What Nobody Tells You About Finding Your Witch Tribe
I could have titled this piece “How to Find a Coven That Fits.” But finding a coven is only half the equation; the other half is whether that coven will want you. It's a two‑way street, and for good reason. You're not looking for a club; you're looking for a coven, somewhere your practice can deepen and your words mean something. That's a measure I'll keep returning to in this article, not just how to find people, but why the search is worth the effort.
Before we go further, a map. This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Today I name the early snags and offer fast, honest remedies—the sort I wish I'd had. Part 2 examines what actually happens in groups and covens, including the psychology, power dynamics, why some circles feel hollow, and how to read the signs. Part 3 is all practice—how to grow steady relationships and, if needed, seed a circle of two and let it thicken over time.
P.S. If you don't have time to read, the Substack App has audio support. Put on your headphones and listen.
Part 1
Covens
Covens are a world I know well. I started my first in 1973. We met in the North Adelaide semi-detached house I'd just moved into at the end of 1972. Chris and her sister, Roz, and Alex, a policeman, were sitting cross-legged in my lounge on a bright red shagpile rug and a couple of black beanbags. Candles were burning, their scent wafting amid the aroma of Hare Krishna incense. We made a quiet promise to try this thing — Witchcraft.
How we met was, in fact, a combination of chance encounters and a mutual friend. Although the fact that I'd cast a spell to attract other witches was critical in my mind, fate did the rest. If you've read my article "How a Patchwork Adelaide Coven Found Its Place in the World", you'll know that we didn't waste any time because we had another appointment with the Fates. In December 1973, the media sought our perspective following an article that had presented the anti-occult views and fear-mongering of local fundamentalist Christians.
I was better read than the others, but in 1973, that wasn't saying much because there were only a handful of worthwhile books to read anyhow. For the record these included: Gerald Gardner's classic "Witchcraft Today"; Richard Cavendish's "The Black Arts"; June Johns "King of the Witches"; Anton LaVey's "The Satanic Bible"; Marc de Pascle's "Book of Spells" (the very book I'd used to help assemble our coven); Lobsang Rampa's "You Forever"; Doreen Valiente's "ABC of Witchcraft"; and the newly released paperback edition of Stewart Farrar's "What Witches Do".
In May, I'd just turned 18 years old. I was the youngest in the group, and like the others, I had a passion for all things Witchcraft since my tweens. I already had a Tarot deck, and I'd been weaving mischief from Marc de Pascle's "Book of Spells" for years. However, it was books like Gardner's classic "Witchcraft Today" that introduced me to the word Wicca, and the newly released manual of modern Witchcraft, "What Witches Do", which provided us with a method for our coven.
We weren't experts, but we were willing to give everything a try. We set a couple of goals—show up when you say you will, and study the rituals we were threading together. Chris and I were the more serious in our small group; and our ex-Catholic backgrounds meant we were totally across the whole ritual practices of "bells and smells". We were also the more psychic of our raggle-taggle coven.
If there's one thing Chris and I did right, it was to use our natural intuition and respond to the psychic reality. We both could easily enter altered states of consciousness. What this meant was we were tapping directly into a magickal current, the archetypal Witch, although I wouldn't have called it that then, such Jungian terms were still a foreign landscape to me. We simply experienced it as our inner nature, the Witch within. And in the company of the coven, the archetype of the Witch within was amplified through many initiatory experiences. That earliest coven taught me the right question to hold beside "Do I fit them?" — namely, "Do they fit me?" I've kept that test ever since. This is a question we'll return to, and you might just find that you tread a path not dissimilar to Chris and me.
It's Full Moon
Matches sit beside an unlit candle. Your smartphone glows with full‑moon photos from people you barely know. You've done the rites, kept the journal, faced the complex parts of ritual — and still you're alone on a Full Moon night. What gives?
The spiritual awakening hits like lightning when you figure out where you belong, but the loneliness that follows feels like a slow burn. Yes, you've discovered your path and embraced your magical practice, yet somehow you're sitting alone on a Full Moon night, while everyone else seems to have found their perfect coven, soul family, and witch tribe. The truth nobody discusses? Finding authentic spiritual community is more complicated than mastering any spell.
In 1999, I met Phyllis Curott, the author of a wonderful, and then new book, part-memoir, "Book of Shadows." Phyllis was on her Australian book tour from the USA, so I reached out to interview her for my infant WitchesWorkshop online community. I met her in the lobby of the Kings Cross hotel, where she was staying. We began our chat about her journey to Australia and Sydney. She immediately won me over by mentioning that, in fact, her first stop in our great Southern land was to the iconic and indigenous sacred site, Uluru, in Central Australia.
A little surprised (and yet not), I could immediately see where Phyllis' priorities lay. Who wouldn't be impressed, right?We exchanged reflections on the impact this sacred place had on our psyche. We were getting along swimmingly, and I then announced to her that I 'hated' her book! Smiling with an awkward laugh, I explained. The way Phyllis had described finding her tribe and coven seemed to happen with such ease; it was all a bit hard to swallow. This was notmy experience at all, especially since moving back to Sydney. I'd spent years in my teens yearning for just contact with other Witches. And now in Sydney, I found it could be a big, cold, and lonely city. My jealousy aside, I confessed to Phyllis that I was confident her book would provide a deep sense of hope for so many witches. (Might I suggest you should read this book, and her even better, "Witch Crafting: A Spiritual Guide to Making Magic" — they're a great place to start after reading this article.)
