Pagan Coffee Talk
Pagan Coffee Talk is a modern paganism & witchcraft podcast exploring spiritual practice, community, and clergy experience weekly. Each episode invites listeners into candid, grounded conversations about what it really means to live, practice, and serve within today’s diverse pagan paths. Whether you’re a long‑time practitioner or someone newly curious about earth‑based spirituality, the show offers a welcoming space to learn, question, and grow.
Hosted by experienced pagan clergy, Pagan Coffee Talk blends humor, honesty, and hands‑on wisdom to demystify the realities of practice. The podcast dives into topics such as ritual structure, magical ethics, coven dynamics, and the lived experience of serving a community—always with a focus on accessibility and authenticity. You’ll also hear discussions on the challenges of modern pagan leadership, the evolution of contemporary witchcraft traditions, and how practitioners can build sustainable spiritual habits in everyday life.
Listeners searching for “practical pagan spirituality for beginners” or “real‑world witchcraft guidance from clergy” will find the show especially valuable. Episodes often highlight the difference between pop‑culture witchcraft and grounded, lineage‑informed practice, helping listeners navigate misinformation while strengthening their own spiritual foundations. The hosts also explore seasonal observances, ancestor work, devotional practice, and the importance of community support within pagan traditions.
Pagan Coffee Talk isn’t just a podcast—it’s an ongoing conversation shaped by real questions from real practitioners. By sharing personal stories, hard‑earned lessons, and thoughtful commentary, the hosts aim to foster a sense of connection and clarity for anyone walking a pagan path. Whether you’re brewing your morning coffee or settling in for evening reflection, this podcast offers insight, companionship, and a deeper understanding of modern pagan life.
A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: The Morrigan, & Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
The Witch’s Pyramid Explained: Morals, Magic, and Personal Alignment
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In this episode of Pagan Coffee Talk, we take a practical look at the Witch’s Pyramid and how shapes real witchcraft. We explore why silence is a form of power, how ethics develop through experience, and why keeping your word is essential for effective magic. You’ll hear real‑world examples of responsibility, restraint, alignment, and the consequences of breaking oaths. If you’re interested in authentic pagan practice, magical ethics, or understanding how the Witch’s Pyramid applies to everyday life, this episode offers grounded insight you can actually use.
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Speaker 2:All right. So here's here's a uh um a core concept of witchcraft. Okay. It's the witch's pyramid.
Speaker 6:Yes. The it's the engine of magic, yes.
Speaker 2:Right. Does it go beyond that? Is my question.
Speaker 6:Yes, it actually does. Uh-huh. All right. Because I again we use this concept to describe a lot of different things. We do, don't we? Right. Again, it is tied to we we tie it to our ethics and morals, we tie it to the way we believe and interact sometimes with the world. And how we actually view things.
Speaker 2:Now here's uh here's some misconceptions, though. Um, it is not self-empowerment rhetoric.
Speaker 6:No, they're tools, they're tasks. Right. They are actual things to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 6:And I don't know how else to say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it it's pretty simple in my opinion. I mean, that pretty much says it all.
Speaker 6:Yeah, they're things to do.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this is uh silence and restraint, because those you know, silence is part of the pyramid. Yes. Is that considered an advanced practice?
Speaker 6:Actually, I I would. Because again, knowing when to keep your mouth shut is more important than when to open it.
Speaker 2:True. And yes, that does that does take some practice.
Speaker 6:All right. Again, uh people tend to run their mouth and get themselves in a whole lot more trouble. It's sometimes easier to just not speak and just listen.
Speaker 2:You know how many times I keep my mouth shut at work? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6:You know, just because you don't like something doesn't necessarily mean that you should voice your opinion on that like or dislike of that subject. Exactly. You know, I'm sorry. He's sitting there in objection to something during the middle of family dinner with all your in-laws and stuff there might not be the best time.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, since you brought that up, why is silence considered a form of power?
Speaker 6:Because it gives the person the ability to not interact. I don't have to take part in this if I don't want to.
Speaker 2:Is that kind of the same thing as I know how to fight, but I'm not gonna?
Speaker 6:Right. To some extent, yeah.
Speaker 2:But how is that how is that power though? How does that how does that speak it?
Speaker 6:You know, well again, it it it it's about the power of restraint. It's easier to let the dog off the off the leash. It's sort of like the seven deadly sins. The reason they're so bad is they're so easy to fall into without realizing it. Okay, so by diving into them, by by taking them, by overindulging for you know gluttony and all this other stuff, it's easy to fall into, it's harder to get out. Right. And then what happens once you got that stink on you?
Speaker 2:True. It's I mean, it's kind of like getting sprayed by a skunk. Right. It's gonna be there for a while.
