The word “witch” carries centuries of distortion. Pop culture cartoons, Halloween caricatures, evangelical panic books, and serious academic study have all left their fingerprints on the term. What contemporary witches actually believe and practice often surprises people.
This piece is an honest, charitable guide to what real witches today believe and do. It’s written from the perspective of a Christo-pagan community that sits adjacent to (but not inside) witch traditions.
There Is No Single Witch Theology
The first thing to understand: “witch” is not a single religion. It’s closer to an identity or practice cluster. Different witches hold different beliefs:
- Wiccan witches typically honor a Goddess and a God, observe the Wheel of the Year, and follow the Wiccan Rede.
- Eclectic witches draw from many traditions and may not identify with any single theological framework.
- Folk witches / cunning folk traditions focus on practical magic, healing, blessing, protection, within a generally Christian or animist worldview.
- Hereditary or family traditions follow practices passed down in their families.
- Atheist or secular witches practice ritual and magic without any theological commitments.
- Christian witches / Christo-pagan witches integrate witch practice with Christian faith.
The diversity is real. There is no central authority defining “what witches believe.”
What Most Witches Actually Do
Practice tends to be more consistent than theology. Most contemporary witches engage in some combination of:
- Herbalism, using plants for healing, blessing, cleansing
- Candle work, lighting candles with intention
- Moon work, marking new moons and full moons with ritual
- Altar tending, maintaining a personal sacred space
- Divination, tarot, runes, scrying, dream work, used as contemplative tools more than fortune-telling
- Seasonal observance, marking the eight sabbats or some subset of them
- Spell work or intention work, focused ritual aimed at a specific outcome
- Ancestor practice, honoring those who have died
None of this is exotic. Much of it overlaps with practices in mainstream religion, Catholic candle lighting, monastic herb gardens, prayer-focused intention work.
The Ethics Most Witches Share
Despite the theological diversity, ethical commitments are remarkably consistent across modern witch traditions:
- Consent matters absolutely. Magic done on someone without their consent is widely understood as wrong, regardless of the tradition.
- “Harm none” or some version of it is a near-universal principle. The Wiccan Rede (“an it harm none, do what ye will”) is the most famous version.
- The Threefold Law (whatever you put out returns to you threefold) is common in Wiccan-derived traditions.
- Reciprocity with the earth. If you take from the land, give back. If you harvest, leave some.
- Respect for elders, ancestors, and teachers.
The popular image of witches as casting harmful curses is overwhelmingly fictional. Most witches treat ethics with great care.
What Witches Don’t Believe (Common Misconceptions)
To clear up some persistent confusion:
Witches don’t worship Satan. Satan is a figure from Abrahamic tradition. Most witches don’t share that worldview at all. Even Satanists (Church of Satan, The Satanic Temple) are typically atheists who use the figure symbolically.
Witches don’t sacrifice animals. Modern witch traditions are overwhelmingly opposed to animal sacrifice. The practice was rare even in ancient pagan religions.
Witches don’t curse people for fun. Most witch ethics strongly oppose curses. Some traditions allow “hexing” or “binding” of someone causing harm, but this is debated and rare.
Witches aren’t all women. Many witches are women, but men, non-binary people, and others practice witchcraft. The term is gender-inclusive.
Witches don’t share a single founding text. Wiccans have Gerald Gardner’s writings; other traditions have other reference texts; many witches have no single canonical book.
The Relationship to Christianity
For centuries, Christianity persecuted witches, most famously during the European and colonial American witch trials (15th–18th centuries). This is a moral catastrophe that mainstream Christian denominations now openly acknowledge.
Today, the relationship is shifting. Many witches today were raised Christian. Some remain Christian. Christian witch communities and Christo-pagan communities (like ours) hold both traditions integratively. The historical conflict was about power, not about an irreconcilable theological difference. (More on Christian witches.)
How Christo-Paganism Relates
The Pagan Church of Christ is not a “witch church”, we don’t use the term much. But we share significant practice with witch communities: candle work, moon work, seasonal observance, herbalism, ancestor honoring. We add to that the central teachings of Christ.
If you’re a witch curious about Christianity, or a Christian curious about witch practice, you’re welcome in our community. We’re not asking you to choose.
If You’re Trying to Understand
The best way to understand contemporary witches is to read what they themselves write, not Christian critiques of witchcraft, not pop-culture portrayals. Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon, and Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance are good starting points.
If you want to talk with people who hold both Christ and earth-honoring practice, reach out to us. We’d be glad to meet you.
Come sit with us
We gather on Sundays, at the new moon, and midweek. Because we do not have a permanent building yet, we send the time and place by email. Write to info@paganchurchofchrist.org or use the form on our contact page and we will reply with the details for the next one.
Sources & Further Reading
- Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America (Beacon Press, 1979, rev. 2006)
- Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999, rev. 2019)
- Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (Harper & Row, 1979)
- Owen Davies, Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History (Hambledon Continuum, 2003)
- Sarah M. Pike, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America (Columbia University Press, 2004)
Much of what is described here keeps company with the Goddess and older feminine names for the sacred, and you can support the part of our work that honors the divine feminine.