What is the Point of Being a Christian Witch? | The Philosophy of Surrender with a Christian Witch

Are we really doing anything? Are we really able to do anything?

In the little dining area of a small-town Starbucks sat two witches: one whose God brought her to witchcraft, and another whose ancestors and heritage did. As these witches sat across from one another and chatted, each had her own treat, her own drink, and her own perspective on what made witchcraft so exhilarating—so worth pursuing, practicing, studying, and weaving into the corners of their own lives. They spoke not in hushed whispers, nor did any anxious glances slide from the corners of their eyes; rather, they waved their hands about as they spoke and laughed with a brightness to match the late afternoon sun, and they didn't care who heard them and who didn't.

Then came the topic of fate, and the Universe, and the point of spellwork, and it was a humbling thing for one witch to finally fully grasp what the other already knew and could verbalize.

"You realize you don't actually have any power," said the Strega, the Italian Folk Witch as she nibbled her piece of cream pastry, "because you understand that you shouldn't go messing with the balance of things."

"Yeah," said the Witch of God, who had learned that lesson herself quite viscerally in the few weeks beforehand. She sat back and sipped her coffee, then sighed. "It makes it easier to sit back and accept things for what they are, funnily enough."

And as they continued their conversation, it would stay on the Witch of God's mind: how much people don't understand the powerlessness of power. How much people don't realize that for every crumb of power they gain, so too do they gain a link of the chain of responsibility, wrapped tightly around their wrist. It's as it's said in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea, when the main character, Ged, gets frustrated that his master won't teach him any magic right away:

Ged crouched among the dripping bushes wet and sullen, and wondered what was the good of having power if you were to wise to use it, and wished he had gone as prentice to that old weatherworker of the Vale, where at least he would have slept dry (18, emphasis mine).

I'll tell you what happens to little Ged: he gets so frustrated with his master that he leaves to learn magic at a proper school for wizards, and there, he promptly causes some serious calamity in his rush for doing all the fancy tricks and wonders wizards are known to do. It's almost as if his master tried to tell him that "manhood is patience" and "mastery is nine times patience" (17). It's almost as if that's something that other witches need to hear, too.

Because when I express this sentiment as a Christian Witch—explaining that it really isn't up to me what happens or why—I get people wondering what the point of being a Christian Witch even is. Sounds useless, they say. Seems pointless.

Maybe. But if you're secretly wondering the same thing, then let me tell you what I get out of being a Christian Witch—even if a lot of what I can do isn't technically up to me.

(Notice I didn't say all I can do.)

Reason 1 to be a Christian Witch: Trading Bone-Deep Fear for Power and Sovereignty

Of all the practical things I've gotten from being a Christin Witch, I'll say one of the most useful is the simple eradication, the evaporation, of any fear I've ever had around spirits and demons and what-have-you—and the full understanding of my own power, identity, and sovereignty as a creature made in the image of my God.

That doesn't mean I'm uncautious or that I'm willing to tempt fate by messing around and taunting some spirit I know has a bad temper, though; it's more like knowing that wolves are dangerous, but also knowing the likelihood of me ever having to deal with that danger is very, very low, and that the wolves aren't trying to be terrible to me if I ever do come across a hungry pack (God forbid). They're just trying to eat. They're trying to survive, like we all are.

It also doesn't mean that all my old fears are totally dead in my body, either. Just today, a fuse blew in the early morning hours and left me in the murky just-barely-dark. I have always found the dark uncomfortable, an inky and spine-tingling nothingness that swallows me and everything around me until I don't know where I am, or who might be with me. I've been uncomfortable with the dark since I was a very young child, and even if I know I'm fine and nothing is there, be they man or ghost, I just don't like it. I'll never like it.

But I'm not so uncomfortable that I'd avoid it altogether like I used to.

I'll tell you a secret: I am twenty-six years old, and yet I feel like I'm over one hundred in my mind. Nothing scares me anymore, because I feel like I've seen it all, and yet I know I've not even seen a quarter of all there is to experience in life, and yet what I have experienced has let me know something very simple: I am the deciding factor of how any spiritual encounter I may have will go. I decide how I react to it, how I understand it, and how it affects me.

In short: if I am to be afraid, it's because I chose to let myself be afraid—and too many witches allow themselves to be afraid, thus causing them to lose their grip on reality and run back to what is safe, comfortable, and effortless (as many ex-witches turned Christians, for example, so often like to do).

Don't get me wrong: I've seen some harrowing things in my meditations. Worse is the fact that my meditations receive all the sensory input that I can imagine or pull from memory. I can feel the squish of a muddy ground underneath my shoes because I remember it. I can smell the smoke of a burning house because I know what smoke smells like. And I've certainly never had any problem seeing even unnatural and strange things vividly (as it's one of the many perks of being an avid fantasy writer). I've felt the tells for when something will try to give me a jump scare in meditations—usually when I can't see what's "behind me" or something or someone is sitting entirely too still—but I know that none of it is "real" in the sense that it can physically damage me. (And it can only damage me mentally if I ever get sucked too deeply into the illusion of meditation and forget this fact).

