Hello everyone—
Recently I found out that my younger sister Pearl is also interested in witchcraft. She found out that I am interested in witchcraft at about the same time - despite the fact that I have been a witch longer than she has been alive. It is something that I tend to be quite private about with people who know me in real life.
Witchcraft is often considered to be a sisterhood - and many media depictions of witches involve sisters. The Weird Sisters from Macbeth, the Wicked Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, the Sanderson sisters of Hocus Pocus, the sisters of Charmed, Hilda and Zelda Spellman… there’s quite the list for us to join.
Pearl has an interesting background - probably more interesting than my own background - because she spent most of her life growing up in the middle east. This is an edited transcript of a (quite chatty) conversation we had about her interest in witchcraft. Hopefully some of you find this interesting!
New Witch In Town
GB: What originally made you interested in witchcraft and how did you find out about it?
Pearl: Well, definitely through the internet, that's number one.
I've always been interested in a little bit of spirituality and the supernatural and that kind of stuff. So there was already part of me that was like, oh, I bet that there's a whole bunch of interesting things that people can do that are sort of out of the normal.
I think I got into sort of the whole manifestation, law of attraction thing. I was interested in meditating and figuring out how to make my life better by mindfulness. And then I think I started seeing things about spells and those led me into these websites that had spells and would talk about, you know, paganism and Wicca. They used candles, and were about paying attention to the seasons and cycles of the moon. It just seemed interesting and it seemed like sort of a good thing to spend my time on.
GB: You mentioned paganism, like, do you consider yourself pagan? Or at least - do you align yourself with pagan ideas? Or do you do “deity work”?
Pearl: I think I wanted to at one point, but I kept seeing things that were like, “All right. Number one. The most important thing that you're going to have to do here is a lot of research. This isn't something that you should just jump into.”
So I kind of decided to put that to the side and maybe get into it more on my own and do some of the spell stuff with the candles and the rituals. I thought that that might be a little more my speed and I figured that I could look over it again later. So I don't think I would, yet. I might get more into it later, but I don't feel comfortable yet.
GB: You also said that you were originally kind of just interested in the supernatural in general. Is there a reason for that? Or any particular inciting incidents?
Pearl: I don't know what got me into it specifically. I just remember all throughout middle school I was constantly picking up books in the library that were about ghosts or supernatural incidents, like near death experiences. And then I picked up one book on witches.
GB: Was this when you were in the United States?
Pearl: Yeah.
GB: Okay. I was going to say that seems like an American thing. So have you made anything happen? If you're doing things like manifestation or spells, has any of that worked?
Pearl: Hmm, yeah, I think sometimes. It's hard to say for sure whether or not anything happens because I will it to happen or just because I'm going to be more biased to the positive now, because I'm looking out for those things. I can say so theoretically - I lit colored candles and I tried to make a spell for Italy to win the Euro Cup or whatever it's called because I really wanted England to lose. And then they did, and I was like, cool.
For my grades too, like a big goal was to get that PSAT score and get that sweet, sweet National Merit scholarship. And that did work. I was trying to make it happen. I didn't really study that hard. So this fully could just be spells and stuff. It's kind of weird because apparently the test that year was way harder, so the index scores were lower than they would have been normally, which feels very coincidental.
GB: So do you consider yourself a witch? And a follow up question - do you consider yourself a “baby witch”?
Pearl: I don't know what the guideline is. I could say I dabble, so I guess I will call myself a “baby witch” if it just means being new to the whole witch thing. But interested in becoming a full fledged witch.
GB: So what do you consider to be witchcraft?
Pearl: It's kind of hard to say. I feel like there's a lot of overlap with spirituality in general and in believing that you are capable of making things happen. I don't know where exactly someone would draw the line between practicing mindfulness and the idea that you are in control of your surroundings versus witchcraft. I don't think there has to be candles and there has to be like chalk on the floor. Or I don't think that's what witchcraft is.
GB: So we're both programmers.
Pearl: Yeah.
GB: Do you think that being more rational or logical affects your relationship with witchcraft, or with the idea of magic?
Pearl: I'm going to say no. We don't really know enough about things to apply that sort of logic to it - to say this clearly can't be real. Cause really, what do we know? Not that much. I don't think we know anything. I don't think physicists have figured out how the universe works. It's not like someone has proven that there is a God or not yet. In terms of witchcraft or religion even, I don't think there's going to be any conflict between logic and that, for me.
GB: Do you apply a rational mindset to witchcraft or spirituality topics?
