Welcome. If you have arrived here with more questions than answers, you are in the right place. Most people come to Paganism, Wicca, or witchcraft with a pull they cannot quite explain and a pile of confusing search results. This section is meant to replace the pile with a path.
The guides below are written to be read in order, although you are welcome to skip to whatever you need. Each one takes about five minutes to read. None of them asks you to believe anything, buy anything, or call yourself anything.
What Is Paganism?
Paganism is a family of nature-revering religions rather than a single faith. Here is what the word means and what Pagans share.
What Is Wicca?
Wicca is a modern Pagan religion that honors a Goddess and a God, follows the seasons and the moon, and practices magick.
What Is Witchcraft?
Witchcraft is a practice and not a religion. Here is what modern witches actually do, and what the word has meant over time.
Witch, Wiccan, or Pagan?
Pagan names a family of religions, Wiccan names one religion within it, and witch names a practice. Here is how they overlap.
Magic or Magick?
Magic and magick are one practice with two spellings. Here is why the K is there, what the word means, and what magick cannot do.
A Short History
Wicca took shape in twentieth-century England, drawing on much older folk magick and folklore. This is how it actually began.
First Steps
A gentle four-week plan for beginning a practice with ten minutes a day, a notebook, and things you already own.
Common Questions
Straight answers to the questions beginners ask most, from whether Wicca is Satanism to what you need to buy (nothing).
What to expect from this site
Simple Magick is a library, not a school and not a shop. We have three promises for beginners, and we try to keep them on every page.
- We say what is old and what is new. Much of modern Paganism was shaped in the last hundred years. That does not make it less meaningful, but you deserve to know which parts are ancient, which are modern, and which are uncertain.
- We explain why, not only how. A list of steps is not much use if you do not know what the steps are for. Where practitioners disagree, we say so.
- We keep it safe and affordable. Everything here can be done with what is already in your kitchen. Where a practice involves fire, herbs, or strong emotion, we tell you how to do it carefully.
A suggested reading order
If you would like a little more structure, try this.
- Read What Is Paganism?, What Is Wicca?, and What Is Witchcraft? to learn the three words that everything else depends on.
- Read Witch, Wiccan, or Pagan? to see how those three words overlap.
- Follow First Steps for four weeks. It asks for about ten minutes a day.
- Then wander. The Wheel of the Year and the moon guides are the natural next stops, because they give a new practice its rhythm.
Take your time. Nothing here is urgent, and the path will still be here tomorrow.