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Some Pagans and Wiccans are reluctant to call themselves "witches" (the original meaning of the root word, wiccae, may have been "wise ones") because of the negative connotation the word "witch" has taken on over the years. One shouldn't be limited by other people's perceptions or prejudices about a certain word.
If your friend's wife suffers from clinical depression; if your sister is facing surgery; if you have a difficult decision to make - find some time when you can be alone, and cast the circle, call the quarters, light the candles, and spend some quality time with the Lord and the Lady.
We call the Goddess by many names: Aradia, Demeter, Nathor, Cerridwyn, Quan Yin, Isis, Diana, Hecate, Cybele. She's our true mother.
It may be that there are many Goddesses, or it may be that all the different names for Goddess are simply descriptions of the different aspects of the One Goddess.
An eclectic witch doesn't follow anyone else's path, but instead finds (or creates) his own. He brings together elements of several traditions and puts them together. He selects what is useful.
Think You Might Be
(or Want to Become) a Witch?
Read. Read everything about The Craft that you can get your hands on. I can give you a
suggested reading list,
but you might prefer to browse the "Occult/New Age" or "Metaphysics" section at your local Half Price Books and choose for yourself what will become part of your library. There are lots and lots of books out there.
When you become a witch (or when you find out that you are one), you are joining a fine old tradition that dates back thousands of years, back to a time when primitive peoples based their beliefs on the observable phenomena of nature. In other words, they figured out what was going on in the hidden world by observing the visible world.
You're going to have to do a little work. It isn't an app that you can buy and download. Don't be lazy.
The village wise woman (or the shaman) would try different herbs to cure diseases, to alleviate pain, or to fight infection, and when something worked, she kept using it. If it didn't work, she quit using it. Witchcraft was the original science.
And One More Thing ...
Don't think about it too much. Don't over-intellectualize Wicca. It's an intuitive religion, not a "revealed" religion. It's good to want to learn everything you can about Wicca and try to "nail everything down." But Paganism dates back to a time before encyclopedias and printing presses, when people spent more time feeling than they did thinking.
For the first 98% of human history, we survived on instinct, not science, and we did just fine. You and I here in the 21st Century are standing on the shoulders of people who didn't have libraries, or an internet, or automobiles. I still find people wanting to dot every "i" and cross every "t" in the Pagan mythos. Why does the God (represented by the sun) rule the dark time of the year? Will the Goddess get irritated if I call the quarters wrong (Earth is in the North, right?)? Will my "energies" be blunted somehow if I dismiss the Watchtowers the wrong way? How can a circle be "open but unbroken?"
Don't think about it too much. Spend time being, not thinking. Remember: not everything fits into a neat little box.
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