Witch, Please

Copyright

Please note the material in this book should not be treated as medical advice.

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

FIRST EDITION

© Victoria Maxwell 2020

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Source ISBN: 9780008406325

Ebook Edition © August 2020 ISBN: 9780008406332

Version: 2020-07-10

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Epigraph

You are magic and you have the power to create the life of your dreams.

Contents

1  Cover

2  Title Page

3  Copyright

4  Note to Readers

5  Epigraph

6  Contents

7  Introduction

8  PART ONE – SPIRITUAL BASICS FOR MODERN MYSTICS

9  Laying Magical Foundations

10  Calling on Your Friends in Spirit

11  Magical Tools

12  Spiritual Practices for a Magical Life

13  Making Magic

14  PART TWO – PRACTICAL MAGIC

15  Magical Relationships

16  Your Home as a Sacred Sanctuary

17  Money Magic

18  Loving Your Career and Living Your Purpose

19  The Next Chapter

20  Glossary of Magical Terms

21  Acknowledgements

22  Index

23  About the Publisher

LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

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Introduction

You won’t find magic in the pages of this book because the magic you’re looking for is inside of you. The book you hold in your hands is just a guide to help you remember, to help you wake up your own magic and activate your own power.

I have been some kind of spiritual for as long as I can remember. I didn’t grow up in a religious home, I am not a hereditary witch (although I believe that all of us have ancestors who were connected to their magic) and I don’t have any fantastic stories of visitations from passed-over loved ones or angelic beings when I was a child. And yet, I always believed in some kind of higher power, and I believed that I had the ability to connect with that power. I didn’t really know exactly how I was supposed to do it but I would lie awake in bed at night and softly talk out loud – to myself, to the universe, to ‘God’, to whoever or whatever it was that I knew was listening. I usually just chatted about my day, about what was worrying me, then I’d tell it my wishes. In many ways my magic hasn’t really changed that much since then!

Even though I had a handful of strange experiences growing up, I always thought I was a bit of a Muggle. I felt different, but I certainly didn’t feel special, powerful or magical. It wasn’t until I was in my early thirties that I really started to be able to connect with my intuition, my Friends in Spirit (my spirit guides, angels and ancestors) and began to take control of my destiny through activating my own magic.

Although I spent most of my teen years and my twenties secretly hoping that one day my psychic powers would kick in, I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that maybe some people could do magic or had psychic powers and some couldn’t or didn’t, and I was probably the latter.

I certainly never thought in a million years that I would one day be running a successful spiritual business reading tarot and teaching others how to open up to their own spiritual power. And if you’d told me a few years ago I’d be writing this book about how to wake up your magic and create the life of your dreams, I would never have believed it.

But a desire to change your life is a powerful thing.

And it doesn’t matter how magical or psychic or ‘gifted’ you think you are, the truth is that we are all able to connect to our own power, intuition and divine guidance. All we need to do is make the conscious decision to do so and put in a little effort and practice.

My magical knowledge and my way of doing things is kind of a spiritual hot mess. It doesn’t come from just one belief system or magical path, it comes from years of seeking and searching for answers and trying out many different things that I’ve found in many different places.

‘Witch’ is just one word I use to describe myself on this eclectic magical path. I am also a mystic, spiritual seeker, starseed, priestess, magician, lightworker and a Hufflepuff.

My personal definition of being a witch is simply someone who has activated and is connected to their own power. A witch is someone who believes they have the power to create positive change in their own lives and in the world around them. It’s anyone who takes their destiny into their own hands.

You may have a different definition of what it means to be a witch. You may not even want to call yourself a witch at all but still want to work magic in your life. I invite you to take some time to consider what being a witch or a magic maker may mean for you. Create your own definition that feels right for you and be open to allowing it to change as your own personal path to magic unfolds. Anyone of any age, gender, background, ability or belief system can be a witch. This is one of the reasons why the outcasts and people who feel a little bit different often gravitate towards the magical path – it is all-inclusive. There are no rules here about what you have to believe in. There are witches who work with the Goddess and witches who work with Jesus. There are witches who call on unicorns and fairies and witches who call on the Goddesses of the Underworld.

I first became interested in traditional witchcraft as a teenager in the mid-1990s, right about the time The Craft came out. It was as if I had finally found a system that let me tune into and harness the force that I knew existed but hadn’t been able to connect with in a deep and powerful way. I read books on Wicca and witchcraft, I performed spells and I was even a member of a coven for a little while. I was practising as a solitary Wiccan when I met some new friends who were Christians and I became curious. I’d never really been to church growing up, so I decided to see what it was all about. I ended up joining the church, getting baptised in the Holy Spirit, and I became born again. While my church experience was mostly positive there were aspects of organised religion that just didn’t align with my soul, so I ended up leaving in pursuit of my own magic.

Over the years I explored many different spiritual paths and modalities, including New Age spirituality, the Ascension Path, yoga, hoodoo, reiki, New Thought, shamanism, the Law of Attraction, Druidry, Christian mysticism and just about anything else I could find a book on! I have also spent a great deal of time tuning into my own heart, soul, higher self and Friends in Spirit for answers to my many questions about spirituality, magic and life.

