If you’re completely new to witchcraft, a baby witch you may say, then you may not know that there are multiple types of witches and a lot of different types of witchcraft you can practice.
Just like in your witchy practices, there will be things that you feel connected with and things you don’t. For example, I don’t work with things like the Fae or Sprites etc. I also just can not get on board with palmistry, it just doesn’t click for me and my brain refuses to understand it!
Don’t feel like you have to know everything and be doing everything, if it doesn’t connect with you on a spiritual level. This is why there is more than one way to practice witchcraft, so you can create a practice that serves you the best.
To help you discover what type of witchcraft is best for you, I’ve broken a few of the most popular types down so you can see what’s involved.
Hearth Witch
A hearth witch can also be known as a home witch (hearth being an old worldy word for home or more specifically the fire place). These types of witches practice their magick within the space of the home and focus on including magick in their daily lives within that space. Because this type of witchcraft takes place inside the home, many will be solitary witches rather than being part of a coven.
Works with:
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Home protection
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Kitchen magick
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Home based crystal magick
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Cleaning & cleansing magick
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Home blessings
These witches will most often:
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Have various crystals dotted in specific places within the home
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Have a besom by the door to ward off unwanted visitors
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Cook with intention and purpose
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Cleanse the energy within their home almost every day
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Have protection spells in place for their home
What better way to channel your cosy witchy self than making time to journal using your Tarot or Oracle cards?
Green Witch
A very popular form of witchcraft is green witchcraft. These witches work a lot in their garden and within nature. They will be the ones growing herbs in their gardens, offering you homemade herbal remedies and making all natural beauty products. Green witches work closely with nature, choosing to get their energy and magick from the natural world. Back in the day, green witches were often known as medicine or wise women.
Works with:
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Herbalism
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Folk magic
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Essential oils
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Botany
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Animal magick
These witches will most often:
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Be growing fresh herbs in their garden
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Always be outside in nature
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Practicing making natural remedies and cosmetics
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Using essential oils for various ailments
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Always looking up how to take care of plants and growing their own vegetables
Crystal Witch
Crystal witches are pretty self explanatory, they use crystals as their main focus in their practice. This means they work with the energy of crystals to help manipulate their own energy or the energy around them and work closely with the chakras and auras. This is a pretty specific sector of witchcraft, but it is one that many find themselves starting out with.
Works with:
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Crystal magick
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Auras
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Chakra healing
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Energy healing e.g. Reiki
These witches will most often:
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Be wearing a lot of crystals as jewellery
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Have a few crystals rattling around in their bags, pockets and even their bras
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Have a few crystals hidden away in their pillow cases
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Healing and balancing their chakras
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Surrounded by crystal grids
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Have plenty of crystal bibles and guide books on their shelves
Kitchen Witch
The kitchen witch is closely associated with the hearth witch, as their magick also takes place within their home. However, these witches focus their time predominantly in the kitchen. Kitchen witchery works with magick when cooking or baking, it uses food and drink in order to cast spells and within their rituals. These witches will know the magickal properties of all their ingredients and know exactly why they are using what they’re using. They will often have blessed tools such as spoons and knives that they use specifically for their kitchen magick.
Works with:
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Kitchen magick
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Herbalism
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Botany
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Potion making
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Tea reading and tea magick
These witches will most often:
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Be cooking away in their kitchen
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Sourcing the best ingredients for their kitchen spells
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Cutting freshly grown herbs for using in their food
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Boiling a potion on the stove
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Pouring you a cup of chamomile tea
Gray Witch
Many witches choose to either work with the light or the dark, however gray witches are not afraid to get stuck into both in equal measure. They understand that the world is built on balance and so they aim to practice in both the light and the shadow. These witches are more than happy to cook you up a potion or a spell to help you, but when crossed, they have no problems placing a curse of hex on you. They are neutral witches and so always try and keep a sense of balance and harmony in their practice.
Works with:
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Shadow work
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Black magic
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White magic
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Light work
*It’s worth noting that gray witches will often pick and choose different types of spellwork and rituals from all the other types of witchcraft, just like an eclectic witch.
These witches will most often:
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Be doing some serious inner shadow work
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Exploring all aspects of witchcraft
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Working with all the elements
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Filling up pages and pages of their grimoire
Cosmic Witch
The cosmic witch works a lot with the universe, astrology and divination. They are often expert astrologers and work frequently with moon magic. These are the witches that can draw out your birth chart and offer you scarily accurate horoscopes. They use celestial energy in pretty much everything they do and often practice skills such as astral projection, angel magick and divination.
Works with:
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Astrology
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Zodiac signs and horoscopes
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Angel magick
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Divination e.g. tarot, palmistry, scrying etc.
These witches will most often:
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Tell you an accurate horoscope that sets you on the right path
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Be plotting out your birth chart
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Reading tarot or oracle cards
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Seeking advice from the universe
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Preparing for the retrogrades
Sea Witch
Sea witches, in my opinion anyway, is a very focused subsection of a green witch, in that they work with a bias towards the element of water, however they still work frequently with all the elements together like the green witch does. Sea witches love to be by the ocean and use the oceans energy in their rituals and spells. They are also known to practice lunar magick, due to the moon’s connection with the oceans. They also work frequently with the weather and are also drawn to lakes and rivers.
Works with:
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Water magick
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Weather magick
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Mermaids and other mythical sea creatures and animals
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Lunar magick
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Elemental magick
These witches will most often:
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Be down at the beach or by a lake
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Surrounding themselves with water as often as possible
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Working with full moons especially
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Making moon and crystal water
Eclectic Witch
Eclectic witchcraft is extremely popular for beginners and highly recommended if you’re not draw to one specific type of craft. These witches pick and mix different types of witchcraft to create their own unique practice. I associate with eclectic witchcraft currently because I love learning about all types of the craft and figuring out how to use them together. For example, I work a lot with divination like the cosmic witch, however I also do a lot of shadow and light work like the gray witch and I’m also learning and using a lot more green witchcraft in my practices.
Works with:
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All different types of magick, spells and rituals
These witches will most often:
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Be surrounded by a variety of books on witchcraft, astrology, herbalism and crystals
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Have multiple grimoires and book of shadows filled with magickal information
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Have many different herbs and crystals spread around their home
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Have busy and eclectic looking altars
Choosing the right type of witchcraft for you
When you are just starting out, it can be very intimidating knowing where to begin. The best thing to do is pick one specific area that you find yourself really interested in learning more about. For me this was crystals, then this lead me on to divination. Once I started to get more advanced with tarot, I realised that learning more about astrology would help me learn tarot better and learning more about elemental magick would also help.
You’ll find that the more you dig into one specific subject, doors to other subjects start to appear and you can start to transition into learning about something completely knew.
If you do decide to pick a type of witchcraft to learn and practice, remember that you are more than welcome to change your mind down the line. As we grow and develop as humans, we may find that a type of craft no longer serves us the way it once did and a different type of craft now feels more relatable.
Try them all and see which one you feel the most connected and emotionally drawn to!