Soul Tribe
This article won't be another fluffy piece about "manifesting your soul tribe" or the power of positive thinking. It is about the uncomfortable realities of spiritual community-building that most practitioners whisper about in private but never address publicly. While everyone's posting perfectly curated ritual photos and talking about their "magical family," many of us are secretly wondering why we still feel like outsiders looking in.
The journey to finding your witch tribe isn't just about locating people who share your interests. It's about navigating the complex landscape of spiritual authenticity, recognising the difference between surface connections and soul-deep bonds, and most importantly, learning to trust your intuition when it comes to the people you invite into your sacred space.
Start Here
Here are four things you can do right now to make initial connections with other witches:
Join a Witchcraft Facebook group and do a search in the posts for events and workshops.
Join the Meetup platform and do a search for Witchcraft and related groups. This is particularly useful because it's based on your geographic location.
Search Eventbrite. While not the most obvious choice, it's great for fairs, expos, and other professional events.
Check any Witchy Bookshops in your area, they sometimes have noticeboards or hold events.
Time for Some Tough Love, and what you can do
If you are ever going to join a coven or find a witch tribe, you'll need to start right now. This is 2025, not 1975. In 1975, all we had to make a connection with other Witches were chance meetings and the odd interesting bookshop. There were a few old-style newsletters and zines, but these were mainly from overseas and took forever to arrive in Australia. Today, you have instant everything.
Facebook: In 1999, I established WitchesWorkshop as my online community, and by 2008, I had migrated that community to Facebook. Today, we have over 12,000 members who network, share news, and events. It still has a special focus on the Australian Pagan community, but we now have many international members. The WitchesWorkshop platform is especially for teachers and event organisers.
Meetup: Our first encounter with the Meetup platform was in the early 2000s. We quickly grew to a large community of Sydney Witches. At the time, we were second only to those in the Houston and New York Meetup groups. Ours developed organically out of the 1990s Pagans-in-the-Pub gatherings, what the Brits call Pagan Moots.
The benefit of the Meetup platform is that groups are listed by region, and that means you can (potentially) find groups in your area. For example, in May of this year, I was visiting the U.K. and saw "London Woodland Witches & Pagans"on Meetup. I met the charismatic Mani and another 30-plus of his pagan and Witchcraft friends for their woodlandBeltane ritual. (If you are in London, I can highly recommend this group.)
In Britain, Pagan Moots are held more frequently. These are like our Aussie version of Pagans-in-the-Pub. While visiting Penzance in Cornwall, I reached out to Carol, the contact Witch for the local Pagan Moot. Even though it wasn't the week of their pub moot, she kindly gathered several of her local crew together for a chat and a drink at the Union Hotel. Sometimes these casual connections can become lifelong connections.
I've been there: I remember a wintry Full Moon night where I set a place for a Moon circle, then stared at my phone while other people posted silver‑lit altars. I had done the rites, but I was avoiding the risk of being seen. I blew out the candle, wrote the hardest sentence to a Witch friend — "I don't want performance; I want people" — and promised myself I'd test for depth, not Witch-Tok décor. But of course, that will mean you have to get in amongst it.
Reader check‑in: I'll check in with you throughout this article with a few choice questions. Here's the first. What's your response?
Mask drop: What have you tried to make connections with Witches?
Here's what you should do: Create a checklist of events, workshops, and meetups happening in your region. If there's an event on, go. If there's a workshop running, go. All this can feel like a risk, but not doing anything will mean there's no change. The hardest thing you'll have to say at these events is "Hi, I'm [your name], what's your name?"
This week: Share with me one courageous act you'll take to make a connection. Share one event you'll attend. Ask if you can take a pic or do a selfie and post it in the comments. I want to know what breakthrough you made.
Here's what I'll be covering in this article:
It's sometimes said that we are all solitary in the Craft. That's true in the sense that nobody can do it for you, but it's also precisely why we can feel like outsiders, especially at social gatherings where you are trying to meet your tribe. The upside of being solitary is that it provides the freedom to resist conforming to the status quo. That said, we all still crave peer support. In this article, I'll explore the nature of what it means to call yourself a Witch alone and how to create community. Below is a summary of what we'll cover in detail for the Subscriber supported section of this article:
Part 2
1. The Surface vs. Soul Connection Divide: Don't stop at shared symbols; test for shared values—here's how to spot the difference fast.
2. Why You Feel Isolated Despite Being Surrounded: If rooms full of witches feel hollow, you're not broken—the culture is; here's how to shift from performance to presence.
3. The Uncomfortable Truth About Spiritual Bypassing: Trade platitudes for practice with one question that changes the room.
4. Red Flags in Spiritual Communities: Before you hand over time or money, run these quick tests and avoid months of drama.
Part 3
5. Cultivating Meaningful Magical Relationships: Depth grows in small, steady behaviours—steal these scripts and start today.
6. Creating Your Own Sacred Circle: Can't find your people? Build a two-person Circle that quietly becomes a Coven.
7. When You Find Your People, you'll feel it in your body first—watch for these signals to check whether trust is deserved.
8. Moving Forward in Your Search: Your next steps...Make one weekly choice and a seasonal promise; the right rhythm finds the right people.
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