How did you discover the path of Witchcraft/Wicca?

I thought it might be a cool thing for those that choose to to explain how they discovered witchcraft/Wicca.
I will sort of start this....hmmm.... being dissatisfied with Christianity and wanting something different i was at my mother-in-laws house and well spotted a book in her vehicle on the history of witchcraft and the occult. I initially was looking at druidism, but the more that i read on witchcraft that more that i liked it... I really liked the non condemnation aspect of it. I then went online to a place called Wicca-chat.com and started to talk to the people there, some helped some hindered...all taught me something. I then went on ebay and found some new books that were fairly cheap and bought those.
I became hooked and have been reading and studying ever since.

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Permalink Reply by Celticlass...FAERIE QUEEN on June 23, 2009 at 6:25pm: EXCELLENT!!! I grew up with the tales of the Fey and Scottish witchery,granny was anm Irish seer. It was as ,breathing is,you know,using spells,magick and calling on the fey for help or fun!! Mom was a "good" Presbyterian however,but would call on the Fey alot.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Juul Greenleaf on June 23, 2009 at 8:39pm: I agree with Celticlass, that was very interesting :) And very beautiful! Thank you for sharing something so meaningful with all of us!

~Blessings to you on your path; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by WiccanVixen on June 23, 2009 at 6:29pm: I come from an Italian Roman Catholic Family..with a very colorful background. Many generations of "seers" and "healers" ALL afraid to BE who they are or were..and those who did NOT hide what they were, were excommunicated from the Church. as a child, I was always very close to my maternal grandmother..something always drew me to her, even though the rest of my siblings considered her "mean" she was one that was raised during the depression era, so her ways were not what many picture a grandmother's to be. She knew when i was very young that i had dreams..very powerful ones..and ones that I could not explain. If a divorce was coming in the family..here i was with my sausage curls at dinner, telling everyone very calmly at dinner that it would not be long before so and so's fighting would stop, because they would no longer live together. While always something that has been respected in my family..I was ALWAYS told (especially by my mother) TO ABSOLUTELY NOT speak of what i saw in my dreams outside the house. At the age of 11, I had a very very upsetting dream involving my brother. he was in his new car that he had just bought and fixed up, at a stop light. In the dream..i was in the passenger seat of the car..but it seems he could not hear me, like i was invisible. I heard the screaming of breaks..and the awful sound of tires straining to keep to the road..and next thing i knew, the entire roof of his VW Bug was caving in...as i looked over..my brother's seat shot backwards, and i remember seeing wires come up from the center console. I woke up as the smell of gasoline invaded the car. I was crying, and my mother had come into the room because i had screamed when the impact occurred in my dream. I frantically tried to convince my mother and my brother that morning that he should NOT take that car to school that day. To no avail..my Mother kept repeating that it was "just a dream". Later that day, on our way home from my school. We were stopped at the light in front of the development where i grew up. At the light across from us, was my brother..lol...rockin out (from what i could see) As we watched..he went to make his turn as he had the arrow. All of a sudden there were sceraming breaks to my left as a dump truck went flying past us..the smell of the tires and the breaks will NEVER leave me..it was like in slow motion...it hit my brother's car drivers side, and with a force of impact that took them both clear across the intersection...the roof of my brother's car caved in. My mother and I both sat there in shock...as Mom went to jump out of the car..another driver was yelling from my brother's car that he was ok..but trapped by the roof of the VW..he apparently had been strumming the seat lever on the side of his seat when impact was made..the force of the hit caused him to pull upwards..effectively throwing him backwards...it saved his live...as he was falling back..he did so with so much force..he pulled the entire stick shift out of the center console leaving only wires. It was exactly what i had seen in my dream, and described to my mother and brother..(which btw, led my brother to tell me to NEVER tell him again if i dreamt about him..unless it was him winning the lottery).

AFTER this event, I was very torn up... I felt i had not done enough to warn my brother..and perhaps i should have done MORE. My mother, worried over my behavior, took me to the Priest of our parish to try to calm me. As the result of this..the priest told my mother that I read way too many books..and that she should watch what i was reading because it could be Satan trying to work through me. HE never said this to me directly, and neither did my Mother..I overheard her that night talking to my father after dinner. AT that VERY point..that very moment..i KNEW something was wrong. I was not an evil child..not even a mean one.. I could not control the dreams, nor did i know where they came from. I began to question everything I was being taught about faith...and on my many trips to the library..(this was before computers) I began looking into dream Dictionaries...from there, i began looking into psychic development...this led to astrology, and paganism. By the age of 12..I refused to be confirmed in the Catholic Church (and trust me..this did no go over well with the family..my Mother's twin brother..was a Franciscan Priest VERY high in the orders..high enough to have served Communion in NYC with the Pope). But i stuck to my guns. I was never a rebellious child, before or after my new path was found. I always looked like everyone else, and acted like everyone else..i just believed differently. My learning since then..has never stopped..it is a ceaseless flow of information and education. I still do not know the answers as to why I can "see" things before they occur..but i can tell u that the more i study and learn..the stronger these "gifts" become.

I am now 39. I have never strayed from my path since the day i chose to walk it. has this resulted in many problems for me?? of course it has!! Would i change myself back?? Nope.

