What is Irish Witchcraft? and How To Practice? - Lora O'Brien - Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch

hello falcher welcome to my youtube channel and if you're new to me my name is laura o'brien i am an irish 3 and witch living in ireland in case you can't tell from the accent and i do videos on here about irish lore legends magic folklore the gods the morgan i'm devoted to the morgan personally all sorts so there's loads of videos on the channel so make sure you check out the rest of that if you're interested in everything irish and magical and spiritual and native to ireland and from ireland so all that being said i'm also the author of a book called irish witchcraft from an irish witch which has been released in its second edition so i wanted to just put a little a little bit more content on here about witchcraft and magic and irish witchcraft and irish magic specifically so i do have an irish magic playlist so make sure you check that out under the playlist on my channel but for now we are going to just give some kind of brief definition and just for anybody who is completely new what is witchcraft so witchcraft by my definition is the practice of magic so um as an irish witch what is irish witchcraft magic here is called threak and i'm a three which is a practitioner of magic basically and it is the same root as the word druid that's where the word druid would have come from and when we hear about witchcraft there can definitely be a view of it being negative or black magic and within the irish folk tradition witchcraft was definitely something that had a bit of a definitely had a bit of that negativity in that it was viewed very kind of functionally and you know the witchcraft existed and people who practiced witchcraft and magic spells pishoga we called them here definitely existed and were believed in very very strongly pretty much all through our history um and up into much later folklore and i mean probably still to this day there are charms and also peshoga because um anything that's against witchcraft is also magic but um witches or witchcraft was generally like those words were generally viewed as more negative right but also you'd have witches who you would go to heal as well so it could really go either way it depends who you're talking to what kind of time frame we didn't have a huge uh like witchcraft trials and i i definitely have a piece on this channel about dame alice kittler who would have been one of our more famous historic witches and um you can see that she actually had quite a high status in irish societies from kilkenny so basically the use of spells right when people talk about witchcraft in a modern context they are usually talking about um sorry in a near pagan context really they're usually talking about like a religious practice involving magic and affinity to nature so it gets very blended up with paganism um or within a pagan tradition people will also practice magic so and then there's a huge crossover with wicca as well and i have another video on this channel which is a interview with uh wiccan high priestess barbara lee so you can go and check that out as well so when you are thinking about witchcraft irish witchcraft specifically there's a couple of things that you need to kind of uh you know get yourself uh in the right frame of mind for so first off you kind of need to pick your path right so how to begin practicing irish witchcraft you pick your path um are you going to be crypto pagan which is very common and which basically means that you put a veneer of one of the the major religions um in ireland that would most often be catholicism which is a kind of witchcraft in itself of all the christian paths catholicism is definitely the one that's closest to spells and magic i believe anyway and uh deity veneration as well uh through the saints and the pantheon of saints mostly crypto paganism is known as being in the broom closet and it's it's obviously a uh well maybe not obviously it is a a reference to being in the closet for lgbtqia people so um so there is that you know are you going to practice witchcraft kind of under the radar basically and just do it in quiet in your own time and historically that would have been known as crypto paganism you could also be uh you could be more out or open about it you could be a religious witch so in it in and of itself witchcraft is not actually a religion right wicca is and there are certainly people who are pagan or pagan aligned pagan affiliated who call themselves witches and that would be their religious identification and that's okay i'm just saying as like stripped down to the kind of the bare bones of it witchcraft can be atheist it can be religious it can be it can work with whatever gods you work with and in and of itself it is the practice of magic so that's essentially what that means so if you are following a religious path with paganism then you just need to figure out what religion um are you going to go more traditional and if you're in getting involved in irish witchcraft you kind of have to go traditional we do have a huge body of work in our folklore so you can look to the cures and charms and pishoga that are still within our national archives and were were being practiced or even are being practiced to this day and look to them for inspiration but that is not a complete tradition in and of itself so you would have to look to that and take inspiration and do kind of a wider learning which we'll get to in a second right but it kind of i won't say should but it is very very common for irish witchcraft to have that kind of backbone of the