When Archangel Michael cuts off my hand, I know my physical arm is still attached. When Baba Yaga makes me small as a bird and sends a wolf skulking my way, I know I can escape any way I choose. When Nehalenia sinks me into the deepest ocean waters, and I can feel the currents shift my hair about my face or the very weight of the water sit on my chest, I know I can still draw in a breath and live. And when St. Paul and the Holy Spirit both show me what a soul is, what magic is, and how to use it to both find my way and defend myself, I also know that anything that exists solely in this world of the Unseen—ghosts and minor demons and other such things—are in far more danger than I will ever be in. Just by my knowing that, any power they would pretend to have over me is undone, and I become the monster lurking in the shadows of the conscious mind; I become the thing to fear, the one that creatures hide from.

It's like having the very code of the world open and knowing exactly where to cut things, where to insert things, where to change things, and seeing it ripple out in real time into this psychic stage my mind constructs with the entities I speak to. It's the feeling not of control, because that can be taken away easily, but of sovereignty. Of unalienable identity, confidence, and peace. In all seriousness: if your spiritual journey is taking you further from this rather than closer to it, it's time to re-asses what you're doing, who you're doing it with, and why you're doing it at all.

Reason 2 to be a Christian Witch: Learning When to Act and When to Let Go

This may be the most controversial reason, but it's an important reason nonetheless: where I learn power, I also learn restraint. Where I learn how to affect the world, I also learn when to leave things be. And I learn these things by listening to the will of God. As Christian Witches, all of our spellwork is beholden to God; if He doesn't want something to happen, then simply, it won't—and people may very well ask, well, what's the point of being a Christian Witch if you don't even get to decide when to do the magic? And it's a fair question, honestly, but this is where I'll tell you that, whether this idea came from a piece of fiction or not, there's undeniable truth to the idea that mastery is nine times patience.

You may have heard it said that no spell should be done without divination beforehand, and this is the truth. There are many witches who do a spell for every single thing they could think to do a spell for. Every inconvenience, every fear, every frustration, it seems they have a spell for. I'm not here to judge what another witch does; if this is what finds them the confidence to move through the world as a sovereign being, by all means, may they do whatever they'd like.

But sometimes, forcing an issue can cause more problems than leaving it alone. And sometimes, the story of the world is being written in such a way that, should we interfere, or try to, we'll only end up hurting ourselves and others. True "canon events," as we might say. This isn't even exclusively a Christian Witch thing, as you saw in the beginning of this article: many witches, once past the wonder and excitement of learning that they have power at all, must learn when to use it and when to let the world move in its natural rhythm. By doing divination beforehand--in the case of the Christian Witch, asking God about whether or not it's appropriate to do any bigger spellwork, and if so, what kind we should be doing--we not only avoid wasting our time and energy on something that will be nullified, but we also get a better approach to spellwork than we may have gotten before.

Because just as God is an agent of balance, so too must we be, which requires a heavy dose of faith, patience, and restraint. It's His power that does the bulk of the work for us, after all, and the power of God is not something to be abused or taken lightly.

Before you wonder about this hinging of our power on God, though, I'll remind you that this is how magic has always worked across various cultures: using one's own divine power not to do the entire working, but to connect to their gods, make their petitions, and channel the true divine might down, should we find the favor of these gods and make a good enough case for them to help us. Even a simple prayer, in this regard, can be a spell, and so powerful is the word of God, or the spoken or written Word at all, that people would once write down the Lord's Prayer or some relevant Psalm in ink and dip it into the water until the ink bled, then drink that water for the full magical and divine effect (according to Martin Duffy in Anathema Maranatha: Christianity and the Imprecatory Arts).

And how powerful that is, to hold that knowledge. That even a prayer, an honest wish, is magic. That when we pray, we might pray as if we already received the thing we ask for (Mark 11:24-25), and that God hears us always, and all we need to do is trust Him, that He might hold us in our anxiety and pull it from us like a viper's venom.

Of course, there are times where we do our magic without needing to ask, too, because we understand that we have implicit permission to do certain things, like protect ourselves or our loved ones and lay healing hands on a sick or wounded fellow. Just like you wouldn't need permission from God to give someone life saving CPR or to take a bit of Nyquil for a cold or defend yourself from an attacker out to rob or physically harm you, neither do you need to wait for permission to defend or help yourself out of danger or illness or any other such things. And those silly little things, like using magic to anchor a traffic light long enough for you to get through it (a favorite of mine) or to bless a meal with a little love and joy and protection, or to create a little bubble of comfortable space around yourself, or to navigate the Unseen Realm safely, aren't much to constantly ask about, either. It's those bigger things, the things that cause us to lose sleep or weigh our minds down with worry, that are worth the occasional prayer, or even full spellwork set up, to work through with God and feel at peace on.