Another interesting side note.. My mother's twin...the Priest...left the Catholic Priesthood after a MAJOR heart attack at age 55. He was dead for 18 minutes and revived. He stated that while he was down..he saw a Fox with Green eyes, and she told him he had to go back, he had many things to finish. When he finally recovered, He left the Priesthood..He is now the Head of the psychology Dept at Pacifica University in California...his most recent Doctorate..is in Dream Psychology..lol....and believe me..when we talk..he tells me all the time that my path was paved the way it was for a reason...and he admires the fact that such a young age..i would know enough to follow it.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna on June 23, 2009 at 7:39pm: I used to see some websites about it when I had entered The Web Brawls and visited other members. I immediately felt attracted to it and read as much as I could. Very early, I felt that for me, this was so completely right; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Juul Greenleaf on June 23, 2009 at 8:33pm: The first book on WitchCraft that I ever read was "Witchin': a handbook for teen witches" by Fiona Horne, when I was about 15. LOL! Some of the things she says are a bit ridiculous, but she presented The Craft in a very non-threatening way that encouraged me to explore it further. Come to find out, all the things I had thought about the world, the Divine, my relationship to them; I wasn't the first one to think them. I was amazed and so excited to find out that I could actually have a religion, and that I wasn't completely off my rocker :)

I've done lots more reading since then, and tons of exploration that has led me to lots of interesting things. PaganSpace being among them :)

Blessings,
Juul; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by LadyAuska on June 23, 2009 at 9:47pm: Its really lame but I was watching television one night and I saw charmed for the first time. I think I was in sixth grade and I got curious. We had web tv at the time and when the show was done I got online and started looking things up. I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning because I was young and had a very stupid friend, but I eventually found my path and moved away from my immaturity. I know that I always have much to learn however.
The second part of my journey lies in a talk city chat room. I wish I could find the man that talked to me that day. His name was Ravenclaw or something like that and he guided me for the first year or two of my journey.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Dana on June 23, 2009 at 10:25pm: Warning: My story's kinda long lol...Like alot of other catholic kids, I had to go to ccd. I also had to go to confession starting at the age of six. I remember telling the confessor once that I didn't have anything to confess and he told me that he thought I was lying. Needless to say when I went home I told my mom and she told me just to make something up so I wouldn't get scolded when I next went to confession--basically lie to this guy's face. I felt horrible doing it but that's how it was until i made my confirmation at 13 (since then I haven't set foot in a church). All that time I felt that no god could love me while I lied, but I did it anyway cause I felt it was better than being accused by a representative of god. By the end of ccd I disliked the priesthood. I didnt understand why these men had to feed the host to me, why I had to disclose my sins to them, why I couldnt just be with god instead of going through a middleman.
I always had an interest in mythology and magic and one day around 12 or 13 I stumbled upon a celtic wiccan site. I immersed myself into the site, reading every page it offered. I was enchanted, it felt right to me. Then I began to find even more Wiccan sites. I began to meditate, even did a couple spells, and soon found a new age store in my local mall. I eventually bought Cunningham's Wicca (which turned into buying more books and more reading) and adopted Wicca as my own personal faith, giving up catholicism in my heart and officially after I made my confirmation for my parents' sakes. Though no longer a Wiccan,that confession experience has led me to the path that I walk now, the path that is my home.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Thorswolf on July 5, 2009 at 9:05pm: I met a girl that turned me on to it . we were supposed to be dating, but i was so fascinated with learning that we never got around to anything other than lessons.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Silver Dove on July 5, 2009 at 9:22pm: for me it was an online friend that was wiccan. i had been christian and i had a lot of unanswered questions. my friend introduced me to wicca. and for a school project i did my term paper on wicca/witchcraft. it opened my eyes to a lot of things, and i found a lot of answers to the questions i had. i still hold on to some of my christian beliefs, but i have incorporated my beliefs into my wiccan faith. so it was a long process for me to get where i am now. it started in '99, and then i was lost for awhile in 2004 when my nephew died(he was only 3 months old) and i took it very hard, questioning my faith once again. and then it all started to fall into place, i regained my faith and here i stand, wiccan and christian combined; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jurnee Ford on July 6, 2009 at 1:01am: Ash'e Beloved,
Well my Mother was the oldest of 21 children in New Orleans,As like her Ancestors before them they just passed on the teachings.Theirs is Goddess worship Of Mother Earth,Mix with a little Voodoo..We were taught of the Power in a womans Blood and How to watch the Earth as she changes and The Moon as well.They didnt have any books or Guru's ..They had what was passed down from one generation to the next..As i have done with my children and my neices ...Most people consider us different because our halloween is like our New year so we go all out,That is the day my parents got married,My fathers birthday,My daughters birthday, my nieces birthday.We have always done rituals for that day and have friends over to join..This year i want it to be held at a ocean...But to answer your Questions It is a way of life for me,I know no other way...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Terra on July 6, 2009 at 3:17am: You know, that is a good question. I'm not sure when I 'discovered' the Craft. I've been studying religions since I was seven, including encounters with the Craft as I went. Consciously, I found my path in college...as I fully admitted to myself that I'm spiritual, not religious - and the Craft and I are a team. =)
Blessings,
Terra; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by kisboszi on July 6, 2009 at 8:36pm: I'd like to write (like many others before me) that I always knew that something was different with me, but I don't recall ever feeling like that. My family is Christian and at the age of ten I became very religious. Then I read the Harry Potter books and thought that magic is really cool so I picked up my first book about witchcraft. In the beginning I thought that I'd never leave my Christian faith, but I still wanted to do some magic. But in 8th grade I had a really though time at school, I became depressed, lost my faith in "God" and by the time of the summer vacation I already considered myself a witch. Ever since then the Goddess has been with me and I'm feeling great. :)

(somehow I find all this a bit embarrassing); ▶ Reply to This