Terms for Magical Practitioner

Insecure about your identity or personality? Struggling with low self-esteem? Don’t worry! You don’t need to be you anymore. You can pick one of the fantastic terms below and cultivate a new identity based on that. You don’t need to deal with your self-esteem issues, just build a cover to go over the top. (In case it’s not obvious, this is me being sarcastic.)

I don’t like the focus on terms that mean “magical practitioner”. So many books are quick to bestow a new identity on its reader. Well done for reading the first chapter, do this ritual and hey pesto, you are now a Green Witch or a Kitchen Witch or a Grand sorcerer or worse… an alpha male. Check out the title of E.A. Koetting’s book, “Become a Living God”.

I am always concerned about this need for identity. Why do people feel a need to be something? Can’t they just be happy being what they are? Well, many people can’t. They feel a deep hole in themselves and they want a new identity to try to build something to cover up that hole. They can become very attached to these identities so watch out for that. They’re probably not going to be very happy reading this article.

When you attend an Occult conference or Pagan conference the terms below are useless, since no matter what path a person is on, some people do not bother to even practice, it is simply a fashion or lifestyle, and so the term does not reflect what they know and do. Some people feel the constant need to break the boundaries of whatever path they are on, so the term is too limiting to describe their actual path. Some people collect initiations like badges and many of these terms would fit, but do any of them actually describe them? Do their initiations help carve who they are or are they simply going through the motions? Instead, it is easier to talk about recent authors or inspirations to make it clear what sort of practice you’re doing. The terms below are unsurprisingly not that useful.

Often, I find people get attached to these terms to fulfil some ego-driven need, like the pit I mentioned before. We rarely need a term to explain what we are, because we don’t need to explain anything to anyone, and often no matter what term we use, it won’t convey all the meaning. It will miss some points of who we are and raise some misconceptions. The more you are drawn to identify with a name below the more I would caution you to go without it, until you can honestly say what my friend Seo says, “I have no idea what the fuck I am, I just know it’s pretty damn awesome.”

The less we feed this sense of “I”, the freer we are from many different forms of suffering. In fact, that’s the main theme of the Dalai Lama’s book The Art of Happiness and the teachings on the 4 pillars of Buddhism.

Anyway, I digress. It has become clear that because of my own opinion, I have failed to take the time to convey terms and meanings to my own coven. So I approach this subject as I need to address it with the coven soon.

Pagan / Neopagan

Wicca / Wiccan / Witch

Wizard / Sage

Warlock

Magician / Magi / Magickian / Mage / Ceremonial Magician / Ritual Magician

Sorcerer / Sorceress

Cunning Folk

Lightworker/Theosophist

Shaman (wounded healer)

Druid

Heathen

Thelemite

-mancer (necromancer, technomancer)

Theurgist

Qabalist

Hermeticist / Alchemist / Rosicrucian

Priest / Priestess / Prophet

Medium

Vizier / Wazir

Mystic

Soothsayer / Seer / Oracle

Yogi / Tantrist

Daoist

Chaos Magician / Discordian

Satanist / Setian

Psyons/Psions

Vampire / Otherkin

Tulpamancers

Practitioner

I don’t need a word. So many of the words above sound like flights of fantasy out of a novel and contain misconceptions. While I don’t mind the term sorcerer it often sounds a bit presumptuous and makes grandiose claims. I don’t want a word that I have to rehabilitate and explain every time I use it. If I needed to do that what would be the point of having a word? I don’t need it to give me an identity, I am simply proud of what I have achieved through my practice and that already feeds my ego far more than any lama would advise! No matter what I say I am I feel it has boundaries that limit my practices. I always try to let the universe lead me among many different paths like the ones above and I won’t allow a definition to limit my practice, I simply say I am a magic practitioner or if that would be misleading or confusing then a spiritual practitioner.

If I am required to come up with a word it is difficult because of the limiting nature of each word. I do the theurgy of Ceremonialists and Witches, the thaumaturgy of Jason Miller’s Sorcerers, the meditations of Theravada Buddhists, the energy work and trances of a Neoshaman, and from time to time the folk practices of Cunning folk. So, what can I call myself, but a “practitioner of the magic arts“?