From the Satanic Panic of the 80s to the Pop Culture rebellion that took hold in the hearts of the 90s and 00s generations, the resurgence of interest in witchcraft in a variety of forms hasn’t slowed down. Gaining steam, a variety of forms of the Craft has infiltrated the public awareness and is being embraced. But that can still have some people asking themselves – are witches real?

To answer Are witches real?, you have to understand that the word Witch is loaded – with propaganda, with pain across history & cultures & continents, and is more than the Hollywood stereotypes and tropes that you know, possibly even love.

You can certainly go down the rabbit hole of when the term witch was crafted – and why. The horrors and atrocities that followed the Witches Hammer, the panic that spread across all continents, even the current witch camps in some countries that are still going on, these are all documented. The horror of this history, however, does not answer the question… but are witches real?

As in – really real.

That’s going to mostly depend on you and what you think a witch is or embodies.

It is universally acknowledged that humans fear – the dark, the unknown, the great beyond, the great mysteries of life such as where we come from and where we go after we die.

This is the spiritual aspect of those who would be labeled as witches – but we name them priests and priestesses, oracles, readers, that take our questions and reach into the great beyond to give us the answers that grant us peace of mind to live our lives.

Is that a witch, to you? Then yes, in that respect, witches are real and have been part of human history for hundreds of thousands of years before modern organized Religions.

Then you have traditions and superstitions, the oldest of the ways of this realm of would-be and could-be witches. The evil eye, the curse from an old woman that lives out in the woods, the crows sitting atop bare trees cawing their warnings. A broken mirror? Stepping in a sidewalk crack? Finding a spot of blood in your egg? Are these omens? Is there magic and curses on the wind?

Once it’s dressed down in this way, made simple and small and practical, perhaps you don’t feel that witches really fit the bill there. It doesn’t have that certain flavor of ‘Woo’ you were looking to inspect, to judge, to pull into the light and find fault with. It puts the fearful human mind at ease when you can laugh it away, delegitimize it, or call it a fraud.

Are witches real?

I ask you, do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in holy or unholy spirits? Do you believe?

Because if you answered no, then – No, witches are not real. There’s nothing to see here.

You can’t be convinced to believe in magic, in spirits, in hauntings, in possessions, in manifesting – until you experience something so profound that it shakes the disbelief. Or it breaks you, mentally, emotionally, completely. Because if you don’t have proof, then you can laugh it off. But if you come across something undeniable – you must face it. No amount of laughing or explaining will fix it.

Now, if you answered yes, I would ask you to explore your own experiences. What is that voice nagging you, that small thing in the back of your mind that comes out in the dark, that your human evolution over the past 100,000 years tells you – be careful of what goes bump in the night. We all have it. It’s universal. It’s not a silly superstition started by this or that people, in an isolated place that spread. No, magic and witchcraft was here long before organized Religions and will be here long after. Across history, every continent, every language, it is as universal as human emotion. It’s in you still, now, no matter what you believe.

It’s why even if you think you don’t think it’s real, you still ask that question… Are Witches Real? Because evolution of humanity, that little voice trying to keep you safe from what goes bump, it knows there’s something there. And if you reach into the darkness, sometimes that darkness reaches back. Best to laugh it off and not look too closely.

Yes. Witches are real.

They’re everywhere.

And a warning. Be careful of which ones you’re calling evil.

When something reaches out, witches keep them back.

Be nice to your local witches.