Help! Recently I went into a new age store looking for some supplies for my Wiccan altar, and a woman at the store told me Wicca was dangerous and I should stop practicing it right away. I’m new to Wicca, and this woman really freaked me out and got me worried that I could harm myself or my family. Is Wicca really dangerous?

Wicca is a life-affirming, celebratory path. Its focus is on understanding our place in the natural world and living better lives by being more in harmony with nature. In my opinion, it’s a path that can help seekers with self-empowerment and self-improvement. Most of the negative ideas about Wicca are born out of fear and lack of understanding, rather than knowledge.

For example, I have heard non-Wiccans say that Wicca is dangerous because it has no moral code. I find this particularly frustrating for two reasons. First, it implies that humans can’t be ethical without a god or a book to tell them how to be good people, which is ridiculous and insulting. Second, we DO have a code, the Wiccan Rede.

I get some variation of this question in my inbox at least once a week, if not more often:

I’m thirteen. Will you be my teacher? And by the way, don’t tell my parents I emailed you.

I’m sixteen, but I can’t find a teacher in my area who will teach me unless I’m eighteen or older. Isn’t that discrimination?

The techniques for finding a teacher—at least initially—are similar to those for finding other Pagans or Wiccans in your area. Check out my post on finding other Pagans to begin your search. But before you try to actually connect with a teacher, it helps to answer some or all of the following questions for yourself.

Questions to Ask Before Your Search

1. What do you want to learn? Are you interested in learning about Wicca or Paganism in general or a specific tradition or path? It’s helpful to do a little research to see what traditions appeal to you, or, putting the egg before the chicken, to see if any of the traditions taught in your area resonate with you. Or are you interested in studying a specific deity or pantheon, a magical system, or a skill, such as herbalism?
2. What is your goal in taking the class or working with the teacher? Are you hoping just to gain some knowledge, or do you want to train toward membership in a specific path?
3. Are you looking to join a coven or circle, or do you want to practice solitary? Are you willing to practice solitary for a while if you can’t find the right group, or practice with a group for a while if you can’t learn what you need to while practicing solo?
4.  How far are you willing to travel and how often? If you don’t have your own transportation, is there public transportation available?
5.  What are the qualities you’d like the teacher to have? Are you willing to work with a teacher who doesn’t fit your preferred profile if he or she is the only one available or is the only one teaching what you want to learn?
6.  How much can you afford to pay for classes if the teacher charges? Many people charge for classes, but some traditions forbid charging for teaching.
7.  How much time can you devote to your learning? Can you meet the requirements of the particular classes or teachers you’re considering?
8. Are you willing to take online courses if you can’t find a teacher in your area? If so, does online coursework suit your learning style?

I am a scientist to the core. How would you advise someone who is trying to believe again that there's more than science out there or that [science and religion] sometimes work hand-in-hand?

Choosing to walk a spiritual path pretty much requires finding an answer to this question for yourself—one you can live with and that feeds, sustains, and resonates with you. So consider this post simply a starting point for exploration rather than a concrete answer. I wouldn’t want to rob you of the experience of sorting this out for yourself. Or not, as the case may be. Besides, one post is not nearly enough space to cover this topic.

I love this question, but in my opinion, the fundamental problem with it is its underlying assumption that science and religion must be at odds. I think this is a false dichotomy brought about by rigid thinking about what science and religion are and what their value and purpose are.

Recently a thirteen-year-old girl wrote me. She told me she’d just been to Salem, MA, and a card reader there told her she was a Witch. The girl wanted me to tell her if she really was a Witch.

This pissed me off. Not at the girl, who was understandably confused, but at the irresponsible, thoughtless card reader who would tell a thirteen-year-old girl such a thing and send her on her merry way, apparently without concerns about the possible consequences for her young client, which could (and apparently did) range from confusion to fear to freaking out.

(And let’s not forget, folks, that one of the few things most Witches appear to agree on is that we don’t proselytize. This was dangerously close to that.)

Anyway, the boneheaded card reader did inadvertently bring up a question that I get regularly in one form or another, mostly from teens, but also from older folks:

How do I know if I’m a Witch?

When you write something—a book, a blog post, a song, a tweet—and release it into the world, whatever you wrote is no longer really yours, in a sense. Other people read it, think about it, use it, interpret it, and comment on it, and it becomes something more than what you created. And sometimes people respond in ways you never anticipated.

 Maybe I’m a little thick, but when I wrote Wicca for Beginners a few years ago, I had no idea how many emails, letters, and Facebook and instant messages I’d get from beginning Wiccans and Pagans looking for a little help. Many are from teens and prisoners, and there are messages from adult seekers from all over the world too. If my inbox is any way to judge the state of Pagandom, there are a lot of beginners out there, and they have a lot of the same questions.

So in this blog I’m going to answer questions from my inbox—or questions inspired by questions in my inbox. And I’m going to start with the one I get most often: