Label

This is probably the most important part.

You don't need to decide which witch you are.

These descriptions are useful for discovering what interests you. They aren't rules.

Your practice can change as your knowledge and your life change.

Start with the thing that genuinely draws you in.

If it's plants, learn about plants.

If it's tarot, learn tarot.

If you're fascinated by physical spell work, learn why different materials and actions are used.

If ritual itself interests you, begin learning how to construct a working where every element has a reason for being there.

Then allow your practice to develop naturally.

I have practised for more than 30 years, and my own Craft has developed through experience, research, intuition and discovering which methods genuinely mean something to me.

That's the point.

You're not trying to become somebody else's idea of a witch.

You're developing a practice of your own.

And you don't need to know exactly what that practice will eventually look like before you begin.

🪶x

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