What's your experience with having witch friends in real life?

Ohh I thought you was referring to a different kind of dancers. Those people that are paid to dance at clubs. Well strip clubs are totally different :sweat_smile: never been in one though, as I highly prefer bbw’s :drooling_face: Those will probably not on the payroll :disappointed_relieved:

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Well, I feel silly.

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The point that I’m trying to make is that, if you want to find other people who practice the craft IRL, you may not find too much success in polite society. Those who practice may not be very vocal. Those who are may just be appropriating the image. I’ve found that you gotta look among the fringes of society, or within certain subcultures, just to find other practitioners. In other words, go to places that you can’t really discuss in polite company.

For example, once a month, I go to a lounge that hosts the occasional open mic night or dance party. I’ve found some people who practice Voudoun, Hoodoo, and similar traditions. What makes the place stand out is that it is Afro-Culture centric. The owner has said that their mission is to express and share their culture. But I’m the only white person that consistently shows up.

Occultists, witches, and anyone else who doesn’t follow the normative belief systems of the West are already outsiders. So, you gotta go to where other outsiders will gather.

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Mod note:

Steer clear of woke identity politics please. BALG does not judge whatever path anyone follows, we all have to find our way somehow and we’re here to talk about our own magick not bitch about whether we agree with what random other practitioners do with their free time. Two posts deleted.

In keeping with the energy of BALG as an open form, and the light of freedom, we support all people practicing all forms of magick from every corner of the Earth. Every little helps. We don’t need to be negative to our fellow seekers, let them be if you can’t help them along their path towards ascension.

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Thanks a lot for explaining. Sigh you’re right about how people who practice are likely on the fringes of society. That means I’ll have to search more thoroughly. Also that’s such a fun fact regarding dancers at bars! I’ll think about the magical energies the next time I got to the bar!

You can always perform magick to meet more magical people :man_shrugging:

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It’s fun and you dnt take it to emotional level,tarot fun stones jewelry and support each other, mostly beginning, tru it’s a jealous about peopls whit title’s,and it’s a little hidden spot about open talk ,bcse people’s want to be the best and want accept facts in the most practiners but beginners are great as friends in love you be wondering if she/ him curse etc ,it’s another level.

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Where I’m from there aren’t that many that practice. I could always perform a ritual to meet more people who practice.

I’ve tried to introduce people to practice but that has never gone well. One person likened it to dungeons and dragons and another likened it to fantasy of crazy people. Another person start doing signs of the cross at me when I mentioned Anasi and wanting to know more about African occult rituals (this person has documented mental health issues and was sectioned for her own good for several months)

Most people wear pentagrams and occult symbols merely as a fashion statement

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I found the concept of “witch friends” nearby always exciting; the last couple of months I am also confronted on a regular basis with open practicioners very close to my current residence and on one or two occasions I was so tempted to just come out of the solitary practicioner thing.

Until I remembered what kind of experiences I made so far with practicioners who are not in my DIRECT environment. I decided that I don’t want to deal with such things in front of my door :sweat_smile:

Don’t underestimate the quality and impact of one good advice that comes from an honest interest for your wellbeing, “normal” friend or not. Sometimes this stuff is way more helpful than a group of practicioners who are not exactly as invested into your wellbeing :slight_smile:

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It’s not that, it’s just that the population density is low, and not that many care to meet up, so the one that do are few and far between. When you find then, they’re usually too far for practical meetups.

The other thing that works is to be in a big city and look for a meetup that is for the big popular orders, (those never attracted me as I’m not open to conforming to fit an order or pseudoxtian church of any kind).

Or, as zorrito says go for something popular like new age crystal store event nights, yoga classes, etc. However, these people can get very scared of you if you “don’t vibe” because you practice black magick, and you can talk about philosophy and spirituality with them, but not about the occult. Same with wiccans and related pagan groups, they are in a very specific niche.
You have to act like them to get on with them, which can be a good learning experience, but ultimately feels insufficient and hollow.

We have meetup threads that always fizzle, time and time again you see people asking if there are others in their area, and rarely there’ll be an answer, and then only one.

What can work is a larger meet that’s organised as a one of or annual thing, and people travel, sometimes hundreds of miles to make it. More like an informal convention.

You can do this on BALG as well, by the way… In the Group working section, anyone can open a thread to invite people to join a Group Working. If you search on this term you’ll see examples. You can also run that as a group PM or unlisted thread if you want the working itself to have more privacy.

So, to borrow your example, start a thread suggesting the idea of a working group to do magick against bulling in the workplace, and how the ritual would work done remotely, whether people will all do it at the same time or not etc. Then when ready ask for that to be closed and open your PM/Working thread.

