Aricle on what it's like to work as professional psychic witch

I practice occultism and witchcraft and like the idea of doing so professionally (even if only loosely) at some stage, so I liked this article written by one particular person who works full-time at this. Not every professional works in the exact same way as he does (he doesn't personally do spells for hire, some people do) so this is just his personal approach.

I will copy and paste the entire article in case it is inaccessible to some:

By Mat Auryn:

I’m A Professional Psychic Witch. Explaining My Job Is A Job In Itself.
“Being a professional witch involves a lot of work most people never see.”

“So, what do you do for a living?”

The stranger sitting next to me asks this at the start of a five-hour flight. As an introvert, I immediately regret not putting my headphones on quickly enough to seek refuge in a Snow Ghosts album. I’ve been up since 3 a.m. to fly across the country and teach a weeklong retreat. Accessing my boarding pass and getting through TSA has depleted most of my current available social faculties.

“Oh, um. I’m an author,” I say, glancing toward the emergency exit and weighing whether jumping out would be less painful than this potentially awkward conversation with someone way more caffeinated than I am. This buys me exactly as much time as it takes someone to ask what I write about, which she inevitably does. I hesitate to respond, but now I’ve let the silence stretch long enough to make a perfectly ordinary question awkward. So, I just bite the bullet and tell her.

“I’m a professional psychic witch,” I explain. I write books about witchcraft and psychic development and teach people to practice both. Ask me about those subjects when I’ve actually agreed to talk and getting me to stop becomes someone else’s problem. Preferably, though, this happens after I’ve had some decent sleep. There’s a much longer answer behind that job title, and I’m never sure how much of it a stranger actually wants to hear.

This question might be less abrasive if I didn’t call myself a witch, but I do because that is the name of my spiritual practice. My teachers emphasized that we should not avoid or soften that word just because it makes some people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, “witch” comes with a bit more baggage than if I just told someone I was Methodist. I can’t remember ever watching a movie where the villain shows up as the cackling wicked Methodist trying to steal ruby slippers or who has cursed a world into eternal winter on the other side of your wardrobe.

I started exploring witchcraft as a child after seeing “The Craft.” Like many millennials, I missed the warning about “dabbling in the dark arts” and thought magickal powers seemed worth the minor inconvenience of eventually having to fight my friends to the death while flying through the air. Instead of going to the playground at recess and lunch, I went to my school’s brand-new computer lab and opened Netscape Navigator. Somewhere among the spinning 3D pentacle GIFs and MIDI music, I found recommendations for books by Scott Cunningham and Silver RavenWolf. I tracked them down at the bookstore in the mall. Those books helped me understand what the movie had borrowed from actual witchcraft and where Hollywood had taken over. I’d come to the subject with plenty of misconceptions myself, which I try to remember when people ask me about it now.

That gets tricky because witches disagree among ourselves, too. There’s no “pope” of witchcraft, and I certainly haven’t been elected to speak for everyone. People can often assume we’re all Wiccan. Wicca is a religion, and plenty of witches belong to it, though you don’t have to belong to a religion to practice witchcraft. You might have your own spiritual practice. Maybe you’re just interested in spells. The discussion of how we view gods could take up the rest of the flight, since even witches who honor the same ones don’t necessarily agree about whether the gods are individual entities or different aspects of the same supreme divinity. Some witches understand them as archetypes, and others get along fine without involving deities at all.

Speaking of disagreements, you don’t have to come from a family of witches. My own family would probably appreciate me clarifying that. Unfortunately, not everyone is blessed with two spinster aunts who make midnight margaritas. I believe we’re all capable of magick and psychic experiences. We may go years without noticing those abilities, but we can learn to use them through study and practice. You don’t need to make a pact with “the devil,” either. My books are reasonably priced, and you get to keep your soul. Most modern witches don’t believe in Satan, so worshipping him would be asking a bit much.

I do belong to a coven. Yes, a coven. That really is what we call a group of witches who regularly practice magick together. I’ve also been initiated into several witchcraft traditions and other occult orders. I could list them all, but then we’d be here admiring what essentially amounts to my magickal Boy Scout badges, which wouldn’t mean much to anyone who isn’t a witch and probably not a whole lot to most of us who are. None of that is necessary for practicing witchcraft. The only person you need to begin is yourself.

Unsurprisingly, as a witch, I practice magick. It shapes how I understand and connect with the world, including parts of life that exist beyond our usual senses. Developing psychic abilities helps me experience those energies directly. I see magick and psychic ability as two sides of the same coin. I use magick to direct energy into the world and create change in my life. Psychic ability helps me receive energetic information and guidance from the world around me. These experiences are personal and sacred to me, so discussing them with a stranger can feel surprisingly intimate when I don’t always know how they’ll react.

I want to honestly answer any questions they might have, but I never know whether explaining my beliefs will get me dragged into a theological debate I have no desire to be a part of. Or whether they’ll think I’m trying to recruit them. I’m not big on the idea of blind faith or the idea that my path is the only correct one. Even when I’m teaching, I want people to try what I’m teaching and decide for themselves. There’s not much point if they’re going to take my word for everything. I certainly don’t want to spend my time knocking on doors with witchcraft pamphlets. If I’m trying to convert you to anything, it’s probably Chelsea Wolfe’s music. Accepting your right to be wrong about musical taste, however, may require some more spiritual growth on my part.

