Witches are nothing new, however, the lifestyle has undoubtedly taken to the spotlight with the recent surge of witchy influencers on social platforms like TikTok. (There truly is a community for everything on that social platform.) But you’ll notice different types of witches by looking through WitchTok.
If you’re newer to the world of herbs, crystals, and witchy living, you might not yet be familiar with the types of witches. Just as you’ll find in other circles, there are subcategories people sort themselves into based on their personal beliefs and interests.
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Types of Witches Based on Focus
The following types of witches are likely the ones you are most familiar with. These are ways to identify the type of witchcraft you practice or feel most called to. Witches won’t necessarily be stuck in one of these categories for the entirety of their lives but may find different phases of their lives to leave them feeling aligned with different types of witchcraft.
Kitchen Witch
Kitchen witches use cooking for magical and spiritual purposes. They will use food prep, cooking, and other similar tasks to practice their spellwork.
Baking and cooking become a form of spellcraft for kitchen witches who put love and intention behind their recipes.
Books for New Kitchen Witches
If you want to delve more into kitchen witchery, I highly recommend doing further reading. You’ll find there are plenty of books on the market with spells, recipes, and rituals you can practice to become closer to your kitchen witchcraft calling.
The Book of Kitchen Witchery by Cerridwen Greenleaf is a particularly solid option with dedicated sections on how to develop a kitchen altar, gardening for kitchen witches, how to celebrate the Wheel of the Year as a kitchen witch, and more. Plus, it’s fully illustrated and in color—it’s really quite a beautiful book to add to your witchy home library.
Kitchen Witchcraft for Beginners: Spells, Recipes, and Rituals to Bring Your Practice Into the Kitchen by Darn Aurora Hunt is another solid option. This book is an entry-level, beginner’s guide so it may be ideal for those who are newer to this path.
If you’re okay with a Wicca-bent to your kitchen witchery, Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen is another beloved resource you should consider.
Tools for New Kitchen Witches
Luckily for you, kitchen witches use many of the kitchen tools you’ll find in any everyday kitchen. If you’re drawn to cooking naturally, then you’ll likely have many of the tools necessary like pots, pans, an oven, and other more obvious cooking utensils. There are less common items you may find you need like a mortar and pestle, however, and that’s what this little section is about.
Tools we recommend or have personally used that align with kitchen witchcraft include:
- A mortar and pestle
- Jars and bottles
- Herbs and spices
- Herb gardening set
- Wooden spoon (This can be carved with sigils.)
- Cauldron
Green Witch
Sometimes referred to as plant witches in current times, green witches are all about plants. This type of witch will pull from the energies of the natural world. They tend to have a deeper connection to the Earth and the flora that belongs in it from plants to trees to herbs.
Green witches tend to turn to herbalism, wildcrafting, gardening, and other forms of nature-based rituals for their spellwork.
Books for Green Witches
Green witchcraft is one of the paths that tend to have plenty of resources available without much hunting. You’ll find these at a local witchy shop or on major retailers. A few common that are easy to track down and recommended for beginners of green witchcraft include:
- Plant Magic for the Beginner Witch
- Green Witchcraft: A Practical Guide to Discovering the Magic of Plants, Herbs, Crystals, and Beyond
- The Green Witch
- The Witch of the Forest’s Guide to Earth Magick
Tools for Green Witches
The major tools of green witchcraft lie in fostering the growth of seeds into healthy plants and harvesting them for your magic practice. For this reason, you’ll find that green witchcraft is essentially magical gardening. (And the items we recommend reflect as much.) Perhaps this is why we are quite partial to this form of witchcraft in the Opulent Charms household—although if we’re being honest we’re more likely to classify ourselves as eclectic (see below for more info on that).
- A place to securely store seeds
- Sickle
- Herb seeds
- Medicinal and tea seeds
- Vegetable seeds
- Gardening tool kit
Hearth Witch
Sometimes called cottage witches, hearth witches focus their spellwork within the home. The term “hearth” refers to the traditional center of a home.
Hearth witches make their home their oasis and use it to create harmony and connect to their spirituality. Their go-to activities may include cleaning, organizing, and decorating as a way to bolster positive energy.
There tends to be some overlap between kitchen witches and hearth witches as a hearth witch might use kitchen magic in her practice.
You’ll find hearth witches to be interpreted differently by different folks as some will focus on the practical aspects of household magic while others will approach it using a broader sense of the term.
Books for Hearth Witches
Hearth witches may want to turn to both kitchen and green witchcraft books as supplements to the books geared specifically to cottage witchery. But, either way, you can rest easy knowing all the information you need to begin down this path is included in the following must-have books:
- The Hearth Witch’s Compendium: Magical and Natural Living for Every Day
- The Hearth Witch’s Kitchen Herbal(Use code OPULENTCHARMS for 5% off!)
