✨Open and Closed Practices✨
So, getting started was hard for me, because it felt like everywhere I looked, there was a closed practice. Which is kind of my own fault. I stepped into witchcraft, immediately starting with white sage and Palo Santo. Since then, I have rectified my ways, and made sure to preach from the rooftops to not use such items.
Which leads me into the topic of the day, Open and Closed practices. Now, this part will focus on Closed practices, so you know what to avoid. The next part (which I will link once I get it on the blog) will be about Open practices that you can practice.
Typically, Closed practices are ones you have to ethnically be a part of, initiated, born into to have the knowledge of the practice. However, the benefit of being a part of a closed practice is being able to have a community and friends that walk the same path as you.
Examples of Closed practices are Native American practices, African Diaspora practices, Hoodoo & Voodoo, certain Hindu practices, certain Buddhism practices, certain Judaism practices, certain Shamanic practices, and certain Wiccan traditions. Now, this is not an extensive list, just a list of where to start. Make sure you do your research into making sure you are not appropriating a practice that does not belong to you, your lineage, or your ethnicity.
Now, the reasoning for Closed practices are often to keep the practice alive, actually. An example of this is African spiritualism, Hoodoo, Voodoo (technically a religion, but still closed so it kinda works for this), and African Diaspora. To actually practice these Closed practices, you need to be African or of African descent because they were heavily suppressed during the Transatlantic Slave Trade and even almost had it wiped out due to said tragedy as well.
Now, I can hear the masses now: 'Hoodoo isn't a Closed practice! It's a folk practice! Anyone can be a part of it!' Now, personally, I consider it a closed practice for me. I am a white woman who most definitely benefits from the system, and lives in the Pacific Northwest. I am nowhere geographically near, or ethnically near Hoodoo or Voodoo. These are practices that slaves developed to keep themselves connected to ancestors and their religion, as well as practice medicine on each other. Most consider this a 'guarded' practice. I consider it Closed. My advice is to leave it be if it is not for you.
This post is not meant to discourage learning these practices. Learn what the people of these practices teach, what they allow to be shared, and take it with the understanding that it is not for you. That doesn't mean that it can't be for you, but it does mean that it isn't for you if you are not a part of their group that is allowed to practice their teachings.
Also, if I am wrong, whether about a piece of this or the entirety, please let me know! I always want to learn more and understand better, so feel free to hit me up in the asks!
✨Blessed Be, witchlings~✨
Nicole's Ritual Universe: link, link 2
Geechee Mama: link
Solitary Morgan: link