the folklore tradition because why wouldn't you use it it's there you know it has survived obviously it's part of the the culture and the heritage so that's very much where i'm coming from um you maybe need to figure out are you going to do rituals um do you look to more kind of ritual magic or high magic or whatever you want to call it um for inspiration so um you know and and map that with your more traditional practices blended somehow or are you going to go more towards hearth home green witchcraft are you going to look at urban witchcraft there are all these things that that people are doing all these practices that people have that you can take inspiration from and like like i said route it back into the irish culture and the irish heritage and just kind of figure out your own path from there right so my main advice to you would be to learn widely irish witchcraft does not happen in a vacuum it's like i said we don't have an extant witchcraft tradition we don't have an extant native pagan tradition what we do have is a huge body of work we definitely have people who are still practicing witchcraft or what we would call witchcraft whether they call it witchcraft or not um there are a lot of very very catholic grannies who would not in any way shape or form identify as witches but are still effectively doing magic and spells through their prayers their candle ceremonies their work with saints all that kind of stuff and to be horrified horrified at the thought of being called witches because again they may have that negative connotation through the culture with witchcraft because their stuff would be to the good so they wouldn't see what they were doing as witchcraft it's very um intertwined with their their catholic magic but it is a thing and there are also families who just pure out do witchcraft and you know would make no bones about it that's not necessarily to say we have again like unbroken lines of extant family tradition and everything like i'm not saying that doesn't exist but it's very difficult it would be very difficult to kind of prove that or prove how far back it goes or anything like that right because modern paganism has been around for a long time and may have influenced even a couple of generations back may have influenced a re-engagement or a refocusing or a you know redefining of maybe some traditional family practices and it's it's hard to kind of put a put a boundary on like where you draw the line on that um but for the most part with with a few notable exceptions that i that i know personally in ireland um certainly if anybody from outside of ireland is telling you that they have an unbroken irish witchcraft line or heritage it's it's smacks of for me right so anyway but all that being said um it doesn't happen in a vacuum so you do have to look at comparative culture we have a very rich uh witchcraft tradition generally as in the practice of magic um it wouldn't even be a tradition because it's cross-cultural so but there is a huge body of lore of practice of experience and learn everything that you can but always bring it back to the roots of the the irish culture that you know that that you're working in the irish heritage the irish framework and if you are outside of ireland and you're looking to practice irish witchcraft then that is where you start that is where you start to learn that is your very first port of call right you have to learn about the culture you have to learn about the heritage you have to dig in to do his you have to um you know check out everything that you can about the the folklore collection that we have and make sure that that is your starting point right so you learn widely you learn as much as you can within that tradition and then you spread your net and learn widely if that makes sense so you've got some basic techniques that you will be coming back to that is again cross-cultural you have um that you really need to practice and you need to practice on a very very regular bailey very regular basis um if not daily and a lot of people balk at the idea of having to do something every day but witchcraft is certainly irish witchcraft i'm not going to speak for anybody else but irish witchcraft for me is very much about the everyday and it's about the things that we're doing because that that is our culture that is our heritage they would be the everyday um clearing or cleansing or protecting or focusing visualization manifesting you know all of those things so so actually just to pull that out um clearing or cleansing protecting or boundaries not so much boundaries but protective magic specifically um focusing and visualization is is a is a skill that we don't have as ready access to as our ancestors would have had uh we're living in a very distracted age so that is probably the number one thing you're going to need to practice and develop as a scale and building those muscles for focusing and visualizing and manifestation that are manifesting comes and from all of those things really you know and and you kind of there is a natural progression between clearing or cleansing and making sure that you're you know what you're what you're doing is protected and safe and then centering grounding focusing visualizing and from that then comes the manifestation process um which is real results basically so your tools you need to grab a hold of your tools right because witchcraft can absolutely be done without tools without props and i'm not saying for a second that it can't be right again those those basic practices essentially don't need anything you can clear protect focus visualize manifest and whatever you