Speaker 6:There are reactions to every action we do, and then if you don't want that on you, then don't do it. Let's go back to the let's look at the let's look at the uh videos where it's instant karma. If you actually pay attention, it's people doing something stupid. I just mad they're not paying attention.
Speaker 2:I just saw one of those um yesterday, I believe. Some guy was in a big old pickup truck going down the road and uh being obnoxious. Drove by somebody, gave him the bird, and while he was doing that, he hit another vehicle and lost a tire. Not instant karma, just being stupid.
Speaker 6:Just being stupid. I'm more I'm more busy about being angry at that than paying attention to where I'm going. Right. Can cause an accident. I'm sorry, that's not karma, that's stupidity. Right. You know, no offense to anybody, but what what else you want me to say about that?
Speaker 2:Not what you can say, actually. I mean what about um what about ethics emerging, uh not emerging from rules? Well, uh if they don't come from rules, where do they where do they come from?
Speaker 6:Well again, as you gain knowledge about a subject, you're gonna you're gonna learn what to do and what not to do.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 6:There's only so many times you can sit there and play with electricity before it bites you if you don't know what you're doing. And once it bites you, you're not gonna do it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have firsthand experience with that. It only happens once. It only happens once.
Speaker 6:All right, and if it happens bad enough, it will nothing else will ever happen. Exactly. That's sort of my point. By by gaining knowledge, you sort of gain a respect for something and you start to impose ethics and morals there because you realize I do A, B, and C, I get hurt, so I don't do A, B, and C. Yeah. So in a way, you sort of become ethical. Are you with what I'm saying? Yeah. How many times can you, you know, again, put your hand on a hot stove and go, it burns, and then do it again. Right. Like it's gonna change.
Speaker 2:It's not gonna change. It's not gonna change. No, it's still gonna be hot.
Speaker 6:It's still gonna be hot. So yeah, I mean, ethics and morals, I believe, come out of that way. You know, it's just like, you know, hey, you remember high school where you got the two friends that are in love with the same girl. You know, at that age, hey, you do what you normally do, but hey, an older guy comes along going, it ain't worth it. It's not worth ruining a friendship over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then either you listen or you don't. And if you don't, well, you suffer the consequences.
Speaker 6:And again, you can't force people to behave the way you want them to hate. No, uh absolutely not. All right, you cannot, well, how do they say that? You cannot legislate morality. Right. You cannot make a law to force people to be moral uh be moral. It's never gonna happen. No, you can sit there and go, hey, we don't want this to happen, so we're gonna make a law so we discourage it, but it still happens. I mean, that's like murder's illegal, but hey, it still happens.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, you know, you said you're not gonna stop it. Yeah, you're not going to. So all right, well, you know, but since we're talking about ethics and and power and responsibilities, right? Right. Why is it typical that ethics come after power and not before?
Speaker 6:What is somebody without power going to do with ethics? What is that homeless guy that has no power or authority going to do to you about your ethics?
Speaker 2:Well, no, but he could have his own ethics.
Speaker 6:Well, he he could. And he has and he has power over those ethics and what he believes. He doesn't have any authority or over me either.
Speaker 2:No. Well, I guess I guess I'm asking here is which came first, the chicken or the egg.
Speaker 6:Oh, which came first? I believe the ethics came before power.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 6:Yes. And again, we we learned this as a kid. Mob, siblings fighting, quit fighting over the toy, or I'll take it away.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 6:You're learning consequent you're learning consequences to action, which is a moral stance.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 6:All right. Hey, if y'all aren't going to pay together without fighting, you just ain't gonna play together.
Speaker 2:So ethics is ethics is more like the groundwork. It's the it's the foundation.
Speaker 6:It's the foundation on how to behave, on how to interact in the world. Okay, how to move through it without being attacked or looking like an ass sometimes.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 6:Is everybody gonna follow it? No, there's always gonna be that one person.
Speaker 2:There's always one. There's always at least one.
Speaker 6:Not saying that there ain't more, but there's always at least one. Right. So again, I I think morals came first. Again, if we think about it, if we go all the way back to tribal settings, yeah, Ug went out, he brings back two fish, wife cooks two fish, feeds Ug, feeds the kids. Right. Are you with me? Yeah, where's the morality? The morality is each day, Ug has to get up, go get more fish to keep on feeding his family. It's an ethic, it's a moral. I'm doing this to protect what's mine.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 6:All right. Another family comes on. Ugh, you need to give me one of your fish. Why? I gotta feed my family. You go down to the river and you catch your own fish for oh, you don't know how here, I'll teach you.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 6:That that's a different strategy than I think everybody wants to look at morals and ethics as the stick. Instead of and instead of the carrot. It's it's okay. Better part of what in the world's going on here. All right. We all have if we all have ethical and moral and we stick to it, it the world is a better place.