- Cottage Witchery: Natural Magick for Hearth and Home
- The Hearth Witch’s Year: Rituals, Recipes & Remedies Through the Seasons
Tools for Hearth Witches
Cosmic or Lunar Witch
A cosmic witch, also referred to at times as a lunar witch, is a practitioner of witchcraft who focuses their energies on the cosmos and celestial bodies. These witches tend to have a deeper connection to the universe and its vastness.
Cosmic witches have a tendency toward astrology and divination, as well as using lunar energies and phases during ritual work.
Books for Cosmic Witches
So much of cosmic witchcraft centers on moon cycles and using the moon and celestial bodies as a key component in your craft. For this reason, we recommend taking a look at books about the lunar phases and moon magic. Take a peek at the following to get started:
Tools for Cosmic Witches
Cosmic witches tend to lean into astrology and divination. (Although, those who have a strong inclination toward divination are more likely to be drawn to the augury path.) For this reason, we recommend tracking down a moon phases calendar. Something along the lines of the Thankful Greetings Moon Phase Calendar will serve your purposes well.
You may also want to look for divination tools, like oracle cards, that use lunar imagery. I’ve used the Moonology Oracle Cards deck and the sister deck, Moonology Manifestation Oracle multiple times and find it to be a solid go-to. My mom, someone who is particularly drawn to lunar themes has a special pull to this deck, and it’s for that reason that I like to recommend it for lunar witches. You can even get the companion diary, the Moonology Diary. (Just make sure you get the right year!)
Hedge Witch
While very similar to a green witch, a hedge witch tends to live by a more loose and unstrict dogma. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that this witch will only focus on nature and plants like a green witch will.
Instead, hedge witches (which refers to the old witch who lives over the hedge), focus on simple recipes and rituals when conducting their magic. A key difference to telling if you’re a hedge witch over a green witch is if you prefer to practice magick in solitude and prefer time to yourself. It doesn’t mean you necessarily hate the company, but it may certainly drain you or affect the energies in your space if you spend too much time with people outside of your comfort range.
Books for Hedge Witches
If you want to begin learning more about hedge witches, you’ll find The Hedge Witch’s Way and The Witch’s Apothecary to be solid starting spots. As a hedge witch, you’ll find many books written on green witchcraft to be applicable to your practices.
Crystal Witch
You’ll know you’re a crystal witch pretty easily if you find yourself drawn to crystals, rocks, stones, gems, and minerals. Crystal witches will perform the majority of their magic and rituals by connecting with these gemstones or crystals and allowing the energies to flow through them.
It’s important to cleanse your crystals if you’re regularly using them for magick. Without cleansing, they may hold onto negative auras that will ruin or negatively impact the spells you’re looking to perform.
Books for Crystal Witches
The thing with crystal witchcraft is that there is so much to learn. There are correspondences galore, which isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary for other paths, but that doesn’t take away from the mass amount of information to learn and digest.
We have Crystals for Beginners by Karen Frazier in our collection, as well as The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall. You can also purchase a foldable guide like the Gemstones & Crystal Properties Quick Study Home from Inc. BarCharts which highlights the 135 most common crystals.
Tools for Crystal Witches
The main tools for crystal witches will come as no surprise to you. You’ll want to seek out crystals. Fairly obvious, for sure. However, you’ll also likely want to purchase a crystal grid and you may want to have crystal chips on hand for ritual work.
Sea Witch
Love to spend your time by the ocean or find yourself flowing with the moon on a regular basis? You might be a sea witch and not even know it. Sea witches love using seashells, sand, rocks, and seawater in their spells and tend to practice water magick the most.
The moon comes into play a lot with sea witches because of how the moon controls the tides. Different phases of the moon and different times of the year will impact the tides more or less, which may influence a sea witch’s magic.
Books for Sea Witches
If you’d like to learn more about sea witchcraft, you should search for water magic and sea magic books. A few of the more commonly sought-after tomes include Water Witchcraft by Annwyn Avalon, Sea Magic by Sandra Kynes, and Water Magic by Lilith Dorsey.
Divination or Augury Witch
Augury witches (sometimes called divination witches) find their place in history as those who focus on the world of divination. Their spells and magick come from the place of predicting and interpreting the past, present, and future for individuals.
Now, you have many different divination tools as a divination witch, ranging from tarot cards to crystal balls. How you go about performing your augury magic is entirely up to you and may require some experimenting with different tools before you can truly tell if this is the route for you or not.