turn your attention or your will too without any kind of help or support or anything like that but my question would be why why why would you do it like if you have ready access to stuff that's around you and i don't mean i don't mean go out and spend a load of money on a load of fancy right that is 100 now what i'm talking about i'm saying look around you and see what is available to you see what you have to hand to see what feels natural to you and what is part of your everyday life already and how that can be channeled or focused or utilized within a witchcraft practice okay and that can be you know um treasures or tools such as knives and sticks wands staffs you know anything like that any kind of like more ritualized objects um cauldrons bowls dishes plates cups pentacles um and a pentacle is is more kind of a wicked thing really well actually a pentacle is medieval magic thing really that has become associated with wicca but and is is a much older symbol or sigil but you know within a magical context there's a whole history to the pentacle right which we don't really need to get into now but um you know anything that you are utilizing and i call it i kind of call them treasures loosely and in my own practice i do keep a little bit of a weather eye to the treasures of the tour de danon when i'm thinking about ritual objects or ritual tools um but that would not be hard and fast at all um but like your your tools could also be trees your tools could be herbs it could be any kind of divination tools which could be just a bowl of water um it could be a a dark a dark glass or a dark mirror or a dark stone it could be a bundle of sticks that you use to cast lots um it it could be various color stones that you know you pull out of a pull out of the sea or or off the ground and like and again anything with natural connections actually um water stones earth salts sands feathers and smoke smoke purification is is is a a thing in itself obviously um fire and so the use of you know things that we use to make fire such as candles or or matches or and that kind of thing so they would all be under the the tools heading and really they you know goes back to that kind of focusing and um they give you support their props basically but they they help to focus and channel and really make things a lot easier but again it has to be stuff that you're relating to so in a similar vein um power sources you really shouldn't be using yourself as a as a battery or as a power source um especially for anything like healing or even for cursing and you know like those are two sides of the same coin right and you should not be your primary power source at all in any way shape or form that is a bad bad bad idea again you can be it can be done but why the would you um so when we're talking about kind of power sources are you thinking about like where you are literally drawing your energy from to focus and um channel and manifest what you need to do and that is how magic works you can think about gods obviously would be one and you know that refers back to whatever your religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs which definitely run concurrently with witchcraft um in or can do but again are not quite the same thing right so if you have gods that you're working with and build relationship with them big on especially the irish gods do not just show up and expect an irish god to be a battery for your spell that will not work out well for you or for anybody around you and in my experience and you can also have like guides or guardians so that could be um [Music] guardians that you're working with uh through a sacred site or um a natural feature and they could be ancestors you know all of these things can can help to provide energy as long as you have a right relationship with them and you can work with the powers of the worlds and within again within the irish tradition we work with the worlds of earth sea or water and sky specifically and i do have a class if you're interested in more on that i have a class over many classes at the irish pagan school uh meeting the irish gods um the the ten steps to irish paganism there's there's multiple ones but for the the three worlds specifically there's oh there's this introduction to irish magic as well so that you know there's resources there if you want them but looking at um the the cosmology the irish cosmology specifically um the worlds of earth sea and sky and there is a class called a practical guide to irish spirituality so if you wanted to put our spirituality kind of side by side with your irish witchcraft then that would definitely be a go-to resource for you and it's it's relatively cheap it's like i can't remember how much it is but it's gonna cost you a few dollars or a few euros and your um you can pick up there's those hours and hours of content in there so um it's one of my baseline ones one of my foundation ones and i really try and give a lot of value within that and really give you a very very good overview it also gives a a very like an introduction to things like working with the gods and the she which is the nadine maha the good neighbors the other crowd the fairies um you know all that kind of stuff um ancestors other worlds journeying there's a lot of stuff in there right so um all of that kind of comes under our power sources and your your spiritual practice can very much be a power source or you can go into nature and natural features just without even kind of working with any gods guys or guardians you can work with the natural features themselves you could um such as a waterfall or the sea or um a