Questions to Ask a Witch
Questions for a real conversation with someone who calls themselves a witch, whether you met them at a market stall, a party, or across a family dinner table. They start with what the word means to them, move through the practical business of altars, spells and supplies, and end with the parts people usually get wrong.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
What does the word witch mean to you?
The word covers religious Wiccans, non-religious folk practitioners, people working within a family tradition, and people using it mostly as an identity. Everything else you ask depends on which one is sitting in front of you, so it is worth spending the first two minutes here.
- 2
How did you find your way to it?
The routes differ wildly: a grandmother, a teenage phase that never ended, one book, one bad year, a friend who dragged them along. The story almost always contains what the practice is for, which is harder to ask about directly.
- 3
Is it a religion for you, or something else?
Some witches worship gods, some work with spirits or ancestors, and some would find the whole question beside the point. Getting this straight early keeps you from assuming a belief they do not hold and then arguing with it.
- 4
Do you practice on your own or with other people?
Solitary practice and coven practice are different social worlds, one private and improvised, the other with initiation, structure, and often things members do not discuss outside. If it is a group, ask what they can and cannot tell you.
- 5
What does an ordinary week look like?
This cuts past the theatrical picture to the actual rhythm, which is usually small and domestic: a candle, a cup of tea, something written down, a note about the moon. The unremarkable answer is normally the true one.
- 6
What is on your altar, and why those things?
Most objects on it have a reason and a story, and this is the question witches tend to enjoy most. It also quietly shows you which tradition they draw on, since the arrangement is rarely random.
- 7
Do you follow a calendar?
Many practices run on seasonal festivals, moon phases, or both, and others run on nothing at all. Ask which dates actually get marked in their year rather than which ones appear in books.
- 8
Do you cast spells, and what are they usually for?
The honest answer is often mundane: sleep, a job interview, a sick cat, getting through a court date, someone's exam. What it is for tells you far more about the practice than how it is done.
- 9
What does a spell actually involve, start to finish?
Expect preparation, timing, materials, words, and something done afterward to close it. Hearing the sequence makes it clear how much of the work is planning and attention rather than the dramatic middle part.
- 10
Has one ever worked in a way you could not explain?
This invites a specific story rather than a general claim, and specific stories are much more interesting. Notice whether they hold it lightly or need you to agree with them about it.
- 11
How do you tell the difference between it working and coincidence?
Thoughtful practitioners have chewed on this for years and will give a better answer than a skeptic expects, often about attention and follow-through rather than proof. A defensive answer suggests the question has not been examined much.
- 12
What do you make yourself, and what do you buy?
The split tells you where the effort goes. Someone growing and drying their own herbs is doing a different thing from someone ordering a kit, and neither of them will pretend otherwise if you ask plainly.
- 13
Where do you get your supplies?
This opens up the commercial side, including which shops are trusted, what is overpriced, and which ingredients are sourced in ways practitioners argue about. It is also a gentle way into the topic of what is borrowed from other cultures.
- 14
Are there things you will not do?
Most practices have lines: nothing worked on a person without their consent, no love spells aimed at a named individual, no cursing. How they explain the line matters more than where they draw it.
- 15
What is the actual position on hexes?
Answers range from absolutely never to yes, under specific circumstances, with a whole tradition of reasoning behind each. Ask what they think the consequences are, since that is where the ethics live.
- 16
Who taught you, and how do you judge whether someone knows what they are doing?
There is no licensing body here, and lineage is contested. The answer tells you whether they value initiation, self-teaching, or wide reading, and how they weigh other people's claims about themselves.
- 17
How much of this is old, and how much was worked out recently?
A well read witch will cheerfully tell you that a great deal of modern practice is recent, assembled from folklore, ceremonial magic, and invention, and will not find that diminishing. Someone insisting on an unbroken ancient line is making a historical claim rather than a spiritual one.
- 18
Do the people in your life know?
Being open about this costs some people jobs, family relationships, and standing in a religious community. Ask gently, and take their lead on how much of the answer they want to give.
- 19
What do people get wrong about you?
The list is usually long and starts somewhere around pointed hats and devil worship. Letting them say it themselves is better company than proving you already knew better.
- 20
If I were curious enough to try something, where would you tell me to start?
Ask only if you mean it. Answers tend toward observation rather than ritual: watch the moon for a year, learn the plants growing where you live, keep a notebook. How they handle a beginner also tells you what kind of practitioner they are.
Having the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Asking without being rude
Asking without being rude
Ask what, not whether
Do you really believe that is a debate opener, not a question. Ask what they do, when, and why that way, and you will get the beliefs anyway, in a form worth hearing.
Let them define their own words
Witch, magic, energy, and working all mean different things in different traditions. Ask what they mean by a word the first time they use it rather than assuming a definition from somewhere else.
Do not ask for a demonstration
Requesting a spell on the spot is roughly the equivalent of asking a doctor at a party to look at your knee. If they offer, that is different.
Ask before you touch anything
Tools, cards, and altar objects are often treated as personal in a way that is easy to trample on by picking something up to admire it.
Terms worth asking them to define
Terms worth asking them to define
- Coven, circle, and solitary, since group structure varies and so does what members are willing to discuss.
- Tradition, which can mean an established initiatory line, a family practice, or a set of habits they built themselves.
- Working, which is used for anything from a full ritual to lighting a candle with intent.
- Divination, which covers cards, pendulums, bones, and several other methods that are not interchangeable.
- Deity work, which some practitioners do and others deliberately avoid.
If you are skeptical
If you are skeptical
- Say so once, plainly, and then ask your questions anyway. Pretending to agree is more insulting than honest curiosity.
- Separate the practice from the claims. You can find the ritual, the plants, and the history genuinely interesting without signing up to anything.
- Remember they have almost certainly heard your objection before, probably from a relative, and have an answer ready.
- Watch what the practice is doing for them: attention, structure, grief, a sense of agency in a bad year. That part is not in dispute.
- If you only want to argue, say that instead of running an interview as cover for it.