Water Witches
Created | Updated Oct 22, 2002
Water witches,
This article is currently in two sections, the first covering water witches very briefly, and the second part the beliefs and religious aspects in more detail.
PART 1
Extremely briefly.
Witches are both male and female.
Most witches use 4 elements water, fire, earth and air.
Back before recorded history we think there were 4 specialist types of witches aligned to each of the elements, you will find loads of evidence for this if you look, over time, much of course has been lost and merged with other beliefs, however those who are into water healing, healing wells, springs, and use water as the principle element for their magic has have survived mainly through country crafts and skills, for example the need to keep springs and wells clean and the water nice to use, water diviners,…….
Water we believe contains a hologram like image that when separated can transfer the whole image, and accounts for how Homoeopathy works where the dilution is to a degree when not a single atom of the original remains. Similarly spells delivered by water vapour passes through the atmosphere, and uses rivers, sea, rail, snow etc, passing from molecule to molecule, a bit like electricity, or magnetism.
Water witches have many old covens, traditional, some instinctual, who think they got the knowledge from somewhere and we could spend hours talking about inherited memory or past lives, and many of the newer covens that start as study or discussion groups and develop from there.
Most of our beliefs are very similar any other pagan group, but we as you might expect tend to use water in all its forms rather a lot from using it for purifying, to the transmission of spells. Many other religions and beliefs also of course use water, and from roman baths, to spa towns to the latest research about water helping in many ways medically.
Our covens are communities really, we all support and help each other, are non judgmental, offer advice but leave it to the person to take up or not. Each member tends to specialise on a craft skill, and some years ago we changed all the names of skills and realigned some so as to look like non waco ideas to more people. Ie line up with all the …therapies, and other areas from hypnosis to meditation to homoeopathy. A great deal of what were beliefs can now be explained by later discoveries, but we are also quite prepared today we just don’t know the answer on many occasions, without having to accept any theory offered.
There are two types of water witches, the type there is quite a lot written about, mainly travelling people who lived in working boats, coming originally from Germany or Holland, and us with our ancestry in country folk in the UK and Ireland, we don’t know of any connection between the two, but they might have a common ancestry way back. Over the centuries you can find snippets, or bits and pieces in various books that people saw that perhaps they were not intended to of the water witches in action.
The leader of the water witches goes under the name of Aqua, as each new leader takes up this name, there is and always will be an Aqua. You can find an additional entry on Aqua, and their role in other groups, and some details of the current Aqua’s role covered at the H2G2 entry by clicking Aqua or by cut and pasting http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A788646 to your browser.
Well this is briefly for me!!!!
PART 2
Our beliefs in a little more detail linked to the religious aspects of traditional craft groups.
Within traditional witchcraft, such as Water witches, around the same number would count themselves as Christians and pagans with quite a large percentage who choose not to have any label.
We have a somewhat simpler view to Christianity, in that we believe in one god, that is intelligent, able to present itself to different peoples in the way that they wish to communicate with it. So we see not different faiths as such but people choosing to look at different faces of the one god. We have no Satan style of god or character.
This single god being intelligent is not fooled by ritual, or make believe, or people pretending to do anything for other motives. We talk with god, via something akin to very light hypnosis, and can choose the face we meet that we feel is most relevant to the subject in hand, and from this we get advice, which we have the right to act upon or to make our own decisions.
We have no fight with Christians, other than some over the claim to own the gateway to heaven or over tolerance of other peoples beliefs, and the Christian JC is one of the faces of god we discuss things with regularly. Historically, some centuries ago in Britain, all people had to belong to the established church and witches were not one of the groups who fought against it openly, and we must therefore assume that for much of the time many involved in the craft would have classed themselves as Christians. The overall organisation for the craft is ‘the traditional craft association’ and quite a lot of groups do not use the word witch, some you may think of as country study groups or even historical preservation societies, and have little or no religious involvement.
Although we speak directly with god, as a two-way conversation. We never act as a spokesperson for god, leaving each person to personally interrelate with god in the way that suits them, and when they are ready to. We do help people of all beliefs who have loss of faith or have not mastered how to carry out a two way conversation with the face of god of their choice. We have no missionary task so are just as happy for someone to find the spirit through Christianity as any other religion, provide they remain tolerant to others. We seek no recruits; people who come to our path will do so when the time is right for them.
We believe that opportunities or situations arrive or are offered to us and we may take up these opportunities or not, and that further opportunities will be provided when the time is right. We believe we can do what we like as long as we do not harm anyone else, which means that we have to consider any harm that we might do, including to a third party, or distant person. Where we are able and feel the situation justifies it, we offer a hand to help any person who wants it, irrelative of their faith, with no cost, or obligation, providing that we do not harm any other person. In many cases this involves allowing others to have opportunities in life, or to make their dreams come true.
We see science and magic as two extremes of one line, where new scientific discovers, conjuring and craft skills occupy the middle ground, and magic is only something that we know works but do not yet have a scientific answer for. We see witchcraft as comprising craft skills and ceremonial magic, the first being paramedical and skills that can be controlled and explained and ceremonial including spells, prayers and what can be achieved via raising powers. We are more inclined towards craft skills. Many of these skills traditionally developed from country skills, such as herbal healing, dowsing, and trance based skills, but many of our people now attend courses to bring in wider ranges of skills. Within a coven different members have different skills so that they can support each other.
We are able to develop or update our knowledge over time, keeping it alive and relevant to the age, and no member has to pretend to accept anything they are not happy with, giving the impression of a pick and mix religion, that people can grow into at their own pace.
From published scientific information, many personal accounts, and our own research we know that we are in one of many lives we will have on earth, that between lives there is a period of rest and assimilation of what has been learnt, that the spirit can when it is ready choose to learn more lessons and again be born as a body. This we equate to the Christian Heaven or pagan summer lands, we know of no one who has either in a near death or between past life experiences come across anything similar to hell, and of no reincarnation in any form than human, although the same people report lives as both males and females and across many countries and cultures. We know a lot of past life experience relevant to our current lifetime is available to us, and use this in past life healing.
Other links that you may find helpfull in H2G2
AQUA
Traditional Craft Association
Witchcraft Index All the witchcraft links to h2g2 pages
Wizards
This entry may be extended and we may add some links to web sites specific to water witches and tradition crafts groups, so visit this page again