However, more than having faith that God will hear us and answer our prayers for things we want, and more than being in tune with the rhythm of God's creation and the story He weaves with it all, this method of approaching magic gives a Christian Witch one more thing. And this, arguably, is the most valuable thing any theistic witch could have, as well as the thing that so much of modern Christianity talks about, but in fact doesn't often seem to achieve:

A true, proper, and deep relationship with God.

Reason 3 to be a Christian Witch: The Unmatched Connection to God

You know I had to save the best for last. This is, in fact, the main reason for being a Christian Witch for me (at least nowadays; when I was young and silly, I just wanted to be strong and special and magical, as no doubt many of us pining for a more interesting world want to be). Knowing viscerally that God is with me, that He hears me and that, even if He's teaching me a hard lesson, that He's taking the time to teach me at all, all of that warms my heart and keeps me stable. It means God is my rock, and through Him, with Him, by Him, I can get through even the darkest woods, the most grueling challenges, the deepest and murkiest waters. Plainly, as a Christian Witch, I know that I am never alone.

This is something I didn't get the sense of when I went to church. Even when I made an honest effort to go back as a college student, something about it just felt alienating, uncomfortable, and strange (which was of no fault of the congregation; everyone there that spoke to me for any reason was kind and polite). It just felt off. Like I was a star-shaped piece being shoved into a square-shaped hole. It wasn't correct, and it didn't make sense to me. Going back again for Easter Mass this year only confirmed it: church isn't really for me.

But when I pull out my tarot cards and my tarot journal, with no other expectation than to just talk to God and shoot the shit, I feel close to Him. I accept the harsh things He wants to remind me of, I laugh at His jokes (because He does have jokes!), I get teary-eyed when He reminds me how much I am loved and cared for, and I goof with Him when He lovingly bullies me a bit after I get done whining and complaining about something minor and stupid. I don't just go to God when I want something; I go to God because He deserves my attention and devotion outside the requests for help, and because I genuinely love Him and want to be with Him always. Years ago, when religion as a broad concept made me uncomfortable, I might not have been able to say this so clearly without feeling squicky, but here I am today, more than willing to shout my love for God through the rooftops.

Because of this relationship, the idea of surrender that once made me bristle, and of submission that once gave me the ick, no longer makes me feel that way. Of course, it's still annoying sometimes when I want something right that second and get told I have to wait, but this relationship means I trust God enough to know that all things will come exactly when they need to, and all I have to do is trust Him. It means I don't need to essentially self-soothe with spellwork every time something mildly upsetting happens, and when something seriously troubling is going on, I know God will help me through it--that a spell I request we do together (and get the approval to do) is just as much of a bonding and trust-building moment for us as it is something that will actually affect my life the way we expect magic to do.

Remember when I spoke about sovereignty and confidence and all that? Yeah, this here is the core of those feelings: not just knowing that I have power, but knowing the One who gave me that power, and that this gift is a sign of His love, His trust, and His wish for me to go out in the world and work.

To be a Christian Witch means that I know that I'm powerful, and I know that I'm powerful because I know Whose child I am. The end.

However, remember this: everyone's walk with God is different, and by no means do you have to be a Christian Witch to have the experience I've had in developing this relationship with Him. You don't have to traverse the realms of spirits, or work with angels or demons, or learn to wield magic the way a magician might. If you have a way to speak to God and hear His answers, that alone is enough to begin realizing just how much He has always been present in your life and working to help you along your journey. The path of a Christian Witch--or a mystic, or a magician, or whatever else you might call it--is a difficult and adversarial one, and not everybody is called to wear that adversarial mantle in this way specifically.

For some of you, it may be wearing the mantle of an activist, fighting for social change in topics you care about (which I would argue is what the Christian Witch title does to a large extent in the world of religion specifically). For others, it may be wearing the mantle of a healer, not in the magical sense, but in the physical and mental sense as a doctor or a therapist or the like. For others still, it may simply mean wearing the mantle of the Good Samaritan, being a walking place of peace and refuge for those in your own community. Whatever it is, know that walking with God means walking with purpose, cloaked in love and connected to both God and the world around us from deep within our hearts and souls.

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Where the Gods Left Off Updates:

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Sara Raztresen is a Slovene-American writer, screenwriter, and Christian witch. Her fantasy works draw heavily on the wisdom she gathers from her own personal and spiritual experience, and her s

piritual practice borrows much of the whimsy and wonder that modern society has relegated to fairy-and-folktale. Her goal is to help people regain their spiritual footing and discover

God through a new (yet old) lens of mysticism.

Follow Sara on Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube, and explore her fiction writing here.