The first book on witchcraft I ever read was Cunningham’s “Guide for the Solitary Practitioner.” That man helped me find my way onto the path that I still follow, and I will always honor him.

One of the things he gave me and the rest of the world — at least my memory and a quick Google search suggests he was the original author (please correct me in the comments if I’m wrong) — was the 13 Goals of a Witch, which I looked up to link to in my previous post. As I looked at them, my immediate reaction was “Yikes! A couple of these are ableist! And that one at least borders on fat-hatred and other issues!”

I commented about this on Twitter and someone suggested I update them. Now, I’ll admit, I feel a little weird updating something written by someone who was as experienced in the Craft as Scott Cunningham, as well as someone who put so much time into making it accessible to so many fledgling witches — like me at one time! And I certainly don’t want to speak ill of him. Plus I don’t want to be the next Scott Cunningham. (Actually, there was a time when a lot of us thought that honor probably already belonged to Christopher Penczak, but anyway.)

But I am a witch and that tends to mean that I prefer to adapt both myself and those things I receive to my own liking. And I think Scott Cunningham would appreciate that. So I decided to look through them and come up with how I would rewrite the list and share them here.

I ended up going beyond my original intended edits and reasons for making them. I decided to make a few linguistic choices because I felt they conveyed something important that felt missing to me from the original source material.

So without further ado:

Jarred’s Personal Goals as a Witch

With a nod of respect to Scott Cunningham, who will always be an inspiration.

1. Know yourself.

I’ve always liked this one. I think knowing and understanding yourself is important. There’s not much to build on here.

2. Know your Craft.

Again, this one seems great and perfect as is.

3. Learn and adapt.

I felt like this one needed a language change. Learning isn’t just about growing or adding to what’s already there. Sometimes, you realize the Tower really was built on a shaky foundation and needs to come down so you can start over. Or maybe other, less drastic changes are needed.

4. Apply knowledge with wisdom.

Again, this one seems pretty great to me like it is.

5. Work toward equilibrium.

I’ve mentally changed this one for over a decade. I prefer the word equilibrium because of how my experiences in mathematics and science have shaded my understanding of that word. Equilibrium is a state of self-maintained stability. But it’s also a state that can change and adapt. You can take a system that’s in equilibrium and make changes. As long as you don’t throw the system out of equilibrium, it will re-stabilize. Maybe not to the same exact point. I think having that understanding in the Craft is more helpful than “balance,” which suggests a single point you must reach and maintain. At least that’s what it suggests to me.

6. Be mindful of the impact of what you say.

I made this change primarily for clarity. It helps understand what it means to “keep our words in correct order.” It also explains why we do so. Plus it reminds us that the impact of our words can go beyond what we intended.

7. Be mindful of the impact of your thoughts.

Same reasoning behind the change for #6.

8. Celebrate the cycles of life.

I felt this one needed a small edit to allow space for the fact that death is part of the cycle of life and needs to be honored and celebrated as well.

9. Attune with the cycles of life.

This change was driven by a personal annoyance of mine. I often feel like many have this “nature/man” dichotomy going on that is troubling to me. We are natural beings too. And our own life cycles need to be honored along with the cycles of “nature” or “the earth.”

10. Nourish your body as well as your spirit.

Okay, this and the next one are the original two I felt most needed to be changed. There are too many people out there ready to tell you how to “eat correctly.” A lot of their advice is ableist or rooted in fat hatred. I wanted to nip that in the bud. So I decided to refocus the goal on what I felt the actual message should be: Nourishing our bodies. Exactly what that looks like can be worked out by the individual witch.

11. Care for your body as well as your spirit.

Again, I felt like this one needed to be edited due to ableism. Not everyone can exercise, at least not in the way people often imagine when they hear the word. So let’s just refocus the goal on what’s really important: Caring for our bodies because we need them. What that care should look like is again something for the individual witch to work out. Again, it’ll be different for everyone.

12. Honor the Divine

This actually corresponds to #13 in Cunningham’s list. (I’ll get to the missing one in this list shortly.) I felt it was time to expand this one beyond the gender binary. If your concept of the divine is gendered, more power to you. But let’s make room for those who have a concept of the Divine that is non-binary. Or isn’t gendered. Or isn’t even anthropomorphized at all.

What about the missing one?

I got rid of Cunningham’s twelfth goal, “meditate.” I don’t consider that a goal at all. It’s a discipline and/or tool. A very useful one. I love my meditation. But it is not a goal in its own right. So why should it get a mention when no other discipline or tool does. You don’t see “pray” on the list.

Of course, as I look through the list, I’m not sure I consider all of the remaining ones to exactly be goals, either. So maybe I could cut a couple more. Or maybe I’ll just rename the list. Or maybe I’ll accept the imperfection of it all.

So what do you think? Do you like my personal version of this list? Or do you prefer the original? Or are there different changes you might make? Tell me about it in the comments!