Empowering Our Craft: Ethical Practices for Modern Witches
As a witch a core part of your practice is your connection to the earth, the cycle of life, and the wisdom of your ancestors.
But have you ever stopped to consider the ethics behind the practices you are incorporating on your journey?
Cultural appropriation within the 'spiritual community' is alive and well. Practices with deep cultural roots are sanitised, stripped of their context, and repackaged for mass consumption. But this isn't true empowerment.
The Wild Witch deeply feels the call to honour and respect the origins of the practices she incorporates into her life, especially those borrowed from BIPOC communities. Whitewashing these practices and ignoring their significance is not appropriate or acceptable.
Because spirituality without intersectionality is just oppression.
White-washing practices to make them more 'palatable' to your audience, not doing your research or due diligence and just jumping on the bandwagon of a new trend, is not the path of the enlightened spiritual warrior.
The commodification of spiritual practices for profit is not what spirituality and enlightenment is about. You can't talk about raising the collective vibration while ignoring the voices and traditions of BIPOC communities.
I recently had an experience where I was in a “spiritual” Facebook group in Perth and saw someone ask where they could find white sage and how to use it.
Now, white sage is a closed practice. This means that unless you’ve been initiated or invited to use it by the indigenous communities to which it belongs - do not use it!
So, I did what any self-respecting witch would do – I offered a gentle correction, highlighting that white sage is a closed practice and that it would be appropriative to use it unless you’ve been invited (which the person obviously hadn’t given they didn’t know where to get it or how to use it).
This is the response I got: "…except when you buy white sage made and sold by First Nation Peoples for exactly this purpose. We have all had lifetimes in many different cultures and the view you’ve expressed here is extremely divisive and not well informed.”
WHAT?!
Having past lives in different cultures doesn’t not condone or excuse you from appropriating that culture for your own profit. That does not undo the generations of lived trauma experienced by the Native America people who, until the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed in the US, could be arrested for using White Sage as part of their spiritual practice.
And this is why it’s important that “spiritual” groups start looking to the ethics of their practices. Your spiritual practice can become just another form of oppression if you use excuses to misinform and ignore the BIPOC communities from which a lot of “New Age” spirituality has been ‘white washed” and commodified for profit.
And here’s the thing, it’s not up to BIPOC communities to always speak up - because this is the response that we get.
And we have enough micro-aggressions to deal with in our day to day, without having to also be told we’re uneducated when we stand up for our practices, culture and traditions.
It’s the collective responsibility as practitioners to educate yourselves about the practices, tools, their origins and find out what practices are open and closed to you.
So, if you do want to cleanse your energy and space, please do so, but unless you’ve been invited, do not use white sage.
Smoke cleansing is an open practice which many cultures including Indian, Tibetan, First Nations people in North, Central and South America, Aboriginal people and Celtic people used for many, many years. There’s a variety of plants that can be used to cleanse your space, and self, of negative or stagnant energies.
In fact, one of the earliest records of smoking cleansing comes from the Vedic Hindu texts. In Ayurveda, incense is used as a healing tool to support recovery from illness and to create a clean, peaceful, calm space.
In the Celtic practice we call it 'saining'. Cultures around the world have burned plants, resins and incense in temples and sacred spaces.
And there are many plants that you can build a relationship with to use yourself. Things you should be considering when adopting these practices are not only the culture from which it originates, but also the plants that are local and sustainably sourced for your region.
Resins that are personal favourites of mine include benzoin and frankincense. I also love burning dried rose petals and rosemary. Depending on the spell casting or the energy I want to bring in, I’ll burn different plants or resins (or combinations) to call that energy in.
Here are some other alternatives to consider, such as juniper (although in Scotland juniper is a threatened species), desert sage (different from white sage), cedar, frankincense and rosemary (just to name a few).
If you’re interested in learning more ethical witchcraft practices, I have 2 spot remaining for the Beltane Retreat!
Beltane Retreat 2025
Join me at the upcoming Beltane Retreat. Imagine yourself surrounded by a supportive sisterhood, learning ancient rituals for manifestation, and designing a life that feels luxurious and deeply fulfilling.
