The Art of Secret Witchcraft: Anonymity

This is the second in a series of articles describing ways to keep one’s magical or spiritual practices private. The first installment can be found here.

When we are planning to create a practice which is completely kept private from the people in our lives, we have to begin by considering how we will create and protect our anonymity. The most significant place where we will need to be proactive about our privacy is the internet. That’s where we can reach out to, and be seen by, people around the world. That’s also where, if we are not careful, we might leave behind more than enough traces of our activity for others to identify what we are doing, what we’re reading and posting, and how we are spending our time.

Fortunately, there are various online tools that will enable us to establish a magical persona that is entirely unconnected from the person who we are in the non-magical parts of our lives. Many of these tools can be accessed for free. This is an important factor for anyone who has to answer to a parent or partner for every expenditure. People who have the ability to spend money without being questioned will also be able to benefit from these tools, and will also have the ability to access options that involve a paid subscription.

Anonymity at School and in the Workplace

If you use a computer at work or at school, be aware that IT departments are always on the alert for signs that someone is misusing the system. School systems’ computers might be monitored via software, and if the school administrators disapprove of a student’s online activity, they could take disciplinary action and/or notify the student’s parents if they are a minor.

Adults must also take care not to attract undesired attention while on the job, because not every workplace situation is safe for people who follow a magical path. More than one person has suffered repercussions in the workplace after one or more colleagues became aware of their practices. This could expose someone to prejudicial treatment including ostracism, loss of opportunities to advance, demotion, and even firing.

Even if the local laws would, theoretically, protect a worker from being discriminated against, unfortunately, employers and coworkers can easily find ways to circumvent those legal protections. They can become hyper-critical the quality of the person’s work (whether criticism is justified or not), start declaring that the person isn’t a team player (even if that’s patently untrue), declare that their target is a bad fit for company culture, start complaining to HR that they are not comfortable in their target’s presence, and so on. Moreover, if someone is trying to keep their magical practice private from the people in their personal lives, being outed at work carries with it the risk that a person from the workplace will out them to their friends and family.

Because of these issues, how you use your work computer matters. Presume that anything you do on a work-related computer is visible to other people, not all of whom will have your best interests at heart, and utilize the device accordingly.

IT departments pay strict attention to the content of any emails that are created. They often use automated processes that will flag keywords, alerting a human to review the message. I know of one person who, in a fit of anger, wrote a scathing, expletive-laden email to a supervisor, then deleted the email without sending it. He was surprised when the words he’d used were enough to have HR summon him for a discussion. He learned that the company’s software examines the contents of draft copies that their email system saves, and it flagged his email as being problematic without his ever having sent anything. He was let off with a warning because he never sent the message; however, he learned his lesson and never wrote another such screed on his workplace’s email system. In short, your safest course of action is to use your work email address only for work-related messaging.

Similarly, IT departments also keep watch over which websites people are visiting. Do not use your work computer to visit any site which could expose you to being outed. Save your personal internet browsing for when you are at home, using your own equipment. In the event that you are not comfortable with browsing certain websites at home, consider using the library or an internet cafe. People who use a shared computer at home, or who are concerned that family or housemates will snoop on their devices, might find this approach to be the safest option.

Anonymity at Home

Once you are on your own time at home or elsewhere, what other things can you do to ensure that your privacy remains intact? For starters, in order to remain anonymous online, you will need to create a brand-new email address, and choose a completely new name to go with it that has no connection to your legal name. With this email address and new name, you can subscribe to social media, discussion groups, mailing lists, and so on, and never have to worry that someone who is snooping will spot a suspicious missive in your regular inbox.

In order to add an extra layer of email security, if you find it necessary, there are anonymizing email services that will give you an anonymous email address to use. This will then forward the emails to your real secret address, meaning that you will not have to give out the new private address to anyone if you so choose. One such service that is available at this writing is addy.io, formerly known as Anonaddy. I like the fact that they offer both a free tier and paid subscription plans. Their service, or one like it, will enable you to use your newly created secret email address without having to actually share that address anywhere, such that it might start to appear in things like online searches. In the event that you need to make a quick change, you will be able to retire an anonymous address and create a new one, without disturbing the contents of your actual magic-related private address.

Creating a new social media presence will allow you to subscribe to various groups, pages, and content creators, without your non-magical loved ones spotting any of this activity among your public persona’s interests or on your friends list.

I would advise downloading a completely separate, and preferably lesser-known, browser for this task. Use only that browser to access social media, shopping sites, and so on with your alter-ego identity. In this way, none of the sites that you visit, purchases that you make, or searches that you perform, will ever appear in the browser(s) that you use in your everyday online life. There are now several browsers that were designed specifically to preserve the user’s online privacy. At the time of this writing, options include Brave, DuckDuckGo, Tor, Wave, and others.

Do not make it easy for others to find the icon for this browser on your computer. Doing things like pinning it to the taskbar, or leaving it visible on the desktop, will alert anyone who looks over your shoulder that this is something you frequently use, and it could inspire curiosity. Instead, put the icon in a folder or somewhere on the computer that won’t make its presence immediately obvious.

If you decide you’d like to take extra steps for security purposes, set the browser to delete cookies, cache, and history every time you close the browser, and do not save your login info for any sites that could prove troublesome if discovered. Having to type a user ID and password every time is a small price to pay for maintaining peace of mind.

If you shop online with your metaphysical persona’s browser, do so only with the private or incognito browsing turned on. Cookies that get stored when we browse and shop are used by online ads in order to serve us targeted advertisements for similar products. You do not want to have someone looking over your shoulder when there are witchy ads all over your computer screen. Incognito browsing prevents this kind of tracking, which in turn can prevent unwanted targeted ads from appearing onscreen at inopportune times.

Many people who enter into the magic world also choose a magical name. Should you decide to go this route, you will be able to utilize this name exclusively when you post online. One of the reasons behind using magical noms de plume (or noms de guerre, if you prefer) was likely the need for people to remain anonymous in places where practicing magic and witchcraft was outlawed. It was safer for everyone to practice if they only knew and addressed one another by pseudonyms.

Keep your magical identity entirely separated from your regular persona. Do not friend your two personae on any social media sites where you have accounts for both. In fact, I would recommend that when you create a magical presence on social media, you should go one step farther and block anyone from Real Life who might cause trouble if they discovered your interests. They’ll never know that they’ve been blocked by an account they have no idea exists, and you will have placed one more layer of security between them and your private online usage.

If you are able to obtain a privacy screen for your computer or phone, do that. If you live in a home with other people who would disapprove, this will make it harder for them to spot what’s on your screen if they glance in your direction while you are online. Since many privacy screens also tout the benefit of reducing glare and exposure to blue light frequencies, that could be a viable explanation for purchasing one for your computer or phone.

If you have discovered that you enjoy watching videos or listening to podcasts about magical topics, then headphones will definitely be your friend. No one but you needs to hear the content that you are consuming. I recommend wearing them even when you are not listening to content that you would prefer to keep private. If you wear headphones often enough, it will not attract attention during those times when you are listening to something others might find problematic.

In order to make the most successful use of the tools listed here, it is wise to keep privacy ever at the forefront of your mind, even before you begin the steps that will allow you to create your new, magical self. Doing so will increase your opportunity to learn, interact, and practice in safety.

Go out and safely Know, Dare, Will, and Be Silent.