Mental health is a subject near and dear to my heart because I struggle with several major conditions.  I have Bipolar I Disorder, and I have experienced visual and auditory hallucinations while in manic and depressive states.  I have Autism and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.  I have been frankly suicidal on more than one occasion.  And I have been hospitalized three times in the last twenty years for crisis management as a result of these conditions.

So why in the world would I — or anyone — practice a religion that embraces ideas that would otherwise be symptoms of mental illness?  Aren’t we crazy enough already?

Honestly, I practice the Craft because it calls to me, because it affirms the reality that I believe in, because it helps me cope with bad brain chemistry.  That journey hasn’t always been a comfortable one, but the experiences gained through living the Craft and discerning what’s spiritual versus what’s psychological have been amazingly valuable to me.

Magical Thinking

There’s a concept in psychology called magical thinking.  According to Encyclopedia Britannica, it is “the belief that one’s ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world.”  Well, that’s what the Craft is in a nutshell.  As witches, we claim our power to influence events in the world — and it works, but only if we do the work.  You can’t do a job spell and expect someone to call you for an interview if you haven’t put in any applications.  You can’t do a protection spell and not lock the doors of your house every night.  Magick works because it augments the work we’re already doing in progressing toward a goal.

But there are limits to magick.  There are innumerable variables to account for when working magick, and sometimes those variables overpower our will to change reality.  Thirteen covens of witches couldn’t stop a hurricane barrelling into the Gulf of Mexico.  There are too many other processes at work.  When a witch thinks they personally can control these things, it’s likely a sign of mental illness.  Remember, it took a bunch of committed witches to stir up enough bad weather, mechanical problems, and doubt to keep the Germans from invading Great Britain in 1940, and people died shortly after, and some say as a result of, that working.  There’s no demonstrable evidence that Operation Cone Of Power was the reason Great Britain wasn’t invaded by the Nazis, but the fact remains that the British Isles didn’t fall.

Were the people who participated in that ritual crazy?  No, they were religious.  They did what they could and then went on with life, blacking out windows and speaking with care when in public or on the phone.  If they’d hovered anxiously over their altars focusing obsessively on their magick, then I’d say they were venturing into a bad mental health space.

The Living World

As witches, we experience the world as a living entity with many layers that can be perceived through our subtle senses.  We interact with spirit entities.  We commune with our ancestors.  We worship and work with our deities.  For some, this is merely philosophical, a metaphor, or an externalized expression of what’s going on in our inner worlds.  For others, this is literally real.  The grandmother spirit watching over you is as real as your pampered pet dog.  The oak tree in the back yard is patient and wise and you’ve learned that it always tells you when rain is coming.  The gods make themselves known in ways that seem both odd and obvious.

At what point does this way of viewing the world become mentally unhealthy?  When it starts to interfere with your daily life.  I once knew someone who refused to leave the house without casting a horary astrology chart, a process that took quite a bit of time to create and interpret.  I knew someone else who insisted that their deity was married to them and they had long, elaborate daily conversations about what food to eat and which movie to go see together.  Neither of these people were hurting anybody with their beliefs, but they definitely strayed into the mentally unhealthy area.  In one case, they were refusing to address anxiety and trauma.  In the other case, they were refusing to address loneliness and poor self-worth.

Psychic or Psychotic?

Then there are people who insist that they are called by the gods — or other spirits — to do something.  This is sticky territory, because we know that in religions across the world the prophets who were in contact with a higher power were often told to do things they didn’t think they could do, or that were illegal, or that spoke truth to power, or that didn’t really make sense at the time.  It’s also difficult to discern whether people are having religious experiences or psychotic experiences.  The full context of the experience needs to be taken into account, as well as the effects it has on the person experiencing it.

Speaking as someone who has hallucinated stereotypical little green men from Mars (pleasantly conversing over a pot of coffee like I was living in a scene out of Men In Black) and helped people through visions of angels telling them to call their mother in Heaven (at a specific address in Heaven that the heavenly phone operator could connect them to), there’s some reality testing that needs to happen when people have these sorts of experiences:

1. Is this information harmful to me or to other people?  For example, am I being told to harm or kill myself or someone else?  Probably a psychotic episode.
2. Does this information benefit me spiritually?  For example, am I being told to change my spiritual routine to incorporate an element that is personally meaningful and not dangerous to myself or others?  Probably a spiritual experience.
3. Am I frightened by this experience or information?  For example, does this experience activate trauma triggers?  Possibly a psychotic episode, or possibly a breakthrough spiritual experience.
4. Am I being told to physically act in the world right now?  Or am I being told to start an elaborate plan for a future date?  For example, am I being told to set a building on fire or destroy property, or am I being told to plan to assassinate the President, or am I being told that only I have the ability to do some grandiose thing?  Probably a psychotic episode, unless that elaborate plan is for positive and benevolent purposes.
5. Is the entity I’m in contact with benevolent, having my best interests at heart?  Or is it malevolent, threatening me with harm if I don’t behave in a certain way?  For example, the Goddess telling you that the thread of your life is part of a vast tapestry and it would be damaged if you ended your life prematurely is probably a spiritual experience, where a demon telling you that you need to burn down an outbuilding because it’s full of evil spirits and if you don’t do it they’ll come and eat your soul is probably a psychotic episode.

What to Do to Take Care of Yourself

If there’s any advice I can give to the witches out there with psychiatric diagnoses, it’s to take your tablets.  They don’t interfere with your magickal gifts.  What they do interfere with is bad brain chemistry that leads to unbalanced thinking.  Pharmaceutical medications are often derived from plant-based chemicals (for example, Depakote is valproic acid which is an active constituent of valerian root, and Lithium is literally an element.)  Prescription drugs are magic potions that we know for sure work.  Take them on a set schedule.

Another thing I can recommend for the mentally ill witch is to keep good sleep habits.  Wake up and go to sleep around the same time each day, even on weekends.  Pay attention to patterns in sleep disruption — for example, are you waking up about the same time every night?  Why are you waking up?  Nightmares, anxiety, bathroom needs, just felt like it was time to wake up?  It’s normal for humans to not sleep a full 8 hours at a time; most people sleep and wake up in the middle of the night then go back to sleep again after thirty to sixty minutes.

Keep an accountability circle.  Have regular check-ins with these folks, like every few weeks.  Is your mood elevated?  Depressed?  What about your activities of daily living?  Are you eating regularly, bathing, changing clothes?  Are you remembering to take your meds?  Are you keeping your mental health appointments?  How is your spiritual life?  Do you feel spiritually engaged, or do you feel like the gods have abandoned you?  What do your spiritual activities look like?  Are you spending regular time in meditation or some other spiritual activity?  Do you have organized spiritual activity time — Coffee with the Goddess, altar maintenance time, astrology hour, tarot throwdown time, grimoire scribing time, or something similar?  Or are you spiritually bereft and directionless?  Do your rituals and celebrations seem lifeless?  Do you feel like you’re just going through the motions?

Finally, get a good therapist.  Self-development is part of spirituality, and it’s good psychological practice as well.  Having someone on your care team who can help you identify and resolve trauma, explore questions of sexuality and gender identity, and help you become a better you is a valuable investment.  However, not everyone wants or desires this kind of relationship with someone.  If that’s the case for you, then become your own therapist.  There are plenty of self-help books out there as well as peer support communities online.  Just make sure you have an accountability circle to help you stay balanced and clear the blind spots we all have about ourselves.