Speaker 2:That is very true. That is very true. I've noticed um I've noticed them among people when they don't seem to have ethics and morals or don't I'm not saying completely lacking, but they don't have a set in stone ethics and morals. They they kind of they gravitate more towards drama. They inner altercations and things like that. And the people with ethic ethics and morals, they can sit down and have those civilized conversations. They can, you know, disagree with people and not wind up in a barroom fight.
Speaker 6:Well, let me explain it to you this way. It's sort of like that whole southern hospitality we were raised with. It's hard to sit there and yell and scream at a person when they're sitting there going, Yes, ma'am, no ma'am, to you.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 6:Oh, yes, ma'am. I completely understand, ma'am. Yes. Thank you very much. I I I appreciate what in the world you think there. I'm sorry, that's hard to sit there and just keep on going.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 6:You know, I I it works on moms too, it works on southern moms too, because they sort of get confused. They're like, no, I this is not what in the world you're supposed to be doing. Right. You're not supposed to be agreeing with me. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I I will take care of that right now. But again, I'm sitting here going, sitting there saying that, but you know, this also the whole witches pyramid also teaches us that to me, teaches us that moral that we have to keep our word. All right, which is a vital sticking point in the way we believe. It is it is a big linchpin for us. That if you sit there and you promise something, you should do it. I'm hell or high water. Absolutely. You don't give that word out frivolously because it needs to mean something. Again, it's kind of like the whole entire argument I've heard, and I hate to go down, where certain words are being used now in the media, and some people are going, you're overusing it and the meeting's dying. Right. I I can understand that. If you sit there and you're always giving your promises and you're always breaking them, why should anything else respond to you?
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. And you know, that's one of the that's one of the first things we teach our students. If you tell me you're gonna call me back in five minutes, I expect a phone call in five minutes.
Speaker 6:But well, because you expect you expect your spells to do the same way. Exactly. You you're expected to speak truth. So how in the world can your spells work if you don't speak truth in reality?
Speaker 2:Right. If we if we believe that we are speaking things into existence, if you're not being truthful, how do you expect that to happen?
Speaker 6:Right. Not following anybody here. If you decide to get, if you decide to, okay, I'm I'm gonna do the whole spell and do the whole servitory thing. And you make that arrangement, hey, I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna sit here and give you energy once a week or once a month or every day. You stick with it. You've made a promise, you've done it with intention. Right. You're actually making an oath to something, and then breaking it is breaking that oath. And breaking that oath, you you're creating harm. All right, you're you're creating a fracture there and you're breaking your word. Right. Why should anything else trust you? Why should your magic work?
Speaker 2:I mean, the the way we're looking at it, it's not going to.
Speaker 6:No. Because you broke something fundamentally inside yourself to bring you out of alignment with everything else going on around you. Alignment out of alignment with the gods, out of alignment with your beliefs, out of out of alignment with your own reality and your own emotions.
Speaker 2:Well, look, and I, you know, I'll I'll give a good example. Well, it's maybe not a good example, but I'll give you an example from my life. I'm a contract worker. I sign a contract, I go somewhere, and I work for 13 weeks. I know a lot of people who are doing the same thing that I'm doing, but on their last day, they call out or they just don't show up. Now, as much as I'd like to get a head start on the road and head back home, I agreed to be there till my end date. Right. So I show up on my end date.
Speaker 6:And if we look at the logic here, you just here, here's the problems you've caused here. Now they're short of person. They were planning on a person, they gave somebody else the day off. Now they don't have anybody. Now they're having to call the person on their day off. Well, why do you always call me on my day off? Because people always keep on laying out or not going on their last day or doing what they said, they're not keeping the word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it it creates a chain effect, and it's um well, and not only that, but I I feel like if I don't hold to that, then back to what you were saying earlier, that's my oath. I signed an agreement.
unknown:Right.
Speaker 2:And if I can't maintain that agreement, how do I expect anything else to work for me?
Speaker 6:Well, then you have a problem because the next step for us is you have to accept responsibility for your actions. Does this mean this organization will never contract you? Oh, look, there's Lord Oswin. No, we're not that no, he called out the last day, we're not giving him that contract.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's quite possible.
Speaker 6:You know, it's kind of like getting a bad rating on Uber. Well, you know, who's gonna come pick you up? Who's gonna Right?
Speaker 2:All right, taking that into consideration, as your capabilities increase, right? Right, how does that increase your responsibilities?
