I'm new to witchcraft. Where should I be

Start with tarot — it's the easiest entry point, needs nothing but a question, and it teaches you the grammar the other systems reuse.

Where to begin

1. Learn the parts, not the meanings. 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana (big life themes) plus 56 Minor (four suits — Cups, Wands, Swords, Pentacles — for feelings, drive, thought, money/body). Don't memorize dictionary entries yet.

2. Pick one beginner deck. Rider–Waite style is the standard teaching deck because its images are the clearest. Look at the pictures before you read about the cards.

3. Learn one spread. Three cards — situation / action / attention — is enough for months.

4. Learn to narrate. Color, posture, distance, what's happening in the frame. This is the actual skill; the meanings are just vocabulary.

5. Then, and only then, pull for yourself.

A word on the wider map

"Witchcraft" is a whole shelf, not one practice. What each one answers:

• Tarot — your situation right now, as reflection. Question in, spread out.
• Zi Wei Dou Shu — the shape of a life across palaces and stars. Needs date *and* hour.
• Qi Men Dun Jia — timing and direction for one specific decision, at one specific moment. Needs the hour and place.
• I Ching / numerology — structure and cycles from a date.
• Western or Vedic astrology — birth chart. Needs precise birth time.

Four of those need your birth hour, and two of them can't be cast at all here — that's a limit of what I can do, not of the practice.

I'd suggest Qi Men Dun Jia or numerology instead of tarot if what draws you is timing rather than self-reflection; just say which and we'll go there.