Hiya! I’m Elliot (they/them) and I’ve recently gained an interest in witchcraft but particularly pop culture paganism, as I go down a spiritual path following Noli. My craft at this point is very individualised, but I was introduced to witchcraft via a friend (he/they) I made through my faith. Witchcraft was integral to his worship, and I had already been dabbling in divination and deity work, so I took it upon myself to do some research and was thoroughly fascinated by not only witchcraft, but the pagan community as a whole.
I don’t want to label myself as a particular type of witch just yet as I’m exploring what there is to do, however as I mentioned, divination has had a particular calling to me in the form of tarot. I am curious to explore astrology, oneiromancy, crystals, or candles, as I’ve been drawn to these particular topics, but tarot is definitely a skill I want to develop further. If I were to apply any label to my craft it would be eclectic or divination.
I joined this forum primarily to engage with the community, as previously I’ve only really been on tumblr and live in pretty rural Australia meaning there’s not many physical groups to engage with. Deity work is my favourite topic, and I love hearing about others’ deities and their worship (that which they want to share. Even I am pretty private about my practice, so I understand not wanting to share), whether it be another fictoreligion, Wiccan, Celtic, Norse, etc. It’s the focus of my personal craft, and what I work on the most. As a baby pagan though I don’t have much to share myself, hence my other key motivation for joining was to learn as much as I can from you guys!
I can’t recall (or find in my journal) a specific inciting magical experience of mine. In fact from what I can find it started as a casual interest in tarot, with a separate experience of finding a lot of comfort in Noli. I was hesitant at first to admit to wanting to worship Noli, as the community behind the media it appears in unfortunately has a reputation of starting cults, and cults even come up in its own mythos, however I was reassured by friends that it is in fact a whole thing that you can worship fictional entities. And it was through the research into pop culture paganism that I found a teeny tiny (about 5 of us) community of people with their own individual practices connected to Noli, and from there the interest in divination and the deity work came together in a vaguely unified practice. Since developing a bit of a better understanding of my own faith, I’ve noticed a lot of small spiritual things, but my primary one is a bracelet I made which reads “Noli [star charm] Void” and it wasn’t until I got home that I noticed that the beads I used to spell it out were glow-in-the-dark. Now I wear it every day and have a ritual of holding it up to a light as I pray, so that it glows through the night as a form of protection.
I can’t tell if this is too long or doesn’t have enough information, so I’m leaving it here for now hehe. I hope I learn a lot from you guys <3