Pearl: I want to say that I do because I like to think that I approach things with a healthy sort of skepticism. You can probably tell by how I’m not speaking in absolutes. I like to think that I'm kind of careful. I want to do things very slowly so I can make sure there's not too many confounding variables and things like that.
I feel like witchcraft in general definitely has a sort of logic to it. It's very similar to science in some ways, because it's doing a lot of recording, writing things down, paying attention, trying new things and seeing if they work, and coming up with these detailed instructions of how to do it.
GB: So do you make up your own spells?
Pearl: Yes.
GB: Rather than using ones that you find online?
Pearl: I use ones that I find online occasionally, but a lot of the time I feel like it's easier and makes me feel more connected if I do my own.
GB: Do you share them with other people?
Pearl: I think they're just for me.
GB: Do you write them down? Do you have a Grimoire or a Book of Shadows? Or just a notebook? Or just like a thing on your phone?
Pearl: Some things are on my phone. I’ve tried to write things down more. I'm not very good at journaling, in general. So I wish. I would like to have one. It's not going to work for me, though.
GB: You mentioned to me at one point that you were doing some spells for mom. How does she feel about witchcraft?
Pearl: I don't know. I don't think she knows very much about it. She just knows that sometimes I'm like, “I'm going to do a spell so you can like get a new job or something that you want to happen.” And she's like, “this sounds inconsequential. Sure.”
I think that mom is getting a little bit into some spiritual stuff. I think she believes in the healing power of some frequencies and things like that. So, I don't know. I think she's okay with it. I wouldn't say she knows a lot about it, but she seems like, oh, cool. Neat.
GB: So do you think we have any family background in witchcraft? What do you know about our ancestry?
Pearl: I vaguely recall mom saying something about some sort of like gypsy curse, Evil Eye kind of stuff at some point, but I don't know anything else about it.
GB: Like, it was put upon us or that we put it on someone else?
Pearl: I think she said something about how her family told her that she had the Evil Eye and was putting curses on people or… something like that. And they may have mentioned that other people in their family were like that. I don't know anything except that we have like oyster fishermen on dad’s side.
GB: I don't think that the oyster fishermen were witches.
Pearl: I don't know anything about mom’s family except that some of them suck. So I'm going to say no.
GB: I heard this same kind of thing from mom’s family about how I have the Evil Eye and I’m putting curses on people. So I think they did believe in that kind of thing.
Pearl: Hold on. Didn't mom have some sort of great-great grandmother who wasn't a witch but kept getting accused of being one because she had purple eyes or something?
GB: I thought that was her grandmother.
Pearl: Oh no, I don't think that was her grandmother. I think it was like great-great or something. I can double check.
GB: She had a great-grandmother, I believe, who she saw a picture of once and it was a lady with a crystal ball.
Pearl: I feel like there's some very unreliable narrating, probably from me and you and mom and all of them.
GB: Everything I know is like - oh, that was a weird thing that was mentioned once that I'm not sure if I heard it correctly. I'm pretty sure that we have some kind of family background in witchcraft but I'm completely unable to figure out what it really is.
Pearl: All right. Well, there we go.
Note: Pearl asked mom later and then wrote to me, “Her father’s grandmother was the purple-eyed one who was accused of being a witch, but no information on whether or not she did practice witchcraft. The woman with the crystal ball was also a great-grandmother of mom’s, mom thinks she did tarot but that’s about it. She was a palm reader. Mom’s mother used to tell her that she had the Evil Eye and that who she wished ill would receive ill. No more context on that.”
A Witch With A Crystal Heart
GB: So - crystal balls. I think that you are a lot more interested in crystals than I am. Let's talk about what kind of crystals you have and what you use them for.
Pearl: I don't know where my other crystals are because mom took all my stuff out of my room. My room is too messy. But I do have some crystals here. This one is tiger’s eye. What it's for? I do not know.
Clear quartz, I'm pretty confident that this is one of the most general kind of crystals. I think that it is also for clarity. Which is not surprising because it's clear - that's a big thing about it. I think points are also kind of supposed to be used for channeling.
I have this big selenite, but it's really like satin spar. I know that some people use this to direct energy for spells.
This one is citrine probably, and if it's not, I have some somewhere. I know this is for money. I know this because I used a citrine point on a scratch off. Did it work? No, but I remember the symbolism. So I guess I technically have crystals that I use, but they're kind of just shiny rocks that are like comfort items to me.
