Hello everyone, my name is Sander Andy, a Norwegian teen interested in magick and the more occult. I don’t know too much when it comes to Wicca, magick, and the more occult beliefs, however, I have always had an interest in them, but it has always been a struggle to find places of discussion and such, hence me being here.
To further this post, why not add a question and possibility of a discussion?
What can we do to tackle the issue of this community’s representation and reputation among the masses?
The average person views Wicca, magick, and the like in a negative light, but that is not true. Our community is one of understanding and acceptance. Maybe we can try to open up more, spread awareness and educate others? Maybe start small, like getting a spot in a local newspaper, writing a detailed article or video and spreading it around, get in touch with local schools, hold seminars, bring people together and discuss. I know this might be difficult to answer, but I would love to see some suggestions and ideas. I am looking forward to talking with you all further, have a great day!
I appreciate your post. There really is a vast misconception about Magick. One thing I can think of is if magicians excel at their chosen endeavors enough to bring attention to it.
I like your idea about writing articles or making videos. You seem to really have a passion for this. Have you considered spearheading this type of thing yourself? I think many magicians have experienced persecution on various levels so this is one reason why practitioners are often encouraged to keep things a secret.
There are some good YouTube channels and sites out there but there is certainly room for more.
How do you envision this looking? 
Welcome to the Forum! As far as Wicca is concerned, there are many concerted efforts to counter the stereotypes of their particular breed of witchcraft. The Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC) Has active chapters throughout the world who seek to broaden understanding of their faith. They hold public rituals, attend world faith conferences as speakers/influencers, they even run faith discussion/classes in prisons. They, along with several other Wiccan organizations are doing their part to make a difference.
For Satanism, We have the Satanic Temple who are atheistic in nature and are doing their part to change horrendous laws and end religious preference/discrimination. The Church of Satan also does similar works but their organization has been rather muddled as of late.
As for demonolatry, as far as I’m concerned, I prefer that most people have no idea what we believe or what we do. We are reviled as “dangerous” even among our fellow occultists. Most of our are wise enough to not be interested in the opinions of others. Our interest is in our demonics and working with them.
Welcome 
I also keep my practice secret except for maybe two friends, funnily enough they were accepting because they were buddhists, and were raised with some knowledge of how magick works, so when I talk about it, it aligns with what they already believe.
I think it’s really interesting because here in france, I have friends who make art about witchcraft and paganry, albeit under a fictional umbrella, though none of them actual magicians. I think there is a growing disillusionment with the teachings and dogma of christianity, and a yearning to return to our heathen roots, and on some level I think people believe in it, it’s just met with so much fear and suspicion. I plan in the future to make some fictional works that portray magick, demons/angels and spirits in a way that’s truer to real life, but still flying under the radar as fictional. I think such things would help change the way magick is seen, since it bypasses the guard of people by being fictional.
Why do you want acceptance? Is that not a contradiction when used in accordance with LHP philosophy?
And if it was accepted it would cease to be the very thing that it is. Thereby destroying the alchemical process. In other words, it would become useless as a method of transformation and ascension.
First of all you need to understand what we as LHP practitioners are. It sounds to me like you are too new to this to be doing any sort of awareness raising and furthermore I’m not so sure I want that much awareness raised about me and my beliefs. It’s hard enough just explaining it to most new age folks. Wicca was a creation of Gerald Gardiner with the help of Alistair Crowley who created Thelema who was a member of the Golden Dawn who were a bunch of goetia summoning kabbalists who were a bunch of Freemasons who were started by the Knights Templar who were a bunch of early medieval Rosicrucians… Or something like that Lol! Most people consider what we do to be theistic Satanism although it’s actually far closer to ancient Sumerian Canaanite and Phoenician and early pre monotheistic Judaism pagan religion of the middle east. So the wider community of satanists such as TST and Lavayan consider us theistic satanists which we are actually not at all. We are actually a reboot of much older pagan beliefs. Not an inversion of Judaism or Christianity the way most think. JOS is theistic Satanism now some would call us Luciferians since what we do is more of recognize ancient beliefs as valid representations of universal aspects that had been demonized by the church for a very very long time and so we simply make light of it and own it. Much the way black people have taken ownership of the N word Lol. Take a look at the names of some of the goetia and you will quickly notice they are many of them the exact same names of ancient pagan middle eastern and European gods. One could say therefore that we are pagans but most of us don’t want to be grouped into that lot since technically it’s not what we believe in the modern sense of the word. What we actually believe takes way too much explaining to an atheist who wants to be edgy (modern satanist) a Christian inverted (theistic satanist) a new age (bastardised version of ancient occult philosophy with a Jesus Christ thing going on) if you want to raise Awareness of us better figure the fuck out what we are first because most of us don’t even know it’s just BALG and LHP is the place we all come to try to figure it out.