For centuries, magic and witchcraft has been greatly misunderstood. Many of the witches in history were just regular people who knew their own power and their own minds. They were herbalists who knew how to make a tincture for whatever ailed them and were deeply connected to nature, to the cycles of the moon and to the seasons of the Earth. They knew about the power of spells and manifestation. They were not the evil hags that we’ve been taught to believe they were; they were the wise ones – healers and guardians of ancient sacred knowledge.

I often stop and reflect on how lucky I am to live in a time in which it is safe for me to speak so openly about magic, and while this book is written for you, to help you activate the magic lying dormant within you, I have also written it as a tribute to all the witches and magic makers who have come before us.

While some magical paths do indeed have specific rules, rituals and beliefs to adhere to, there are no rules here. There is so much more to living a magical life than having the perfect #Instagramwitch aesthetic and blindly following the steps to someone else’s spells. Being a witch in the twenty-first century is about honouring the paths of those who’ve come before, respecting others on the magical path in the here and now, then finding your own way; finding yourself and waking up your own magic in the process.

Spirituality is about a search for truth, love and meaning. It is about connecting with the magic of the universe, and the magic within you. It’s about understanding who you are and what incredible gifts you have to share with the world. How you get there is completely up to you.

I believe that, in truth, we are all magic. We all have the ability to connect with the divine and to create magical lives for ourselves. Most of us have just lost our way and if this book does one thing, I hope it helps you find your way again, back to your own heart, your own truth and your own magic.

How to Use this Book

I’ve always been a big believer in the ‘take what resonates and leave the rest’ approach. I always keep the parts from things that I read and any experiences that I have that light up my heart – such as the spiritual wisdom, the love and the light – and I leave behind the parts that just don’t feel like they are right for me. I invite you to do the same. In reading this book, or any books on your magical journey, take on the parts that light you up and let go of those that don’t.

Let me remind you again, as you work through this book, that the magic is not inside these pages, it is within you. It is not in the rituals and spells, it is created through your intentions and your own heart. It doesn’t matter if you do things in a different way, take a different approach or go totally rogue. In fact, sometimes it’s in going totally rogue that we find the most wisdom!

This book is here to inspire and support you and help you remember that you have had this power all along, and to guide you in using that power to help you create and live your best and highest life.

Think of this book as a map. A place to start from when you’re not sure where to go. A map doesn’t tell you which way to walk, it just shows you where you are – you get to decide which roads you take. This book is like that: no preaching, no dogma, no ‘rules’, no rights or wrongs, just a bit of inspiration, advice and some practices that can help you to find your own way.

I will begin with some spiritual basics that will lay the foundation for everything you do next. I know I said there are no ‘rules’, but I would suggest starting here, especially if you’re brand new to the magical path. The spiritual basics in these pages will set you up for life. You will work with tools and techniques that will help you to open up your connection with your higher self, your spirit guides and angels, and help you to tune into and trust your own intuition. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is!

The second part of the book is split into four chapters – ‘Magical Relationships’, ‘Your Home as a Sacred Sanctuary’, ‘Money Magic’ and ‘Loving Your Career and Living Your Purpose’. Each chapter will include spiritual wisdom, journal prompts, magical rituals, spells and easily actionable steps to help you bring magic into all areas of your life. You can work through these chapters in any order you like and try any of the spells, rituals or activities that you feel drawn to.

Each chapter includes a magic toolkit of crystals, oils, herbs and deities that you may like to work with and include in your rituals. These are simply some suggestions to get you started and, if you don’t have any of the tools mentioned, you can always improvise, go without or use what you already have. As I’ve said before, there are no rules here – just suggestions!

You will also find a glossary at the end of the book which you can flick to any time you’re not sure of a magical term.

And if you need any support during your journey you can join us in the Spiritual Journey Pitstop group on Facebook – and be sure to use the hashtag #witchpleaseread so you can connect with other witches and magic makers!

Laying Magical Foundations

If you want to build a mansion of magic you’re going to want to start with some solid-gold foundations.

It might be tempting to skip this bit and go straight to the rituals, spells and the ‘good bits’, but let me tell you something: this is the good bit. Being able to protect your magic is the most important thing you can do. Even if you do nothing else and never cast a spell, perform a ritual or charge your crystals under the full moon …

Your own power is the driving force behind your magic. It’s not the tools you use or the words you say that matters. The power and intention behind all these things is what makes magic happen, and that magic is you.

When you work with these practices of clearing your own energy, grounding yourself and protecting your magic, you will walk through life with your magic switched on. Everything you do becomes magic. In fact, if you only work with this one chapter of the book, your whole life could change in powerful ways.

Before I started consciously working with my energy, I was tired all the time. It was emotionally, mentally and physically draining. My life was an endless cycle of dragging myself out of bed, going to work all day, getting home tired, watching a bit of TV (because I didn’t have the energy to do anything else!), going to bed, then repeat. The weekends offered a bit of relief, but I knew there had to be more to life than living for the weekends (spoiler alert – there is!). I was constantly dealing with drama in my relationships. I knew that I had the potential to create a great life for myself, I just didn’t have a clue how to do it. And even if I had known how, I had no energy or time to do anything about it!

