By Bailey Romatoski ·
The fastest way to keep the labels straight: witchcraft is a practice, Wicca is a religion, occultism is a system of working with hidden forces, a psychic reads information and a medium claims to speak with the dead, and a mystic seeks union while a magician seeks results. People mix them up because most practitioners genuinely overlap: a Wiccan can be a witch, an occultist can study tarot, a rootworker can be a devout Christian. But each word means something specific to the people who use it for themselves, and getting them right is a small act of respect. Here's the field guide.
What's the difference between a witch and a Wiccan?
Wicca is a modern Pagan religion that became public in the 1950s through the British occultist Gerald Gardner. Witchcraft is the practice of magic: spells, divination, herbal work, spirit work, protection charms, folk traditions. A Wiccan may be a witch, but not every witch is Wiccan. Some witches are Pagan, some are secular, some work with deities and ancestors, some just keep a spice cabinet and a cat.
The clearest way to hold it: Wicca is a religion with structure (covens or solitary practice, the Wheel of the Year's eight sabbats, moon rituals, the Wiccan Rede's "an it harm none"), while witchcraft is a practice with no universal doctrine, required deity, or single ethical code. Witchcraft also predates Wicca by centuries in folk traditions all over the world. Wicca popularized the word "witch" in a positive context, which is why the two get conflated.
What about pagan?
Paganism is the umbrella above all of this: the family of nature-venerating religions, including Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, and reconstructionist paths. All Wiccans are pagan; plenty of pagans aren't Wiccan; and many witches are pagan too, while others are atheists or follow entirely different religions.
What is an occultist, then?
An occultist is someone who studies and works with the "hidden laws" of humanity and the universe, through specific practices aimed at producing results. The word itself was coined in 19th-century France by Eliphas Levi as a reaction to positivism, but the lineage runs back through Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's 16th-century "Occult Philosophy" and forward through the Theosophical Society, Gurdjieff, and Aleister Crowley, who spread it worldwide.
Occultist is the broadest label on this list, and it usually carries a Western esoteric flavor: ceremonial magic, Hermeticism, Kabbalah, alchemy, astrology, tarot as a study rather than a sideline. If a witch is defined by practice and a Wiccan by religion, an occultist is defined by systematic study and mastery. The core of occultism, scholars of esoteric practices note, lies in its practices and concrete outcomes, not just its theories.
What's the difference between a magician and a mystic?
Separate them by purpose, not tools. A mystic seeks direct experience of, or union with, ultimate reality: meditation, contemplative prayer, silence, surrender. A magician uses intentional practices to get knowledge, influence, or a result: ritual, invocation, symbols, talismans. The same candle can serve either; what differs is the aim. A mystic wants to meet the divine. A magician wants to get something done.
Chaos magic is worth naming here, because it bends the definitions. Emerging in 1970s England from Peter Carroll, Ray Sherwin, and the earlier ideas of artist Austin Osman Spare, chaos magic treats belief itself as a tool: practitioners deliberately adopt and discard entire belief systems (Qabalah, astrology, even pop-culture mythologies) on the theory that what matters is the belief invested, not the symbols used. Scholar Hugh Urban called it traditional occult techniques plus applied postmodernism. A chaos magician might tell you every label on this page is arbitrary, and that's rather the point.
Psychic or medium: is there a difference?
Yes, and psychics and mediums take it seriously themselves. A psychic is someone sensitive to nonphysical influences or forces: intuition about people, events, energy. A medium specifically claims to act as an intermediary through whom the spirits of the dead can contact the living. All mediums get lumped in with psychics, but a medium's defining claim is communication with the dead; a psychic may never touch that. Related words have their own shades too: clairvoyant, channeler, spiritualist.
What's a rootworker or conjure worker?
Hoodoo, conjure, and rootwork are names for the same living tradition: an African-derived system of mystical, medicinal, and spiritual practice built on herbs, roots, stones, bones, and prayers, used for protection, justice, healing, love, and provision. It arrived on American shores with the slave trade, African at the root, and absorbed Native American and European folk influences along the way. Historically it passed orally, within families and communities; today it also moves through workshops and classes.
Practitioners are called rootworkers, root doctors, conjure doctors, or hoodoo men and women. Two distinctions matter when writing or talking about the tradition. First, hoodoo is a practice, not a religion: New Orleans Voudou and Haitian Vodou are religions that include hoodoo in their expression, but hoodoo itself carries no specific religious connotation. Second, the internet shorthand "hoodoo is African American folk magic" flattens a deep system of medicine, cosmology, and ancestor reverence, and practitioners of the tradition say so plainly. Regional styles are real and distinct: Memphis, New Orleans, Appalachian conjure, Gullah Geechee.
Why is "shaman" different from the other labels?
Because it isn't ours to hand out. "Shamanism" began as a scholarly term borrowed from Siberia, applied to Indigenous practices everywhere, and scholars now document how the term romanticized "the primitive" and then evolved into a vehicle for cultural appropriation that harms Indigenous communities. A "plastic shaman" is the pejorative for a non-Indigenous practitioner selling Indigenous-styled ceremony.
The practical rule: reserve "shaman" for actual practitioners within their own living traditions, and describe everyone else by what they do. "Journeying practitioner" or "spirit worker" is honest. "Shamanic" as a generic brand is not.
And what's an energy healer?
The broadest healing label in this world: someone who works with the body's energy for relaxation, stress reduction, and wellbeing. Reiki, the best-known school, is a Japanese practice taught in lineages of certification, and reiki practitioners commonly charge standard, published session rates. Energy work shows up everywhere from private practices to hospital wellness programs, which surprises people who assume it lives only in the esoteric margins.
Why do the labels matter?
Because people use these words for themselves, and the words carry their histories. A witch who isn't Wiccan isn't missing a religion; a rootworker isn't a "witch" in the European sense; a medium isn't just a psychic with a ghost beat; a serious practitioner turned down the word shaman out of respect for living traditions. Ask someone what they call themselves, then use their word. In most esoteric communities, that question is welcome.