It has come to my attention that there are numerous profiles on this website which are either supporting atheist or Leveyan Satanism (which is fine, this is a website where people of all paths are welcome to converse).
However certain profiles have caught my attention, where their bios proclaim that there is no god, witchcraft is stupid, and we are dumb for believing in it or an afterlife.
I would like to reply to those people in a respectful manner, and try to, from your point of view, explain why this is very valid and real to some people.
First of all, witchcraft is not a religion. Sure, there are many common beliefs between practitioners, and pagan religions can involve witchcraft, but practicing the craft in itself as many do does not mean you believe in any type of deity or afterlife. None of the "requirements" to practice witchcraft (there are none) goes against any of the leveyan or atheist beliefs.
I practice witchcraft and believe in it fully. I have a goddess, and do believe in an afterlife, however this is how some people use witchcraft in a way you should consider before you judge it.
Many spells are really just rituals to make the practitioner feel better or have piece of mind about something. For instance: meditating to clear the head of negative thoughts and to ground and center yourself, using essential oils for calming or healing properties which is a form of aromatherapy which does not in itself imply anything magical at all. That is simply using plants for benefiting ones mental and physical state.
But when someone casts a spell to make something happen, they make their self believe that it was effective therefore affecting their state of mind in a positive way that can reduce stress, relieve anxiety and depression and so forth.
To athiests, you shold compare witchcraft to this: there have been studies (antidepressant studies and charts that test the effectiveness of the medicine on the mental state of the patient) that involve giving many subjects the actual medicine, as well as the other half glucose tablets (have no medicinal properties) and asking the patient if they felt different. Many subjects who were given the ineffective pill recorded that it made them feel better and did what the pill was supposed to do. This is a psychological process where the patient tricks it's own mind into believing the medicine worked, and by doing this there were real results!
Someone who believes in witchcraft, regardless of rather or not you believe "magick" is real, performs spells and rituals that changes their state of mind about things in a positive way, and from that there are real results.
SO even if you don't believe in magick, deities, or an afterlife please respect the effectiveness of witchcraft on the practitioners well being, almost as a form of self healing, and try not to put it down and claim those who believe in it are ignorant when there actually are benefits of practicing it, even if there is no spirituality involved in your opinion.
I know this was random, but I felt it needed saying. I actually messaged one of the accounts claiming the disvalidity of witchcraft and religion in general and convinced him there is a purpose to it. I was trying to replicate in this forum what I said to him.