Twenty years in, still asking questions.
Flint & Flicker isn't run by someone who found one tradition and stopped looking. It's run by someone who's spent two decades reading, practicing, and arguing about all of it — and who still thinks the arguing is the good part.
I've spent roughly twenty years studying magical and spiritual practice broadly — not just Wicca, but the wider field it sits inside: folk magic, ceremonial and Hermetic traditions, herbalism, tarot, astrology, comparative religion, and the history that connects (and separates) all of them. That range is on purpose. A lot of sites in this space present one path as though it's the whole picture. It isn't, and pretending otherwise does readers a disservice.
Why "the science of magic"
I'm genuinely fascinated by what's actually happening when ritual works — psychologically, neurologically, culturally — not just what tradition says is happening. Intention-setting, ritual repetition, the placebo effect, the documented effects of meditation and focused attention, the way symbol and story shape behavior: none of that requires you to check your skepticism at the door, and I don't think it should. Understanding the mechanism behind a practice doesn't cheapen it. If anything, it's made my own practice more honest. This site treats magic and psychology as neighbors worth studying together, not rivals.
I like being told I'm wrong
I enjoy a good debate more than I enjoy being agreed with. If you read something here and think I've got it backwards, oversimplified a tradition, or missed a source, I want to hear about it — that's not a threat to the site, it's how the site gets better. Nothing published here is treated as final. Practices get revised, corrections get made, and "I used to think X, now I think Y" is a completely normal sentence around here.
What this site is — and isn't
- It's eclectic and open-practice. The guides here draw from traditions that are open to outside study and adaptation.
- It respects closed practices by staying out of them. Traditions like Hoodoo, Santería, Vodou, and specific Indigenous practices aren't covered here, on purpose — not because they're less valid, but because they aren't mine to teach. See the Paths page for more on that line.
- It's not a replacement for medical, legal, or financial advice — and it won't ever pretend to be.
- It's not selling certainty. Where the historical record is murky (and in this field, it usually is), I'll say so instead of smoothing it over.
None of this is ranked, and none of it is finished. Twenty years in, I'm still the student here as much as the guide — this site is just where I write down what I've found so far.