Books for Divination Witches
When looking to learn more about divination or augury witchcraft, I recommend looking for more specific books. What I mean by this is, you’re not likely to track down a divination witchcraft book that covers it all. However, there are plenty of books that center on one form of divination, be it runes, oracle, tarot, or another practice.
Tools for Divination Witches
The tools you use as a divination witch will be largely dependent on the types of divination you’re drawn to. Tarot is the most widely known form of divination, but it’s far from the only option. As an augury witch you may have any of the following in your home:
- Tarot deck
- Oracle deck
- Rune set
- Dowsing rods
- Pendulum
- Divination dice
Elemental Witch
Witchcraft that focuses on the four elements: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, is for those who identify as an elemental witch. Rather than green witches or sea witches who tend to only work with one magic in general.
Spellcraft, rituals, and journey work will incorporate each of the elements as needed. Now, you can favor a specific element and find your spells work best due to an inclination towards it, but you still work with all four as needed. Elemental witches work with some of the widest varieties of spells out there, so you’ll be quite well-versed in quite a bit of magick after practicing for a while.
Ceremonial Witch
A ceremonial witch is one who specializes in ceremonial (or ritualistic) magic. Unlike other witch types, ceremonial witches tend to have a foothold in religion and occult practices, leading ceremonies to help people connect with the divine.
Ceremonies these witches perform will range from banishing negative energies and spirits to divination practices. Since they practice more than just divination, they don’t fall under the umbrella of augury witch.
Eclectic Witch
Similar to eclectic paganism, eclectic witches are witches who practice a wide variety of different witchcraft types and don’t necessarily fit into any one single category. These witches will pick and choose the right path for themselves based on their personal observations of magick, rather than following any one specific path.
For example, you might find yourself drawn to the sea want to practice using seashells and seaweed in your spells. But you also tend to find yourself using magick when cooking and lean towards seafood as your main dish. You’d technically have the qualifications of both a sea witch and a kitchen witch, but it’s more correct to call yourself an eclectic witch.
Types of Witches Based on Religion or Culture
Some types of witchcraft are tied directly to a religion or culture. Examples of this include Paganism, Wicca, and Bruja witchcraft.
Pagan Witch
Paganism is generally thought to be at the helm of all of witchcraft (although atheistic witches do exist!) with Wicca falling under its umbrella. However, the reality is things tend to be a lot more complicated than that. You see, there are Christian witches and Pagans who don’t practice witchcraft at all. Really, it gets a bit messy—and that’s possibly the best thing about witchcraft, Paganism, and all the crevices in between. There’s no right or wrong way to practice and there is a path for everyone.
If you’re interested in learning more about Paganism, I suggest you check out the following books:
- Paganism for Beginners by Althaea Sebastiani
- To Walk a Pagan Path by Alaric Albertsson
- The Pagan Book of Days by Nigel Pennick
Wiccan Witch
Okay, this is a little complicated and we’re more so clearing things up for those who might want to know if this exists. Those who follow the Wicca religion may or may not call themselves a witch, but Wiccan instead. The term witches is used relatively broadly here and may account for all of those who follow the Wiccan lifestyle.
The Wiccan religion stems from Paganism and follows the same nature-based living style. But not everyone who believes in Paganism considers them a witch or wicca, so it’s relatively open-ended in terms of identification.
If Wicca sounds like it may be for you, I’d recommend taking a look at the following books for further information:
- Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (One of my personal favorites!)
- Wicca: The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft
- Seasons of Wicca
- The Solitary Wicca Guide
Neo-Pagan Witch
Neo-pagan witches are those who follow the modern style of paganism. Which doesn’t necessarily follow a specific doctrine and falls on a spectrum rather than a single identity. For instance, you might find neo-pagan witches combine both a Wiccan lifestyle with some sprinkles of Druidry.
It’s a rather open field these days and you’re likely going to fall into this category if you don’t strictly follow a Wicca or traditional Pagan religion. Keep your grimoires open to other ideas from neopaganism and you’ll find yourself in a very open and inclusive community.
Celtic Witch
Celtic Wicca combines Wiccan practices with Celtic mythology. While we pour our hearts into research and first-hand experience here at Opulent Charms, we are by no means experts on Celtic paganism. If you want to learn more about this path then I would direct you to Celtic Paganism by Monica Roy.
“Bruja” Witch
Yes, this technically does mean “witch witch” in Spanish, but bruja is simply another term for witch used in several Latin American countries. Brujas and brujos practice the healing and magical concepts known as Brujería. This ties in parts of African magic along with Spiritism and Indigenous practices.
Brujería itself maintains its rather strict nature of practice in today’s society. It’s a matter of letting the “spirits take the wheel”. Every Bruja and Brujo who practices Brujería does so on their own and in their own time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t connect with others to expand your horizons. In fact, Guayama, Puerto Rico was known as “Pueblo de los Brujos”, or “city of witches”.
