Pertaining to your recent text post about learning the rules of witchcraft before you break them, do you have any general rules that you belive one should learn, or is that a more of a personal question? (I know you don't disclose much about your personal practice so if this infringes on that feel free to ignore it)
If you are not joining an existing tradition I think you need to explore a lot of different ideas and theories and create your own from what open traditions share and what you can come up with on your own. Centering, grounding, and shielding are generally seen as fundamentals. However, I lump all that into “claiming your space” along with warding and protection because that’s how it fits into my system.
Know thyself. What is your cosmology? How do you understand the world around you. What is the existing structure you live in? How does your ethics, culture, and experiences help define who you are and what you are capable of accomplishing. Reevaluate this from time to time. As you are confronted with new info its an opportunity to change a grow.
I also think it is important to be curious and learn stuff you don’t really like or plan to use in your practice. I think it helps when having discussions with other witches different than you to even have an inkling of what they are talking about or why they have the perspective they have. I’ve studied a bit of ceremonial magic and demonology, not because I want to add it to my practice but because I want to better understand people I care about who do use it in their practice. it helps me gain perspective on why I do what I do.
I think ti is important to understand the mechanics of spell components. Why are they added? How do they relate to each other? What makes the spell “go”? How does intent, animism, and correspondences intersect. What is sympathetic magic and how does it fit into your practice? What is a paradigm? What is the paradigm I’m working in and would it work better if I changed it?
Specific stuff that is often considered foundational would be centering, grounding, shielding, elements, and casting circles, spell timing, different spell structures and methodologies. I’d also say to look into stuff like the ideas of the three fold law and where it came from also “as above so below” or the Witch’s Pyramid. A lot of this stuff may mean nothing now, but later something could jog your memory and you could go back and reevaluate it.
Really, ingesting everything and spitting a bunch of stuff out.