particular large rock or you know various obviously there are places of power within nature that you will know when you're in your neighborhood or you will know where to go to find them and weather particularly things like storms but any weather you can work with any weather um as an energy source because things are shifting and changing and the energy is moving so you can definitely harness and gather all that so anyway um you should not be your power source right even if it's only going out and getting some grass under your feet or you know sticking your hand in a plant pot on your balcony or you know whatever your your your everyday surroundings look like um having a big river stone or a sea stone that you've collected and safely and ethically from somewhere and you know all that kind of thing so definitely have something that you cleanse charge and you know draw energy from um i don't personally um i i don't believe crystals can be ethically bought i know that there are places that you can go and like mine them or gather them yourself and but when it comes to buying crystals i i don't know i i know there's a lot of people who say such and such crystal can be ethically sourced i think when you dig scratch the surface a little bit and dig a little bit deeper you're going to find that there are definitely questionable practices within that and so i don't recommend crystals and and even when it comes to stones um [Music] i would be very very careful about like um you know i would never take a stone from a sacred site or anything like that and i really don't recommend you do that but i think that there are natural objects and natural connections that you can come across and as long as you're not just you know picking stuff up kind of willy-nilly and just um having things that are irreplaceable i mean i mean water is a fantastic energy source water is a carrier of energy and you could collect water anywhere at any sacred site anything renewable definitely um but just be a little bit careful around the ethics of of what you're using even some herbs you know and make sure that they're being ethically sourced oils essential oils all that kind of stuff they're all really powerful tools to to use and definitely are part of my irish witchcraft practice but um again i try and stay with stuff that's native to ireland here um copper is a metal that i would use very very strongly uh amethyst we have native amethyst here uh we have native amber and um and you know various stones um quartz we have we we have a lot of native courts um and white quartz specifically would be a part of the irish tradition so white courts would have been found at various sacred sites but again you have to be so careful i know that white courts specifically you can definitely pick up ethically and but don't go buying stuff that you don't know where it's coming from okay that lecture over right but hopefully you get my point um so all of that being said um the the final point i kind of want to make is to stay safe this is not something to be messing around with you know um it is powerful stuff it is powerful even before you get into connecting to god's guides guardians ancestors sacred sites you know um the power of a of a storm or a raging fire or you know anything like that um they are dangerous energies to be working with and channeling so definitely start small and certainly if you get into any kind of uh you know what cursing magic or anything like that anything that is um goes beyond protecting or healing and the flip side of that is a very strong part of the irish witchcraft tradition as i said witches weren't always you know happy to help you good neighbors right um a lot of irish magic is protecting against negative witchcraft so negative witchcraft is obviously a part of the irish witchcraft tradition and i'm not saying don't do it i'm saying it is powerful and it works and make your know the risks and make informed choices and take responsibility for your actions because everything that you do has consequences like everything that everybody does has consequences and those consequences are things that you will have to to live with for the rest of your life okay so on that note we can finish there and if you want to know more about irish witchcraft check out my book irish witchcraft from an irish witch true to the heart is the second edition make sure you get in the second edition uh because the first edition was out of print a long time ago and was very very expensive for for a long time so um it's it's reprinted now it's updated and you can grab it from amazon evil empire certainly but hopefully very very shortly as i record this video and within the next couple of weeks it should be available from all major retailers okay so thank you for coming along with me on this little witchcraft journey through irish witchcraft and i will see you in the next video it's longer full make sure you subscribe and you don't miss anything okay it's long

Channel: Lora O'Brien

Views: 33,569

Rating: 4.9426112 out of 5

Keywords: lora o'brien, pagan priesthood, pagan priest, pagan author, irish pagan, irish pagan school, eel and otter, the morrigan goddess, tuatha de danann, irish fairies, irish author, lora obrien, irish witchcraft, pagan religion, lora obrien youtube, irish witchcraft from an irish witch, witchcraft, wicca, magic, irish magic, ritual magic, druid, irish witch, celtic witch, celtic witchcraft, beginners witchcraft, beginner witch tips, beginner witch lessons, wiccan religion, celtic

Id: rFEN7BN6wNc

Length: 26min 53sec (1613 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 20 2020