While being active in a spiritual community that holds many people from different countries and belief systems, it’s important to interact with them equipped with the proper respect they deserve. Here is a short list of acts and terms that are considered disrespectful!
Whether you’re new to witchcraft or a seasoned veteran, there is still information here you will find valuable. I believe it’s important to talk about these things in a controlled manner so people realise that it’s not an attack when we say not to use these terms. Forward this post to a friend if you need to give them a gentle nudge away from some shady activities they may have been unwittingly pursuing.
Smudging
One of the most incorrect terms used widely in the community, smudging is a specific ritual within Native American belief and spirituality that is exclusive to those practitioners and those practitioners alone. The non-appropriate non-Native equivalent of a similar act of cleansing is called smoke cleansing. Many people use the terms smoke cleansing and smudging synonymously when they are two different things! It’s extremely disrespectful to claim to smudge if you are not Native.
Dreamcatchers
While this one causes less offence, it’s still going to grant you an eye-roll from anyone educated on the matter. Dreamcatchers are again, aspects of Native culture. Dreamcatchers can be gifted or sold to non-Native people respectfully so long as the seller is of that culture themselves. Most of the time, however, non-Native shops exploit and make money from this iconic practice while the Native peoples continue to see none of the rewards for something that is theirs, which is why buying non-Native dreamcatchers is seen as offensive. Additionally, it is the words and energy woven into the dreamcatcher that gives it power. There’s little point in buying a cheap dreamcatcher from Becky on Etsy for the aesthetic.
Spirit Animals & Totems
Similar to Smudging, Spirit Animals and Totems are exclusive to Native American practise and simply can not be used unless you are a part of that culture. They are again, very specific terms that people have wrongly interpreted to be universal. If you wish to work with animal spirits in your practice, a more appropriate term to use would be a spirit companion, or simply an animal spirit.
Black & White Magic/Witchcraft
This is a niche issue and depending on who you ask you’ll have a different answer on if this causes offence or not. I can’t give a definite ‘Don’t use these terms, they are bad’ to you but I can say they are pretty dated and a good alternative would be to use light and dark magic instead. The term ‘Black magic’ holds racist connotations for many. ‘Black Magic’ is often seen as a negative force yet holds associations with hoodoo, voodoo and African spirituality. It puts non-western, non-white magic into an ‘other’ section, something nefarious to be feared, and innately implies a lack of moral purity. ‘White Magic’ is mostly considered to encompass modern spiritual healing, western neo-witchcraft and neo-Wicca, and is painted as the ‘Good’ and moral choice. In other words, these terms create a subtle racial divide that leads to some unconscious potentially racist views of cultures outside of what the west considers the norm.
Closed or Partially Closed Cultures
There are countless religions which are open for anyone and everyone to join. Norse, Hellenic and Kemetic Paganism are just 3 examples.
However, many religions and spiritualities are closed to any who are not born into them. These cultures are often closed in order to protect the longevity, quality of information and ward against theft. As many of these practices rely on the wisdom and connection of ancient ancestors, it makes little sense for those not born into them to practise them and is believed the deity or spirit of the culture in question would be offended at someone trying to do so.
As well as closed cultures, there are also such things as partially closed cultures and religions. These are initiation based; in order to practise them, you must have permission or have been introduced to the culture by someone already within it.
Wicca And Witchcraft
There has been a confusion of these two terms for a very long time. Wicca is a religion. Witchcraft is not. Witchcraft is a practice, a way of channelling energy to achieve a desired intent. It has no specific belief system. Christians can be witches and atheists can be witches. Wicca is a specific earth-based religion in which the followers also happen to be witches.
Wicca, ‘The Old Religion’
A lot of Wiccan authors will tell you that Wicca is the one main pagan religion that has been around for thousands of years; this is incorrect! It was a theory that the founder of Wicca, Gerald Gardner, picked up from a historian called Margret Murray. In one of her texts, she theorised the existence of one main continuous witch-cult religion. Wicca was based on this belief. This theory, however, has been disproven MANY times by other historians and is simply incorrect. Wicca was born in the 1950s, early 40s at a push. It was loosely based on a mishmash of late 19th and early 20th century texts combined with influence from African spirituality and a healthy dose of imagination.
‘A REAL witch wouldn’t curse’ or ‘It is against the rules of witchcraft to curse people!’ or ‘You must follow the Threefold Law!’ or ‘You must follow the Rede’!
Whether or not a witch chooses to curse or not is entirely up to them. There is NO rule against cursing unless you belong to a religion that forbids it. There are no rules to witchcraft at all; it is a personal, secular experience that no one can tell you how to do. Both the Threefold Law and the Wiccan Rede are exclusive to Wicca and do not have to be followed if you are not a Wiccan.
Karma
The concept of Karma is not what you probably think it is at all. Not only is Karma exclusive to religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, the rough actual meaning of Karma is that the actions a person takes in this life will decide the fate of their next life.
Chakras
The use and knowledge of working with Chakras is again, a CLOSED practise belonging to Indian tantric religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. Knowledge of Chakras has been so watered down and stripped of its identity at this point that any book you read on the topic is most likely for lack of a better term, new age nonsense. You do not have to use the term Chakra to pertain to energy centres within your body.
G*psy
This is an actual, racial slur against the Romani people based on European confusion of who the Romani are. The term came from the belief that the Romani were from Egypt. Do not use this ever; by many people, it’s considered just as offensive as the N word. An additional note to remember; different countries can have different incarnations of cultures and terms that often become confused. For example, the UK is home to many Irish Travellers, who also get the word G*psy thrown at them. The word Traveller can be taken as an insult to Romani people in the US, while it’s the actual politically correct term used by the British government in the official documentation for the Irish who are from this culture in the UK.