Types of Witches With Specific Practices
There are groups of witches who follow specific practices. I think of these as being similar to denominations without religions like Christianity.
Dianic Witch
As a Dianic Witch, you tend to mix neopaganism with female empowerment. They follow a women-centric ideology, where women are the leaders in the coven or priestesses. As the name suggests, Dianic Witches derive their name from the Roman Goddess Diana (or Artemis if you’re more into the Greek goddesses), who is the goddess of the wild and women of the world.
The largest difference between Dianic Witches and Wiccans is the simple fact that your coven will only consist of women. You also are not limited in the goddess you worship, as Dianics will focus on every god and goddess that empowers women.
Gardnerian Witch
Gardnerian Witches or Wiccans also follow a neopagan ideology and stem from Gerald Gardner (also known as Scire), a British scholar of magic who developed his own Book of Shadows and then named his witchcraft after himself. You’ll know him best for spreading modern-day paganism and witchcraft to a more mainstream, unstigmatized version compared to what it once was. In the witch community, he is often the most notable male witch.
Unlike other witch types, Gardnerian Witches always form covens and are traditionally limited to 13 members in the group. Those in a Gardnerian Coven will follow a more strict witchy lifestyle compared to other witchcrafts.
Alexandrian Witch
Alexandrian witchcraft broke off from Gardnerian Wicca ideologies to also incorporate ceremonial magic in a stricter sense. It was founded by Alex and Maxine Sanders and has more of an eclectic vibe for their covens compared to the Gardnerian Covens.
While not mentioned in the Gardnerian section, both Alexandrian and Gardnerian use a ranking system and follow the notion of “only a witch can make you into a witch”. So you must follow their practices and move through the degrees to further immerse yourself in the coven.
Strega Witch
Strega Wicca and Witches are an Italian/Italian American offshoot of neopaganism and Gardnerian Wicca. There’s not too much of a difference between the two, as it was started by Raven Grimmasi (real name Gary Charles Erbe) after finding himself in a “Gardnerian” coven (it was later proven to not be a genuine Gardnerian coven).
Rather than focusing on multiple deities like general neopaganism, Stregheria tends to focus on the pair of deities known as divine lovers. Think along the lines of Uni and Tagni (Zeus and Hera are more commonly known these days).
Other Witchy Terminology
There are plenty of other types of witches that refer more to a style of practicing or level of experience. Let’s get into these additional witchy terms you should know.
Coven-Based Witch vs. Solitary Witch
Coven-based and solitary signifies how you choose to practice magic.
Coven-based witches conduct magic and rituals alongside a group of other witches. Obviously, this means solitary witches work entirely alone. Often, it’s easiest to begin as a solitary witch and move into coven-based witchcraft after you find your group.
Hereditary Witch
Hereditary signifies you come from a line of witches you proceeded you.
This path is sometimes referred to as traditional witchcraft or folk witchcraft. Those who follow this path lean into the old ways and have respect for the spells and knowledge that have been passed down for generations and use this as the central focus of their practice.
Baby Witch
Baby witches are those who are new to witchcraft. You’ll hear this term thrown around a lot (and we mean a lot) with the rise of WitchTok and social media witchcraft. It isn’t a path for you to follow but rather a stage of being. If you’re new to witchcraft, Paganism, Wicca, or otherwise, then you’ll likely end up being tagged a baby witch at some point or another.
Gray Witch
Gray witches sit between white and black magic, in an area of neutral magic.
Gray witches practice what could be considered neutral magic. It is not magic that is entirely used for good purposes nor is it magic for the purpose of causing harm to others.
Secular Witch
Secular witches are non-religious witches who approach witchcraft from a scientific perspective.
While some witches look at witchcraft through a religious or supernatural lens, not all do. If you consider yourself to be agnostic, atheist, skeptical, non-religious, or something else of the sort, then you could classify yourself as a secular witch.
Secular witches often look at their practices through a scientific lens but could also identify additionally as anything from a green witch to a divination witch and all the spaces in between.
FAQs
Can you be multiple types of witches?
Yes and no. You can be multiple types of witches when talking about how you can be a Neo-Pagan Witch with a Ceremonial Witch focus. But if you’re more so asking if you can have multiple focuses as a witch, then technically you fall into the eclectic witchcraft lifestyle.
Can you switch the type of witch you are?
Of course, you can change the type of witch you are. As you age and gain new experiences, so too does the magick that flows through you. While you may have been a Green Witch in your younger years, you may identify as a Kitchen Witch now that you know your magick flows when using the ingredients from the garden, rather than in the garden itself.