On very little sleep, though, I start to reconsider my position on having pamphlets I could just hand out. I believe we can have entirely different understandings of the universe and still enjoy each other’s company. I’d also like to avoid spending the next five hours being preached to. An ordinary question about work can become a discussion of my relationship with a multidimensional universe when I’m barely managing to be present in this one.

I don’t cast spells for hire, which is something people often assume when they hear I’m a professional witch. There’s no Etsy listing where you can add me to your cart and make your ex my problem. I have nothing against people who do spellwork as a vocation. That practice is about as old as witchcraft itself. I’d just rather teach you how to do that spellwork for yourself. You know, “teach a man to fish” and all that.

The word “psychic” introduces a whole other set of expectations and assumptions. It doesn’t mean I receive a constant broadcast of other people’s thoughts or know every single thing that’s going to happen. I’m not interested in playing “Long Island Medium” with random strangers or trying to convince famed skeptic James Randi of anything. If someone tells me they’re a hairdresser, I don’t hand them scissors and say, “Oh yeah? Prove it.” (And I’m not just saying that because I’m bald.)

Other questions people might have are harder to turn away from. Someone may tell me about a strange experience they’ve never felt comfortable discussing, relieved to have found a person they think will understand. Then, somewhere along the way, I realize our conversation has become a free consultation. Because I’m on my way to spend a week teaching, I have to consider how much of myself I can give before I even arrive.

For all the assumptions attached to my job title, my average workday is considerably less exciting than it sounds. Much of it involves writing manuscripts and working through edits, both on deadline. I also read occult and metaphysical books and research witchcraft and psychic ability through academic and scientific papers. I love the subject enough to keep reading, which is sometimes the nicest thing I can say about a particular paper or an esoteric book written in Victorian times.

That work has grown into a few more public-facing projects. I’ve written three books, including “Psychic Witch,” which have sold over half a million copies, and I co-host a podcast with the actress Rachel True, who happened to be one of the lead actresses in “The Craft” and is the author of the “True Heart Intuitive Tarot” book and deck. I also recommend my peers’ books and invite authors onto our podcast. Over the past six years, I’ve had the honor of writing 20 forewords for books I love. If another teacher explains something in a way that finally clicks for a reader of mine, I’m glad they found each other. No single teacher or method will suit everyone.

Teaching those practices takes preparation. Workshops and rituals need planning, and keynote talks need writing. For a weeklong retreat, I have to sequence the lessons and allow enough time for people to practice. Then there’s the travel, with emails to answer throughout. Self-employment also keeps me on social media more than I’d like, trying to persuade the damn algorithm to show my work to people who have already said they’d like to see it. I suspect fewer people would ask for a demonstration of my work if they knew how often it would involve watching me revise a paragraph.

My own spiritual life needs attention, too. Beyond my professional work and commitments to my coven and traditions, my personal practice takes up much of my free time. I can spend hours writing about meditation, close the document feeling accomplished, and remember that I still have to meditate myself. It’s mildly inconvenient to consistently discover that my advice also applies to me.

Money can make people uncomfortable when spirituality is involved, and I understand wanting to know whether someone who earns money from your spiritual curiosity is a grifter. I take this work seriously and try to devote as much research and practice to my path as I imagine rabbis or priests do for theirs. When someone buys my book or pays to learn from me, they’re paying for the work that goes into the instruction. That includes decades of study and practice, along with figuring out how to explain the material clearly enough for anybody to use it regardless of their background.

I’m confident that people who give these practices earnest effort can have psychic experiences of their own and use magick to enhance their lives. Earning a living this way allows me to devote time to helping them do that. To keep doing it, I need boundaries, even when someone’s interest is sincere. I no longer offer psychic tarot readings to the public, and sometimes I turn down requests because I don’t have the time or energy to give them the attention they deserve. Luckily, I know plenty of skilled people I can refer them to.

Making this my profession doesn’t place me above a witch who earns their living doing something else. There are deeply skilled witches whose practice will remain private their entire lives. “Professional” just tells you how I earn my living. Having an author photo doesn’t make me better than any other witch.

I’m explaining all of this because being a professional witch involves a lot of work most people never see, and much of it can feel very mundane. I consider myself blessed to devote my life to something I’m so passionate about. One of my favorite things is hearing someone excitedly tell me they can now see auras after doing the exercises in my book, or that their magick is finally working and changing their life for the better. I want them to become more confident exploring those experiences and more discerning about what they make of them. On the airplane, I want to leave room for my seatmate’s potential curiosity. I’d also like to leave room for a nap, during which any altered state of consciousness would be entirely my own business.

In situations where I’m put on the spot like this, I think of Maya Rudolph’s character Rita in “Idiocracy,” a dystopian comedy turned prophecy in the age of Donald Trump. Rita is a sex worker who goes along with the suggestion that she’s an artist. This seems like a perfectly good place to stop asking questions, but she’s asked what she paints, to which she responds, “I don’t know, just ... people and fruit and shit.” I understand her completely. She’s trying to avoid being judged for her actual job and ends up having to explain a job she doesn’t even have. At this hour, I barely have the energy to explain my actual job, let alone keep track of a fictional one.

While I’m wondering how much of my job to explain, my seatmate tells me she has a friend who’s “into all of that.” Upon hearing those words, I thank my spirits that this will not be a difficult conversation. I ask how they know each other, and we find our way into talking about their life instead of mine. It’s enough time for the flight attendant to reach our row and for me to order a coffee. By the time we come back to my work, I know a little more about the person asking and have enough energy to give their questions some thought. I’m happy to explain what I do. It’s just that at least half of my work is explaining it, and it helps to be awake for it.