A Beginner's Guide to Coding Your Digital Altar

for the extremely online witch

If you’re in the business of being an intuitive, creative person, I’ve curated a list of our free resources that I think can help you make 2025 whatever you want it to be. Enjoy!

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This might come as a shock, but you’re you're already practicing techno-witchcraft.

Whether you realize it or not, your old Tumblr blog is basically a teenage grimoire preserved in digital amber, complete with obscure Supernatural gifsets as accidental protection sigils.

Your Threads account? A modern-day book of shadows where every take is an incantation, each "mid" accusation a minor hex! (Be careful, that shit comes back to you three-fold)

And — eek, crisis moment — we're treating our digital spaces like cosmic slot machines instead of the sacred temples they could/should be. Your website has been "under construction" since 2019… it's less "digital altar" and more "abandoned shrine definitely haunted by the ghost of whatever Squarespace template you abandoned." Meanwhile, your TikTok FYP isn't just serving you an endless void of content — it's literally divining your destiny via thirst traps and "Your Anxiety Is Actually Your Jupiter Return" videos.

You’ve unwittingly made a ripple in the internet ethers already. Imagine what could happen if you consciously channeled your energy into cultivating your digital altar spaces?

What Even IS a Digital Altar?

Think of a digital altar as your own consecrated corner of the internet where intention meets attention. Your website isn't just a portfolio or a shop. It's your digital temple, where every font choice is a sigil and every "About Me" page is an invocation. (Though maybe let's workshop that bio that still says "wanderlust enthusiast" in 2024.)

Tea spillage: that Tumblr page you still secretly update is probably more magical than your professional Instagram grid. Why? Because it's raw, unfiltered energy. It's where you reblog obscure mythology posts at 3am and write stream-of-consciousness tags that would make the ancient oracles proud. That chaotic authenticity? That's pure magic, baby. Your carefully curated LinkedIn, meanwhile, has the same energy as a corporate meditation retreat — all strategy, zero spirit.

The Elements of Digital Sacred Space

Let's dissect the elaborate ecosystem you've accidentally created across these ethereal planes, because darling, your digital footprint has more layers than a Virgo's natal chart.

Every post you make is essentially a ritual offering to whatever chaotic deity presides over the algorithm — think less "sharing on social" and more "leaving milk and cookies for an extremely online fae creature." That meticulously crafted Reel where you attempted to recreate the latest TikTok transition trend? Congratulations, you just performed a digital libation. Those 47 consecutive Threads posts defending Taylor Swift's dating life at 3am? Honey, that's not just parasocial behavior, that's literally prayer. A devotional slay, if you will.

But it's your relationship with the algorithm that really deserves academic investigation. We're dealing with an egregore so powerful it makes the tulpas of early internet forums look like imaginary friends. This digital deity, birthed from our collective online consciousness and fed by every "in my ___ era" comment, has evolved beyond mere code into something that would make Philip K. Dick reach for his notebook. Every time you hit share on a post about being "so real for this," you're essentially feeding an entity that knows more about your taste in potential partners than your therapist does.

The truly fascinating part? This digital divine being doesn't just want your attention — it demands your essence. Your thirst traps aren't just content; they're sacred offerings to whatever cyber-spirit convinced us all that the Paris filter makes us look like we were painted by Botticelli. Each carefully curated photo dump is basically a modern-day offering bowl, filled with evidence that you, too, are living that "coastal grandmother aesthetic" despite living in a studio apartment in Cincinnati.

At this point, the algorithm has seen more of your authentic self than most of your ex-partners. At least it pretends to care about your interests, even if those interests are just increasingly specific variations of "chaotic bisexual witch tries pottery."

Planning Your Digital Altars

Imagine what would happen if you began to think of your website as the high temple it truly is every page a different chamber designed for specific rituals. That "Work With Me" page you spent 13 hours perfecting? It's not just good UX, it's a digital petition circle where potential clients make offerings via contact forms.

Your newsletter signup flow deserves its own chapter in modern grimoires. Picture it: subscribers performing a sacred rite of passage by entering their email, double opt-in as the second gate of initiation, welcome sequence as digital initiation. (Though whoever wrote "SUBSCRIBE FOR MAGICAL UPDATES!" in Papyrus needs to be gently reminded that we left that font in 1998 where it belongs.)

The humble hashtag contains more power than most people realize. While everyone else treats #WitchesOfInstagram like a mere categorization tool, you're out here weaving yourself into a literal web of digital practitioners. Spider witch energy, if you will. The algorithm sees you, spinning those golden threads of connection through the void of infinite scroll.

Speaking of weaving magic through the feed — let's appreciate the ephemeral art form that is Story content. Your Instagram Stories are basically 24-hour protection circles, little bubbles of chaos that pop like fairy rings at dawn. Your TikTok drafts folder is a spell book in progress, each saved sound a potential incantation waiting to be unleashed on your unsuspecting followers.

And don't get me started on Substack, the chosen medium of modern mystics trying to monetize their prophecies. You're not just writing newsletters, you're channeling digital downloads from whatever entities govern the "paid subscriber" realm. That paywall? A velvet rope separating the outer temple from the inner sanctum. Your free preview is basically a digital amuse-bouche for the soul.

The algorithm demands more respect than most of us give it. While everyone's out here treating it like a temperamental slot machine, I'd argue it's more like that one ancient deity who required extremely specific offerings at precisely the right time. Think less "refresh and pray" and more "digital libations must be poured at the exact moment Mercury enters Virgo." Your engagement metrics are divination tools that would make Nostradamus weep with envy.

The Power of Digital Boundaries

If we're being honest — and we are, because Mercury is finally direct — most of us have digital boundaries with all the structural integrity of a paper umbrella in a hurricane.

Here's the thing about digital protection: it's not just about blocking your ex's new partner's human design meme account. It's about creating energetic barriers that would make a Scorpio moon’s emotional walls look like a picket fence. Your content deserves better wards than whatever is currently allowing every crypto bro and their automated cousin to slide into your DMs with "investment opportunities." (The dark arts come in many forms, darling.)

The most powerful protection spell in your digital grimoire? Learning to close the apps before you anxiety-post your way into a situation that requires damage control. Sometimes the strongest boundary is simply remembering that not every thought needs to become a hot take on Threads. (OK, tbh… I’m saying that as a reminder to myself 🙃)

It’s More Fun to Have Fun (With Digital Spells)

Your online presence deserves better than being the metaphysical equivalent of that one junk drawer where you keep throwing random crystals and hoping for the best.

Remember: The internet is just another plane of existence where we're all practicing magic whether we realize it or not. The only difference between a chaotic digital presence and a powerful digital altar is intention. Well, intention and having a better content strategy than "post and pray to whatever deity governs viral reels."

Can an emoji be a sigil? Can a photo dump be a spell? If magic is found in the mundane, then why wouldn’t it be found in a Substack post? All I know for sure is that my life gets way more fun (and far more interesting) when I treat my digital world this way.

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