It's one thing to be a Christian Witch. It's a whole other thing to 'codify' what that means for SELF.
This is a unique, personal, introspective, dynamic journey that cannot be summed up in a cute quatrain.
This is a deeply devotional, mind-shattering, magickal path of the soul's calling that deserves our deepest attention and highest regard. After all, if your soul chose to incarnate as a Witch, and you add Christian to it, you've got a big road ahead of you.
And because this path is a lot like cutting through a thicket with a machete, you'd be hard pressed to find much in the way of a code of ethics, or parameters, or a system of any kind.
Christian Witches is ancient, and as far as I'm concerned, started with Christ, yet it's new in expression. So new, in fact, that there is no system, no organizational structure, no code of conduct or ethics, no protocols, no holy days, no neat package of what to do and when or how or with whom.
This speaks deeply to Witches of all kinds. As a Witch, I don't like to be told what to do, and if you try, will actively resist. I think that's in the DNA of Witchery.
I think a lot of Witches feel the way I do.
On the other hand, I think it could be helpful to have a code to live by as a Christian Witch. The good news is: you get to create the code yourself.
I suspect, if you're reading this, you may have freed yourself from institutional religion (a control entity if you ask me) and have elected to retain a relationship with Christ, in one's own way (if you were or are Christian).
Though there as many ways to do what I just described as there are Christian Witches, there are emergent themes.
I've been watching the comments in the Christian Witches community for years, and especially on the Christian Witches Facebook page, that I have the honor and pleasure of being an admin for in service to this great movement that is far beyond any person or Facebook page or group.
The themes that emerge are:
- CHRIST - Relationship with and/or being able to deeply relate to or identify with Christ (either as an actual person, as a mythological ideal, or as an aspiration as in Christ Consciousness). I guess you could say this is where the 'Christian' in Christian Witches comes from.
- MAGICK - Magickal gifts that begin to express themselves, causing the bearer of said gifts to begin taking account of one's life and eventually coming to the conclusion that if the gifts are psychic abilities and/or divination or the like, they probably WON'T be very welcome at the neighborhood church. Even though one of the divine purposes of a spiritual space is to nurture spiritual gifts for its community members, you probably won't have your gifts of psychic knowing nurtured and developed at First Baptist Church of ___ (fill in the blank). Without hatred or prejudice, we knew we had to go beyond what was being served up every Sunday on the buffet that is church.
- INTEGRATION - The desire to peacefully integrate being magickal and loving Christ (not an easy integration, especially after the very thorough conditioning from Christianity many of us have experienced). Yet, integration can successfully occur, when we drop the conditioning and turn within to the great knowing. As a side note, history is now agreeing with what Christian Witches have always known intuitively: Christ was a sorcerer (but that's a discussion for another blog post).
In short, we didn't want to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.
So, we did what any self-respecting Witch would do, we made our own choices and proceeded confidently ahead. Some of us decided to keep the baby (Christ) and throw out the religiousity our soul didn't require for its ascension.
If you're a Christian Witch reading this, and it occurred differently for you, I applaud and celebrate your path. I honor all paths, and call none wrong. The path that's perfect for you is the path you're walking.
If you require, like I did, a code to live by as a Christian Witch, or a set of practices that serve well, or even a set of holy-days (every spiritual path has these), then feel free to do what Witches do: create your own.
This is a tricky ordeal because there's no universal handbook on how to become a Christian Witch. There are books that have served our community well, yet I've found that a big part of the beauty and freedom of being a Witch is that you get to author... everything.
While some may think it's downright blasphemous to author everything, especially with regard to matters of spirituality (what when we have so many religions that have already done the hard work of making up all the dogma for you... all you have to do is eat it... as prepared), that's not my way.
As a Christian Witch, you get to author your code, your religious holidays, your spells, your tenets, your everything.
That's what I did. I sat down, put pen to paper and authored my Christian Witches Manifesto. I published it and immediately it took off without one announcement that the book had been published. I guess you could call it an experiment. The biggest accomplishment in writing the Christian Witches Manifesto is that I got to author my code, what I stand for as a Christian Witch, and what it means for me.
I can only author for me. You get to author for you.
There was a word Spirit whispered to me on more than a few occasions before I actually did it (call me slow). The word was 'CODIFY.'
If you go to a Catholic Church and say you want to join, they will hand you all the protocols to perform, the prayers to say, when to show up at the holy house and what to do once you get there. They even have a school for your kids that teaches them everything about the religion from soup to nuts.
The same is true of almost every spiritual path one can think of: Wicca, Yoruba, Hoodoo, Voodoo and more. If you join any of these traditions, you will be met with a set of protocols that must be followed. The protocols are highly specific to the path.
Christian Witches don't have that.
I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it gives us space. Space to create, as a community as well as individually, what it means for each of us to be a practicing Christian Witch in a broader community.
What does it do for a Christian Witch? It legitimizes the path. Now, before you get your panties in a bunch (I can already hear you yelling at me that your path does NOT need to be legitimized... by ANYONE), I'm willing to concede that I would agree.
I'm not speaking here of legitimization from any outside party. I'm talking about honoring and respecting your path enough to sit down and write out in a heartfelt, soul-filled way, what it means for you and how you conduct yourself on that path. What you will do, and what you will never do. How you roll, basically. Call it an intention, call it a manifesto, call it your code.
Whatever you call it, I promise you, your subconscious mind will take it on as a mandate and legitimizes and solidifies your path and practice as a Christian Witch in your own mind, which is the only place that matters.
Here's my Manifesto... feel free to explore it and use it as a basis to create your own. Inside the book, I offer prompts for your creative juices.
You can buy the book here.
My highest aspiration in writing the book is to inspire Christian Witches everywhere to author their own Christian Witches Manifesto that serves to anchor the soul in a set of spiritual practices, rituals and protocols that result in ascended consciousness and total fulfillment on the earth plane.
BB,
KAISI
KAISI (aka Rev. Valerie Love) is a spiritual life coach, practicing Christian Witch and the author of 17 books on practical spirituality, including Confessions of a Christian Witch, How to Be a Christian Witch and 40 Money Spells. Visit the author's page on Amazon.com