The term “witchcraft” naturally evokes images of pointed hats and black cats.  In this interview with practicing witch and theatre major, George Neptune ’10, Neptune reveals that it is really a system of meditative prayer designed to bring about tangible changes in the world.  He talked about the principles underlying witchcraft, his own spiritual development, and how to retain a parking spot on campus. 

How would you describe your beliefs, the basic core?

“I guess the basic core comes from my upbringing – I’m Passamaquoddy and I grew up on a small reservation in Maine. A lot of my beliefs are spiritual beliefs that come from my tribe growing up, with a respect for nature and a respect for plants and animals. And I grew up learning medicine and a lot of the traditional crafts of our tribe.

When I was a kid growing up I’d always had an interest in witchcraft as well. I think back on it now, and I read books and I never really understood what it was about. But I rediscovered it as I grew up, after I’d been in college for a little while, and I realized there were a lot of parallels between Wicca and my spiritual beliefs at the time. I already had—in looking through the tools required for ceremonial witchcraft, such as having a wand or a pentacle or cups—things to put on your altar, things for worship. Digging through my old boxes, I’d collected all of those things already throughout my life, and that was the first true sign for me that I was obviously stumbling upon the right path.

One reason why I don’t really call myself a Wiccan is because Wiccans don’t typically believe in an ultimate source of evil. They believe in light and dark—not necessarily good and evil— and I’m different in the respect that I just don’t think it’s possible for evil not to exist. So that’s why I’ve adopted the term ‘witch.’ One reason I like it is that it’s kind of funny to say it and weird to embrace, and I kind of like it that way. It puts some people off, and then some people get really interested, and some people look at me like I’m crazy. It’s also one of the only English translations for the Passamaquoddy word ‘Metowlin,’ which means kind of like a shaman or medicine man, a walker between two worlds. The easiest translation for that is ‘witch,’ so that’s what I call myself.

A lot of Wiccans, especially solitary practitioners – they’re eclectic, so they study from a lot of different traditions and make up their own traditions. And there’s also the “natural witches,” simplifying things in the sense of doing what feels right to you and following your own intuitions, rather than following the set guidelines. So I read and study a lot of traditional Wicca, but my practice is eclectic, or eclectic-solitary, and natural.”

Do ceremonies take up a lot of the meaning for you or is there a more reflective aspect?

“Definitely it’s both… it’s mainly reflective with me, I would say. But the ceremonies have their place because there’s the rule of correspondence – by enacting or symbolizing things to project them into the universe, it’s gonna effect certain changes in your life… It’s hard to say native people would cast spells, but [they] rather ask the Creator for help in certain ways and then somehow get the results they desire. What they did was ask the Creator for help, which is basically how you cast a spell.  I guess you could say spellcraft is really just a very concentrated, systematic and specific form of praying.”

Do you have any particular moral code, or set of moral proscriptions?

“One thing that is present is the Wiccan Rede, which goes ‘these eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill – an it harm none, do what you will.’  [Editor’s Note: ‘an’ is an archaic spelling of ‘if.’] There’s definitely a lot of interpretation for that, so you can’t do anything that would hurt yourself or anything that would possibly vicariously hurt somebody, or not necessarily hurt them, but do something that isn’t right for them. You might think you’re helping them but you’re not actually.”

There’s a sense of self-improvement?

“Yes. I’ve gone through a lot of that, and there’s the classic witchcraft—like if you’ve seen The Craft or anything—‘the Law of Three,’ which says that anything you project out into the universe comes back at you times three. And that’s basically the premise of witchcraft – if you send good intentions out, if you send the right intentions out in spellwork, they’ll come back in just the right manner and you’ll be three times stronger, or stronger than what you visualized. That’s how a spell is believed to work. Whereas if you send out negative energy, have negative thoughts and do negative actions, it will come back at you three times as strong—kind of similar to karma in that respect.”

What’s the metaphysics of that?

“There’s this idea of ‘as above, so below’—that law of correspondence—so doing anything, enacting something on earth, will make it come true in the other world—the heavens or however you want to say it— and then because it becomes true up there, it actually becomes true on the physical plane. So it’s reflective, it happens three times.“

The ceremonies you do, are they mostly oriented towards prayer?

“It’s more aimed towards prayer. If I need to do a specific—like a very specific—sort of spellwork, I’ll get up and I’ll cast a magic circle and call the quarters. [Editor’s Note: the ‘quarters’ are spirits who are said to preside over the four cardinal directions.] For a lot of my spellwork, I just do meditation. I meditate under the 4 directions through my animal spirit guide and thank the Creator—just honor and reflect for a while.

When you do the more specific spellwork, what’s the subject matter of that usually?

“A lot of spells, if they’re simple spells, can be cast just in a meditative state. If I really want some help, like really simple ones, one of my favorite spells is to ask for a parking space. It’s not hurting anybody, I’m also just doing it for myself, and it’s kind of a fun one. I ask for my parking space to just be there for me when I get there, and it always works. There’s only been one time where it hasn’t worked out for me.

For more complicated ones, I’ll get into a meditative state and form a magic circle. Not necessarily get up and cast one, but meditate and create sacred space—[I do it] that way if I’m, for example, making a protection shield for somebody, or casting a spell to keep someone who’s been bothering or stalking someone away from one of my sisters, things like that.“

I remember the other night I saw you guessing cards. Do you feel like you do better at that than other people?

“I mean, you were there, weren’t you? That’s a great little trick that I’ve picked up from one of my books. If you have two black cards and one red or two red and one black, you think about the one. So normally I’ll do two red and then the ace of spades, and I’ll focus on the color black, think about the color black itself and I’ll put my hand over each of the cards and it usually feels different. When I do it by myself it’s a weird feeling that I get on my face, like someone touches my forehead, when I’m feeling the right card… The card you’re looking for feels different.”

Do you have any other “magic tricks”?

“Um I don’t know… I turn traffic lights green. If I cast a spell beforetime, they’ll all be green when I get there. I’ve shown my friends and they were like ‘how does this happen?’ because they didn’t think it was going to happen… One handy thing, if I really need money, the right relative will pop up and be like ‘oh I sent you some money’.”

Is there any sense that if you do it to show off or you do it for inappropriate gain, it doesn’t work as well?

“Definitely, definitely if it’s inappropriate gain. Showing off, I don’t know, I’m allowed to show off a little bit. I’m not allowed to really show off, but a little bit.”

The dividing line is if it hurts others?

“Basically… There are people who would practice harmful magic, but they have to deal with the consequences. A lot of times if I am doing it to show off it doesn’t work as well. Sometimes it does. Sometimes God lets me have my fun. But gambling doesn’t work.  If it’s a small group of friends, I can show off.”

This is the first article in a series entitled “Man and God at Dartmouth” which aims to explore the spiritual life of Dartmouth College with in-depth and personal detail.