Witchcraft is a messy, expensive, time-consuming, and inefficient way to achieve your aims. I know, because I've tried it ...

For instance, I once tried to increase my abundance by applying the principles of Feng Shui. So, I bought a $40.00 book which instructed me to enhance my "prosperity" by putting chimes on the porch, an aquarium full of gold fish in the front hallways and a jolly statue of a Buddha at the front door. Before I knew it my phone was ringing off the hook with people asking to" reserve a table for four at seven." Unfortunately what I really wanted was writing gigs!

I have also tried "clearing" my space, the Native American Indian Way by doing a "smudge". This means walking around your house in a counter-wise circle with a flaming bundle of North American grasses. Well, I must of done something wrong, like perhaps accidently eliminate the good vibes that were already in my house, because before I knew it, a bunch of nasty energy invaded my space - an angry landlord, neighbours and members of the fire department all demanding to know what the strange reek was and why I kept setting off the fire alarm. It didn't help that I was doing this ritual "sky clad" which is witch-talk for buck-naked.

Most spells demand that you create a talisman or magical object of some kind and carry it around with you at all times. Of course, at no time, in any book I've ever read about witchcraft, does it tell you what to do when you lose the talisman and usually the talisman is something really small and complicated like "a chestnut that has been filled with mercury and had the hole sealed up with red wax." You lose something like that, which represents all your good luck and you really do spend a couple of weeks wondering what's going to happen next. You get so anxious that your subconscious manifests the worst case scenario anyway.

Also there's nothing more embarassing than having some kind of love talisman, like a potato carved in the likeness of your lover and stuck with pins, fall out of your purse in front of him and to have to explain that. Also, many spells that you find in self-help witch craft books on the market such as those by Scott Cunningham, Anna Riva and The Supermarket Sorceress often ask you to create some really disgusting object, like a melon filled with raw liver or an orange stuck with needles and cloves and hide it in your house for a full cycle of a moon. No wonder witches houses often smell -- they've got all this rotting food lying around the house.

Of course, the main reason witchcraft is so impractical is that people tend to ignore the 3X3X3 rule: whatever you wish upon another will come back on you three fold. This of course does not jive with human nature and I don't know a single witch, who didn't just once, wish something bad on someone else while thinking "It's O.K.. Whatever comes back I can take it."

The next thing you know you're spending all your free time, trying to reverse and fix curses that you have sent to others that have rebounded on you threefold. Not too practical! Just like in that movie Practical Magic where the Nicole Kidman character manifests a lover and ends up with a rapist. If witchcraft could be practiced with a certain Zen detachment instead of a desire for control, I guess we'd probably have the perfect religion. In the meantime, watch out for dangerous amateur magicians.

Finally, I am Queen of My Domain!