A Good Witch or A Bad Witch?

If you identify as a Witch, you are likely to be asked the infamous question: 

Are you a Good Witch or a Bad Witch? 

And I honestly hate this question. The idea of someone or something being “good” or “bad” is subjective. In reality, witchcraft is the practice of manipulating energy and it cannot be dwindled down to good or bad. Most likely, the deeper you delve into your witchcraft practice, the more established your beliefs will become, the more likely others will find parts of your practice they disagree with. For instance, I don’t believe any witchcraft practice can be inherently righteous (good) or inherently evil (bad.) I don’t practice my witchcraft in a way which I could describe as only one or the other. Instead, I focus my practice inward, because that has been the most successful for me as a witch.

When I say I practice my witchcraft inward, I mean I practice and perform spells that are for me. I want to encourage my own success, I want to increase my level of wisdom, and I want to protect my energy and my space. I perform spells that affect me in a positive manner. That’s not to say I have never performed a spell on another person, or in favor of another person. I have just found that, unless someone is specifically asking for my help, the spells I perform for myself are much more affective. This is mostly likely due to the fact that I am channeling my own energy and that my intentions come from within.

Thus far, this way of practicing witchcraft has worked well for me. I do not need others to do poorly in order for me to be successful. I just focus on my own success, my own evolution, and my own protection. Even though I focus on my own protection I still occasionally receive what I would consider, spiritual attacks. My interpretation of these spiritual attacks is that I am sometimes the recipient of the evil eye. Not always sent intentionally, the evil eye can be placed on anyone by anyone who has enough negative thoughts about them to send bad energy. 

What is the Evil Eye?

The evil eye is more than just a superstition. The evil eye is the belief that others can place a bad energy over you just by looking or staring at you with envy or ill intent. The negative energy sent through the evil eye glare can cause bad luck, illness, misfortune, or harm. Sometimes the sender may not even realize they're sending it. The sender does not have to be a witch or practicing any specific form of spirituality. The sender may just be a person looking or watching someone else enjoy something that they themselves lack in their own life. This can be a material item, or a relationship, a job, or a success. This is the reason that many witches tend to keep their blessings a secret; it is a form of protection against the evil eye. You can also wear an evil eye pendant (typically a blue eye) to ward off their glares. In short, the evil eye has real, harmful powers, and we do not always realize it is upon us, until we are experiencing some sort of misfortune. But...

I believe there are signs. 

Last year, I was packing the largest order my shop have ever received. From a returning client, however, they’ve never placed an order of this magnitude until last month. Naturally I was ecstatic! I found a new sense of purpose because of that large order, and it gave me the motivation I need to continue expanding my shop. However, when I began packaging that order, into several different shipping boxes, I found not one, not two, but six flies flying around my shop. (Within my witchcraft practice flies are a bad omen.) So, I stopped what I was doing to address the issue with witchcraft.

After killing and spitting on the first few flies, and placing them in bags to be discarded outside, I realized this was not protection enough because they kept coming. As most witches do, I usually keep a few empty jars handy for anytime I need a spell. I found an empty jar where I placed the dead flies, with eggshells, black pepper, Spanish moss, and my spit. And every time I killed another fly, I placed them inside the jar and topped it. At one point, there was a fly who began moving in the jar. I did not release it and after a while it died in the jar of dead flies. After the sixth fly was put into the jar, they stopped coming. And I continued on packaging that order. 

Because I consider flies to be a bad omen within my witchcraft practice, I took their arrival at that moment as a bad sign. I was preparing my shops largest order in my business suite where flies are not a typical presence. It was unusual and I decided not to ignore it.  

So, was it evil, to kill the flies, to spit on them, and trap them? Was it righteous to protect my energy, my space, and my shop in this moment when I Interpreted what I believed to be a spiritual attack? In reality, it was both. The action I took, the spell I performed, the intention I had was self-serving. Because my shop is open to the public, I have public media profiles, and some people in my real life are very aware of my shop. In that sense, I am in the public eye. If someone did send me the evil eye, I have no way to know who, or why. My main objective in that moment was to use my energy, through the practice of my witchcraft, to protect myself and my shop. The jar of flies still sits on a shelf in my shop, and I have not had a fly in there since. 

Am I a bad witch or a good witch?

I am both.