BALG forums have special rules for Working Threads, particularly that posts complaining about the premise or style of working are not allowed.

For one off requests maybe try our opt in request thread.

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Very few witches ive come across actually practice on a regular basis. Theyre obsessed w crystals and lightwork and are afraid to curse very bad people who deserve it.

Only one of my witch friends actually likes the work that i do. Most other people see my circle, my alter, knives and hear the word “demon” and stop right there.

Theres one legit witch that runs a shop i go to regularly. She has an alter to santa muerte in there and does deity work. I have yet to actually have a deeper conversation about my practice w her but im sure it would be enlightening.

So to say it simply, theres lots of “witches” but very few practitioners.

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Thanks a lot for the advice! You’re right. I should not take my normal friends’ advice for granted… And also what you said does make me think twice about befriending other practitioners in real life haha!

Thank you for referring me to that thread! I appreciate your advice too!

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That’s true! I’ve never thought about performing a spell to meet more witches!

I have a few but most of them are solitary practitioners or are usually too busy to get together and do magic. The joys of being in your 20’s, I guess.

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  • a lot of my friends who are are light workers and don’t like the ideas on black magick of “do what the fuck you want” so I get grief about that😆

  • an extra hand! If I am drained from divination and need a hand for a reading my friends are willing to help

  • teaching one another: the mentor can teach the student. And the student can mentor the teacher, everyone is a student until the day they die! So we like to teach each other things when we can.

  • backing one another up. If one of us is sick or something and can’t defend themselves against attack or anything. That’s what we are there for🙂

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I have an irl friend (met online and we still speak mostly online, but have met up in person) who I can talk about the Law and black magick with. It’s great, highly recommend. We don’t practice (as in, do rituals) together, but we support each other and have done some Law work and rituals and readings for each other back and forth. It’s nice when you can be chatting about work or something in one breath and in the next sentence you’re saying “so how did your ritual go the other day?”

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Well it’s awesome if are friends and meet from time to time, have fun, do some Rituals or a Mass. Living together is a risk by discussions there will be destruction like Micro, dishwasher and stuff will not function even the weather can change and brenches fall on the wall or fence…
For a relationship it’s better a mundane

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I’ve never had any long term witchy friends irl. So far those I’ve met have been quiet about it, and I wouldn’t have known if they hadn’t lashed out at me sometime later.

I’m all open in my house though. My husband and my housemate both know. My husbands clairsentient- which means he can feel my mood and often exactly what I mean without words, and he sometimes helps without even realizing he’s helping me. From gathering materials I need to grinding stuff up, or making me a wand on a whim.

He also brings me home little nature trinkets and bobbles- it’s always a surprise, something that he sees and makes him think of me. He doesn’t practice, but he does know how to direct prayer in a manner that is effective. He has a few reasons he doesn’t practice, most just pan out to lack of personal interest.

We also discuss and sometimes argue about where our differences in beliefs are, but usually we are arguing the same points, and one of us is just butthurt the other isn’t listening.

The housemate is familiar with allowing the spirit to work through you, but doesn’t feel it’s his job to seek it. We also discuss, I’ve done tarot readings for him, and accidentally helped him by figuring out something he’d been missing for a few years.

So I’m open about my practice though I cringe still when one of the two of them lovingly calls me the witchy-poo or the witchdoctor openly to others, but that’s an interior problem, not an exterior one. I still feel flustered anytime I’m asked about what I’m preparing or planning- I’m not very good at dumbing down what I’m doing or figuring out how to not feel like I sound crazy.

However. There is a certain amount of… satisfaction to be held in the knowledge that I don’t have hide, my family doesn’t always understand what I mean- but they do defer to me, ask questions from time to time out of the blue for better understanding, and ultimately- they trust me with their lives and their protection, even if it takes them a minute to catch up to me and understand me in though process.

That’s honestly pretty cool, despite my own inner demons, doubts, fears and nerves.

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I used to have “witch friends” in real life, but I found that I was just bad at keeping up with friends.

I definitely was the “go-to” for our friend group when it came to jar spells and whatnot. It can be exhausting when you have results where others have not–then you wind up being the magical mule with a cabinet of jar spells, haha.

I will admit, though, that this was the best way for me to get experience. I could attempt things for people and if they were magically inclined they could give me better study data because they usually know what to look for.

IMO, and I’ve posted a lot on the topic, I feel like the quest to enlightenment is a lonesome one. You don’t want to get caught up in the influence of others, and I worry that peer pressure could throw me off course again.

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