Witchcraft Isn't What Hollywood Told You It Was

Behind The Stereotypes Is A Long History Of Ritual, Symbolism, Charms, Protection And Intentional Practice

Mention witchcraft and most people already have an image in their head.

Pointed hats. Broomsticks. Bubbling cauldrons. Curses. Green faces. People waving wands around and making impossible things happen.

We know these images aren't real, but they have become so embedded in popular culture that they still influence the way witchcraft is perceived.

I think that's one of the reasons people can feel hesitant about exploring The Craft.

Take away the Hollywood version, though, and you find something considerably more interesting.

The history of magic and witchcraft is complicated, and there has never been one universal practice that can simply be called “witchcraft”. Different cultures, periods and communities had their own beliefs and practices, and historically the word *witch* was often an accusation rather than an identity someone had chosen for themselves.

But throughout history we also find people using herbs, charms, amulets, written words, protective objects, divination and ritual actions in an attempt to protect themselves, heal, influence circumstances or make sense of things they couldn't control.

That feels very different from the witchcraft we were shown on television.

The Witch We Recognise Was Created Over Time

Even the classic appearance of the witch isn't particularly ancient in the form we recognise today.

The pointed hat, hooked nose, broomstick, black clothing and eventually green skin developed through centuries of folklore, art, literature and popular culture.

The green-faced witch most people immediately recognise today was heavily influenced by the 1939 film *The Wizard of Oz*. Before that film, witches in popular imagery were generally not depicted with green skin.

The ugly old “hag” stereotype has much older roots, appearing in European art and literature centuries earlier. Broomsticks also became associated with witches through folklore long before Hollywood arrived.

So Hollywood didn't invent the witch stereotype from nothing.

What film and television did was take centuries of existing imagery and turn it into an incredibly recognisable character.

And that character became much easier to recognise than the complicated history behind it.

Real Magical Practice Was Often Much More Practical

Look at surviving historical objects associated with magical and folk practices and you find something very different.

The British Museum, for example, holds amulets and charms that were used or believed to offer protection, healing or good fortune.

One surviving amuletic necklace from Britain contains materials including iron, bone, wood, wax and glass. The Museum places it within a wider European tradition of portable amulets used for protection and healing and discusses its possible association with a local wise woman or healer.

There are also surviving crystal charmstones associated with protection against disease and engraved magical amulets containing words and symbols.

Go much further back and the same human desire appears again.

Ancient Roman objects include pendants and charms believed to provide protection or luck. The British Museum has documented Roman military communities using objects believed to carry protective magical qualities.

Ancient Egyptian material provides another example. The London Medical Papyrus contains both medical recipes and incantations because illness could be understood through both physical and magical frameworks at the time.

These practices came from very different cultures and shouldn't all be lumped together and labelled witchcraft.

But they show something important.

The use of physical objects, symbolism, spoken or written words and deliberate actions to influence, protect or change circumstances is certainly not a modern invention.

This Is The Part Of History I Find Interesting

When I look at historical magical practice, I'm far more interested in the physicality of it than the fantasy surrounding it.

People carried things.

They buried things.

They wore things.

They wrote things.

They combined ingredients.

They spoke words.

They created charms.

They used particular objects because those objects carried meaning.

That relationship between **intention and physical action** is still central to the way I practise today.

When I create a protection working, for example, I'm not expecting an invisible force field to suddenly appear around somebody.

I am creating a deliberate working using ingredients, objects, actions and symbolism associated with protection.

Everything has a reason for being there.

That is a much better way of understanding my practice than imagining the Hollywood version of a spell.

A Spell Isn't A Special Effect

This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about spell work.

A spell doesn't need to produce an immediate, dramatic event to have meaning.

When I perform a ritual for release, I might physically destroy something representing what is being released.

When I perform a binding, I may physically restrict or bind something.

When I create a working for opportunity, I might incorporate a key because a key represents access and opening.

When I create a spell jar, the botanicals, petition, objects and colours are selected specifically for the intention. I individually awaken and charge those ingredients during the working before sealing the jar.

The finished jar then becomes a physical talisman of the working.

There is no puff of smoke.

Nothing levitates.

There isn't a dramatic soundtrack playing in the background.

There is simply a very deliberate process of giving an intention physical form.

And I actually think that's much more interesting.

The Cauldron Isn't Quite As Ridiculous As It Looks Either

Even some of the stereotypical objects associated with witchcraft make more sense when you remove the theatrical treatment.

Take the cauldron.

Popular culture turned it into a bubbling pot filled with mysterious green liquid.

In practical ritual work, a fireproof vessel is useful.

I use my cauldron when something needs to be safely burned as part of a working. Burning can represent destruction, transformation or release depending on what I'm doing.

The object has a practical purpose and a symbolic one.

The same is true of many ritual tools.

A mortar and pestle allows botanicals to be physically broken down and combined.

Candles provide flame, colour symbolism and a physical point of focus.

Cord can knot, connect or restrict.

A bowl can contain water, salt or ingredients.

A broom or besom carries longstanding associations with sweeping and clearing.

Once you understand what the tools actually *do*, they stop looking like theatrical props.

They become working objects.

Witchcraft Has A Difficult History Too

I also don't want to romanticise the history.

The word *witch* carries a difficult legacy.

During periods of European witch persecution, people accused of witchcraft could face imprisonment, torture and execution. Those accusations existed within particular religious, political and social circumstances, and many of the people prosecuted were not practising anything resembling modern witchcraft.

Historical accusations also became entangled with ideas about heresy, the Devil and supposed supernatural harm.

That history matters because some of the frightening imagery surrounding witches didn't come from practitioners describing themselves.

It came from other people describing what they believed witches were.

Over centuries, those fears became folklore.

Folklore became stories.

Stories became entertainment.

And entertainment helped create the witch we recognise today.

Modern Practice Doesn't Need To Look Like The Stereotype

This is one of the things I want Lumen to show people.

You can have a ritual practice and still live an entirely ordinary modern life.

You don't have to adopt an aesthetic.

You don't have to believe everything you read about witchcraft.

You don't need to collect hundreds of tools.

And you certainly don't need to recreate practices from another culture simply because you've seen somebody performing them online.

...So my advice to you

Learn first.

Understand what you're using.

Understand why you're using it.

Learn the history where you can.

Then develop a practice that has meaning for you.

My own practice is very physical. I work with candles, botanicals, petitions, fire, water, objects, symbolism and spoken words because I want to physically engage with the intention behind a working.

That is what ritual gives me.

It creates a point where something I have been thinking about becomes something I actively work with.

For anyone who has been curious about The Craft but has always felt that witchcraft seemed a little too strange, I would encourage you to look beyond the stereotype.

Forget the green face.

Forget the flying broomstick.

Forget what Hollywood told you a spell should look like.

Start with ritual.

Start with intention.

Start with understanding why a physical object or action might represent the change you want to bring about.

You may find that The Craft is far more grounded, practical and relatable than you ever expected.

🪶x

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