When I started to consciously think about my own energy – the things I was allowing in and what I was creating for myself – I started to see that there were certain places, people and situations that really drained me or made me feel blah or icky and affected me negatively in other ways.

The more conscious I got about what was coming into my energy fields and into my life, the easier it was to step into my power and decide what I would and wouldn’t allow in anymore. I worked with the practices I’m going to share with you in this chapter, tried out different things and – guess what? It worked! I no longer felt like my life was just on repeat. I started having the energy to do the things I really wanted to do (like starting a side-hustle tarot-reading business while I was still working full-time in my regular job!). I wrote two books and I met a great guy who is now my husband. Now life feels more like a crazy, amazing adventure rather than the same episode of the same TV show playing again and again.

It wasn’t just rituals and spells that helped me get here. These practices have just been one part of the magical pie which sits on a delicious and crispy crust that holds it all together. This chapter will help you create that crust yourself, so that when you start filling your life with magic, you have a solid foundation holding it all in place.

When you step into the power of who you really are, you begin to connect to and activate the magic within you, and you will soon start to realise that you do have the power to change your life – and even the whole darn world! Without this inner power, attempting to do spells and rituals is kind of like trying to bake a cake in a kitchen with no oven. Sure, you can gather your ingredients and mix them together in a bowl, but you’re going to have a hard time getting that thing cooked!

Without strong foundations, walls fall down. I’ve seen people manifest amazing things in their lives (money, dream jobs, relationships) only to have it all come crumbling down around them a few months or even years later because they didn’t have the ability to hold on to their magic and didn’t build it on a firm footing.

The world needs more people who know and can hold on to the power of their own magic, and the truth is it’s really not that hard! All it takes is a decision to consciously take charge, show up for yourself and make it happen. And if you can do that, you can do just about anything.

Notes on Being an Empath or Sensitive

Magical people tend to be more in touch with the energy around them, whether they realise it or not.

As a kid, I remember many times when I would get freaked out for seemingly no reason. I don’t have any childhood stories of seeing my dead grandma at the foot of my bed or seeing an angel appear in a vision, but I do remember going into old buildings and just being … honestly, I can’t describe it any other way than ‘freaked out’. It usually didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t always the creepiest places that flipped me out but I often felt like there was something uncomfortable about them and I needed to get out as quickly as possible.

As an example, when I was about twelve years old I remember being out sightseeing with my family in London when I suddenly started crying. I didn’t know why, I wasn’t particularly upset about anything, but I couldn’t stop. It just felt like something was wrong.

As I got older I began to get pretty good at blocking out whatever that stuff was. I learned to just act ‘normal’ and shut down my sensitivities. I think this is something we all do at some point in our lives … Unless we are around particularly magical people who support us and help us to work with our abilities, we learn to zip our lips and keep quiet about anything that may make us seem different or weird.

But of course, for many of us, there’s always that feeling inside, a little voice within saying – I’m different, I’m weird. Well, the good news is, what once made you feel different and weird or like an outsider, whether it’s similar to what I experienced or something else entirely, may be exactly what’s going to make you amazing at magic!

I started to reconnect with my sensitivities many years later when I was in my early thirties (it’s never too soon or too late to wake up to your magic!). I was working in a job that I actually really loved, but, for some reason, every time I walked into the building, I felt a sense of absolute dread. The energy felt heavy, dense, chaotic and just so negative. At the time I put it down to the idea that, ‘Well, this is how work feels, everyone feels like this at work.’ When I left at the end of the day and got back into my car, I felt lighter and happier. I almost felt like two different people – miserable work me and happy, easy-going rest of my life me.

I got curious, and I soon discovered articles and blog posts about what it meant to be an ‘empath’ and a ‘highly sensitive person’, and thought, ‘Hey, I think that’s me!’ I was like an energetic sponge, picking up anything and everything from wherever I went and whoever I connected with. I then decided to see if there was something I could do about it.

I discovered energy protection, clearing and grounding techniques, and soon I was bouncing into work with a smile on my face. Instead of taking on all the energy around me, I was starting to be in my power. I was deciding what could and couldn’t come into my energetic fields, and I was excited, because for the first time in forever I realised that I didn’t need to just accept that work was a horrible place that sucked the life out of me, I actually had choices, and I could determine how I would move through my life.

Picking up energy can feel different to everyone, and the way you experience it may be totally different to my own experiences.

But here are some fairly common ways to identify if you’re sensitive to energy and taking on stuff that’s not yours:

 You feel tired or ‘drained’ when you’re around certain people or in certain places, or just tired or drained in general.

 The moods of other people affect you. For example, your friend or partner is in a bad mood and suddenly you find yourself in a bad mood too, or the guy at the coffee shop is super-happy and it puts a smile on your face for the rest of the day – we can be influenced both negatively and positively. The cool thing about this energy work is you get to decide what you let in, so you can let those good vibes in without the stuff you don’t want.