SABRINA: Being a witch is the very most important part of my life and it touches everything I do.
SABRINA: When I tell people I am a witch, usually no one cares.
SABRINA: People don’t freak out anymore generally. However, like, you do sometimes
get the people who.. are scared. I like that reaction. I think that’s a good one.
COMM: 27-year-old Sabrina has been practising witchcraft since she was just 7 years old.
SABRINA: I got into witchcraft in a really, really young age. And I was living in the suburbs
in middle America, so no fun. So, I was brought up in spiritualism through one of my parents,
which basically means I went to a lot of séances and table tipping, talking to dead people,
all that kind of stuff, energy healing.
COMM: Growing up surrounded by spiritual people, Sabrina made witchcraft the focus of her life,
despite sometimes being compared to another, quite different witch.
SABRINA: So, I tried to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch but I couldn’t get into it
because when you grow up everyone, like, making fun of you, ‘Ha ha! Sabrina Teenage Witch.
Ha ha!’ Because there was so much animosity where I lived towards people who were witchy.
There was a period of my life where I even hated Harry Potter. I love Harry Potter now.
But as a kid he was, like, severely in the closet about witchcraft stuff. I don’t know,
like, having to deal with people teasing me about it. Even though they didn’t know that that’s
what they were doing. Like, they were just making fun of the show.
SABRINA: We are currently at one of my absolute favourite stores to go get magical supplies
and as you can see there is an awesome whole wall of every herb you could pretty much
ever want. It’s, like, it’s a magical emporium for, for anything. So, candles!
This is my favourite part of the store.
SABRINA: Because all of the candles are basically.. figurines, which is the most fun thing ever, right. So
you can use these in love spells or if you want to do something for someone or on someone.
It helps to have, like, an actual image of them, right. So, that’s what this is all
about. Let’s just see what else they got. They have got one for women. So, if you are
doing something on yourself, like, a healing thing for yourself, this would be a really
good one to go with. I actually might grab one of these for today. What else do we have?
Of course, sex magic. Everyone does it.
SABRINA: And every single colour is associated with something different basically. So, let’s
say you are doing a spell for banishing bad vibes, this would be a really good colour
to choose for that. If you want to attract some love in your life - red; of course, typical but true.
SABRINA: To be honest I find the stereotypical witch clothes, kind of, annoying. I would
never dress-up in the typical witch costume for Halloween. I don’t wear stripy socks.
I don’t think they are cute at all.
COMM: Despite not dressing like a stereotypical witch, Sabrina does however practice spells
and involve herself in other areas of magic and witchcraft.
SABRINA: I know how to do spells. I have read a lot of books. So, that helps. I really like
reading spell books. I haven’t read any in a really long time, but once you read enough
of them and you get the hang of it, patterns, kind of, start to emerge. It’s, like, learning
any language.
COMM: As well as teaching design at a university, Sabrina also teaches her craft to other aspiring witches.
SABRINA: I teach witchcraft because I think that it is a skill set that is accessible
to everybody and I think there is this, kind of, false mystique around what we do. That
is, like, ‘Oh, I could never do that or I don’t have the ability to do that.’
But I do think that if you really want to learn and you are interested, anyone can learn it.
SABRINA: Okay! So this is for you. KATIE: Awh thank you, it's beautiful.
SABRINA: It’s for you, yeah. So, that is.. like traditional witchcraft basically,
which I think is, like, your vibe.
KATIE: My goal in practicing witchcraft is mostly to just feel connected to the world
and to feel connected to myself and to everyone else around me, everyone else being everything else.
SABRINA: I think a lot of people do have a relationship to witchcraft. They just don’t
realise it yet because their idea of what witchcraft is, is based on, like, weird
media representations of pointy hats.
SABRINA: One ritual that I have done that worked really well was, I periodically will
do money rituals. I guess it’s a bit crude to say but I have done it, it works. It’s fine.
SABRINA: You light a candle, you put your vibes in it and the world does what it needs
to do. And, yeah, it’s been.. it’s been solid, like, you get surprises in the mail.
I am like, ‘Oh, money. Great!’ So, it’s fabulous. So, right now witchcraft is getting
a bit of a moment in the spotlight, which happens about every 10-15 years. I do think
that more millennials will continue to be attracted to witchcraft and part of the reason
I think that is from when I see teaching, especially, in a university context, a lot of
the young generation is very keyed into political issues and they are very aware about what
is happening with marginalised communities. I think it’s only natural that there will
also be an attraction to things, like, witchcraft and magic and spirituality. Being a witch is
important to me because it’s everything that I do, it’s how I see the world and, so, it’s…
I can’t distance it from myself. It’s not something that I do on
weekends or like on full moons. It’s, like, full-on, all the time, every day.