First of all, Welcome.
Tbh I don’t see why I should “spread awareness”? Magick is not a religion, I don’t want to convert anyone. What are my benefits?
Well said, magic is recognizing the real tangible aspects of our universe and their counterparts within ourselves then using them to create change in the internal or external environment. It’s definitely not a religion. Religions are fantasy that the ignorant created in ancient times in an attempt to make sense of what we do.
(Welcome to the forum! My comments below are my personal opinion and do not represent BALG or any of their authors, I am just a volunteer moderator here to keep trolls and spammers etc away. 
)
I honestly believe the best thing we can do is not fall into the victimhood mindset of thinking we need to have “representation” when it’s pretty obvious occult symbolism is woven into the fabric of our society, from ancient monuments, through cathedral architecture when it went underground during the Christian era, to modern day culture.
There is a concept that “what the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves” which means if you spend all day believing something about yourself, it will be easy to find “evidence” and maybe even subtly arrange your reality to suit that belief.
I highly recommend reading The Kybalion PDF, archived link (we don’t trade PDFs on here as a general rule but this one is okay, the text is out of copyright and the edition was given for download from the site that created it).
And this gives a practical example of mastering your own Prover:
Finally, as was covered above by @anon10524665, we’re not a religion, so getting converts is unimportant (though of course if you wanted to start a religion, knowledge of occult concepts would be useful).
I respectfully ask: are you sure? 
This forum alone has a baneful magick section where people talk about cursing others, dominating their will for personal gain, and to get sex or financial advantages. The site’s co-founder wrote a book called Baneful Magick that describes death curses.
And all occult groups enact some form of spiritual violence, whether it’s against groups they find undesirable or against individuals who are doing something they dislike. The only difference between us and violent religious groups is that we lack that mandate from authority to do harm, which is such a deadly trap for the average person (classic example given here).
Sorry, mate. But I’m not a flower power wiccan. I hold myself in higher regard.
And this is not “our” community. You only just arrived.
Wouldn’t work imo. There’s a lot of edgy people the LHP attracts and to the mundane community that’s a no go. You hear people going “come on brothers and sisters let’s spread darkness!” And shit like that lol. It’s a bit off putting and gives off the wrong vibe. Then you have people who worship each other or someone who flashes a YouTube channel or throws a book out. It basically comes off a bit edgy religious joke to some.
The idea of spreading awareness is pretty nice but there’s a handful of iffy happenings that would make the common person just think it’s a troll or will troll it lol.
that made my day 
I don’t think I am the perfect fit to spearhead this, due to me not being informed enough, however, in the future it could be a possibility. Also, I envision this having the possibility to turn out overall positive if done correctly. If we give the people correct information in an engaging and good way it might bring more valuable assets into this community, we would get a stronger following, more power and greater reach around the world. The greatest benefit, in my opinion, would be the end of prejudice and judgement faced by being a believer and practitioner.
I don’t know too much on the practical part of a stronger following in the context of potency and effect of our practices, however, the reason I would like acceptance and awareness is to end prejudice and judgement faced by being a part of this community.
The benefits are a greater reach around the world, a stronger and better community along with the possible end of prejudice and judgement faced by being a part of this community.
When I said “understanding and acceptance” I was talking about how the people in this community are to each other, not how we are to the rest of the world. I don’t think we are a bunch of pacifist and loving people, however, it seems to me that in this community people are accepting and understanding of others, contra how this community might be seen from an outsiders’ perspective.
a majority of people can’t even handle differences in how other people toast their fucking bread, let alone major differences of “lifestyle” choices. Let them in the dark, the ones who will hear the call will follow it or not. It really doesn’t matter.
Keep it a secret. Nobody’s gonna believe you anyway.
No matter which community you belong to, you will always face judgement and prejudice by someone, doesn’t matter if youre LHP, christian, atheist, left wing or right wing. This will never change. Only if all people had the same religion and political views, which would be a world I wouldn’t want to live in.
A world where everyone loves each other and accepts everything will never exist.