Speaker 6:Because the more you know, the more you're able to do, the more responsible you have to be with it. All right. Moving from first degree to second degree and third degree, you don't get more freedom from things. You get more responsibilities and more refinement in what you do. I do not know too many third degrees that just willy-nilly go around casting spells just for the hell of it. No, I don't either. We've done learnt this does this does nothing but bad things. Right. So again, there's a restraint. We have to restrain ourselves. Power is not something, you're not going to give a gun to a three-year-old. No, you're not. Why should I give power and authority to someone who's going to treat it like a like a toy? I mean, again, this is a responsibility, not just something to do to hang on your wall because, well, it looks pretty.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's not just a decoration.
Speaker 6:No. It's responsibility. It's in certain cultures that do drugs for the rituals, those priests and priestesses rarely become addicts. Right. Because the responsibility of being a priest or a priestess and their and their requirements or the responsibility to the community overrides the need just to be high.
Speaker 2:Well, that, and they also understand that these are only used for specific times. And they're always used under supervision. Well, okay, I can't say I can't say always under supervision because some of them it is a solitary practice, but it's always controlled.
Speaker 6:Right. You know, how good is, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here saying that, you know, I don't drink or whatever, don't occasionally get drunk or whatever. But trust me, when my people call, I try my best to sever myself up as fast as I can. Well, sure. And and have a conversation with them. But how do you do this if I'm blitzed out of my mind? And hey, you know, one of my members, their dog died or their spouse died, or during a wreck, and I need to go to the hospital.
Speaker 3:Right.
unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 6:My responsibility I've accepted is I've told these people, I'm going to be here for y'all. Right. And I can't be there if I'm stoned all the time or high all the time. No, you can't. So again, the higher up you go, the responsibility starts to outweigh the fringe benefits, I guess.
Speaker 2:I guess that's one way to put it, yeah.
Speaker 6:Moving up in the degrees, I do not think actually makes you freer or anything else. It it there's more responsibility. There's more things you have to do.
Speaker 2:Yep, and it's not always fun and guessing.
Speaker 6:No, there's more things you have to think about and all this other stuff.
Speaker 2:So um you've kind of figured out that we're not really discussing specific points of the witches' pyramid.
Speaker 6:No, we're not. But we're talking about them in vague.
Speaker 2:But out of curiosity, which part of the pyramid do you think is the most misunderstood?
Speaker 6:Believe it or not, I believe it's the keeping silent. Why go out on Reddit? Hey, here's my first switch bottle. Here's my first spell, here's this spell. Hold on, I recorded this hub. Where's the silent part?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 6:Where's the part where hey, I'm I want to sit here and do this spell, and I'm gonna make sure it works before I present it to the world. Right. Because again, I I hate to ask this. I'm I'm sitting there and I'm watching you. Well, you did this spell. What was the outcome? Oh, I don't want to talk about it. Oh, in other words, it failed.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6:So why should I come back to you and think your advice out of you can't even get a spell right?
Speaker 2:Well, and then too, if it fails, I know, but I'm gonna say I'm gonna hear me out. If it fails, maybe that's something you should be talking about.
Speaker 5:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Trying to figure out what went wrong, what happened, what could you do differently? That's also where your journals come in place.
Speaker 6:Right. But again, if you're broadcasting it to everybody, you're sort of getting everybody's input before the spell's done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what good is that doing?
Speaker 6:All right. Think about it this way if you're made if you're baking a cake, it's sort of like everybody's coming through and looking at the cake, and when it falls right.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, it happens. Yeah. So, and what else?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, w what else, uh, how else can we uh apply this this concept, this core concept into our lives? And what else can it do for us?
Speaker 6:It's the idea of keeping yourself aligned with what's above and what's below. Right? If you're not in sync with these things, if we're not moving together with all our higher ideals and our lower ideals, they're they're not gonna work. All right. If if you if you think of them as like a chain, and each one of them is a little loop on that chain. If you get rid of one of them, you break the whole system. That's a good idea. Because again, we're still trying trying our best to to move up that chain, to get higher, to become more something better than we are now. We're back to self-improvement. Self-impro again, it's self-improvement. There's nothing or no one, there's no phobia, there's nothing standing in your way but you to move up that chain, to reach for those higher ideals and keep moving.
Speaker 2:Alright. Well, okay. If that's all you have to say, then uh let's go get some coffee. Let's go get some coffee.
Speaker 5:Hey, like, subscribe, share, comment. Leave us a message. Yep. Leave us a message, fan mail, whatever. Yay!
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at Life Temple Seminary.org for more information, as well as links to our social media. Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.
Speaker:We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a steel blazing pyro. And so it is the end of our days, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our days, so walk with me till morning.
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