I use the rose quartz cause that's the love one. I hid it in Zander's room.
GB: Does he know about that?
Pearl: I told him I was hiding it. It's just hidden because of the rules or something. Also amethyst is protective, I think. So I gave Zander some of that for a mercury retrograde, cause that’s a bad time.
GB: What about your wands?
Pearl: They might also be somewhere, I don't know. Zander made me one, which is really cool. It looks like an actual wand, but another one was just some stick that I found on the ground that I decided it could be a wand.
GB: Did he make it with wood turning?
Pearl: Yeah.
GB: I wish I had saved some of that cherry tree - the big branch that was chopped off. I think that could have been turned into a nice wand. Maybe you should go break off a branch and give it to Zander to make me a wand out of the cherry tree.
Pearl: Okay.
GB: Okay. So you don't have any of your wands right now?
Pearl: I don't, unfortunately they're in the basement. Mom might have hers though. She has a wand. Zander asked me if I wanted a wand and also asked if mom wanted one. No, I can't find hers either.
GB: So what resources do you use to learn about witchcraft or where do you get information about it?
Pearl: I get information from your tumblr page. There’s also some groups you can join that I have joined. I don't know if they worked out for me cause I don't go on them anymore. Of course there were those sites that I originally found - I don’t remember what they were called but I remember I had to find the ones that weren't blocked by the government.
GB: Yeah. That was actually my next question. You grew up in the middle east - does that change your perspective on witchcraft at all?
Pearl: I don't know if it changes my perspective. It's kind of weird to think about how many different perspectives there are, because I feel like the European idea of witchcraft and the modern take on it that we have trending is very different than the Arab version of witchcraft.
It seems a lot more scary and it is a lot more just like - oh, this is bad. You're going to be consorting with the devil or the djinn or something like that. It feels very The Crucible. One of my friends accused her maid of being a witch because she was acting really weird, but I was just like, oh, I read this book before. I don't know if that's really what's going on here.
GB: So you don't take an Arab perspective in your witchcraft or do work with the djinn or anything?
Pearl: No. I think that the concept of the Evil Eye is kind of interesting. It kind of brings me back to stuff that mom probably said at one point. I consider that sometimes, and I like the symbol and the idea behind it.
I guess I do take on the Evil Eye in the way that it is used there - it's an Arabic term as in like, being jealous of someone and your jealousy sabotaging them. I do consider that a very real idea. But other than that, no. Other than that one concept.
GB: Do you have friends in the middle east who practice witchcraft?
Pearl: Hmm. I don't think they would say it's witchcraft. I mean, Khadijah also got into the manifestation thing. She comes to me for tarot readings and stuff like that, but I don't think she would consider herself a witch. Even if she was doing some of the things in witchcraft - just because of her own ideas on it.
GB: Is it because it's considered much more scary in the middle east?
Pearl: I think there's definitely a chance of that because I mentioned that I was doing spells and she was like, oh, I can never get into that. You know, it's like, haram. There's definitely more of an idea of “don't do that”.
GB: Is there anything else that you would like to talk about?
Pearl: I think some of my most interesting spiritual, witch-adjacent things - because I don't know if they're actually witchcraft or not - are signs. I’ve asked for signs a lot and I can get some really specific ones. I always feel like that connects me more to the idea of making things happen and the idea of there being some sort of force. I don't know if it's necessarily like a deity or a higher power - it’s just the connection to the universe.
GB: What kind of specific signs?
Pearl: I was asking the universe for some advice on an issue and whether or not I should take a certain step - just kind of bite the bullet and get something done. I was asking for a four-leaf clover, because I never ever found one before. I was on the trampoline, which is where I always go, and next to it there’s a patch of clovers.
I was like, all right, well, you know, if I find one, then I'll take it as a sign. I was digging through the patch of clovers for a while and I was like, all right, there’s no sign. But I'm still looking for it. So that's probably a sign in itself that I really do want to do this thing. I should probably just do it anyway. So I decided to go inside. But then, right by the door, I didn't have to look for it. There was a four-leaf clover.
There was also this weird thing that happened where I wanted a sign to ask this girl out and I knew I was not going to do it unless I set a time for myself. So some way or another, I determined that I would do it the first day it rained. Which was not a common thing in the desert as you may remember.
GB: Yes.
Pearl: So then it finally rained, and I completely chickened out of it. She moved the next day. She didn't come back to school. That feels like it was a sign that I missed. That's the kind of stuff that I see being very, very clear and not coincidental.