The world can be a dangerous place. There are many shadey people out there amongst the kind and benevolent. You need to take some percautions in order to be safe. Some will try to hurt you just because your beliefs are different from theirs. We are talking about anything from disappearance to just getting harassing e-mail. Regardless how minor it may be, it is always annoying. There are things we can do to help ourselves stay safe.
The first thing we may need to consider are others in our own home. Some of us are blessed with understanding and accepting families. Many more of us are not. I'm not going to get into whether or not you should come out of the broom closet here. I will assume that for many of you there is a need to hide your beliefs from your family or room mates. If you share a computer and e-mail account this can be tough. If your e-mail address is your name, or part there of, you may also be open to others, that know your e-mail address, finding it posted with other witches. Let us look at some steps that can help you save yourself some heartache.
First pick a name. Most witches have a Craft name that they took upon initiation. Depending on the tradition, some use it in all aspects of the Craft, others only use it in the Circle. If your witch name is one that you use for all aspects of the Craft, then you might as well use it for networking. I will refer to your networking name as your Craft handle. Your Craft name can be the same as your Craft handle. If you use your Craft name only within circles, then very few people will have access to it. You then need to think up a Craft handle. Regardless, use one name from the beginning as a networking name.
You next need an e-mail address. Sites like Hotmail and Yahoo will provide you a free e-mail address. You will access your messages with a password, right on their site. You will also compose your messages there too. They will probably want your real name and home town. This information is secure if you use a reputable site, as is the privacy of the content of your messages. Most of the information you provide is usually used to pick ads to bombard you with while you use this site. This is how the service is paid for. If they require your real name, you might want to use a maiden name, middle name, or some other way of making it less obvious who you are. Read policies of the site carefully, and test e-mail yourself someplace to see the header. Make sure no compromising information appears here.
If you use your computer at work, and only you can decide if this is wise, you may need to take some additional precautions. (You may need to use some of these at home too.) It could be touchy if someone from the MIS department found witch stuff in your computer. I can't go into the details of everyone's setup or which directories contain what, but just know that some of what you do on the net, leaves traces in your computer. Cookies are little files that web sites leave on your hard drive. Most of them are used for harmless things, but sometimes other sites can read them and find out where you've been. Anyone with access to your computer may also be able to discover some of the places you've been by your cookies. Most browsers allow you to set the browser to warn you before accepting cookies. You then have the option of accepting them, or rejecting them. Some sites however, require that a cookie be set to do things like on-line ordering or something. If this is all a bit confusing, you may just want to delete all your cookies everyday before you leave work. You could also do it anytime you are leaving for a while. Just delete all the files in your 'cookie' folder. Also remember that your browser may store 'history' and other temporary internet files that may need to be deleted. The locations of these folders, the details of handling cookies, etc. I leave you to find in the documentation of your browser. I just want you to know that these things exist. I in no way offer this as an exhaustive list of places where things might pop up from past web browsing in your system.
If you are going to post a mailing address in a pagan magazine, periodical, or on the net, get a P.O. box. This will help keep your secret from anyone who might stumble accross your address. It will also keep undesirables from showing up at your door. You don't know who may be reading these ads or postings, or what their intentions may be. One book that has a lot of information on the "how to's" I am talking about here is To Ride a Silver Broomstick by Silver Ravenwolf. She goes into some of this in more detail than I do.
So far we have been setting ourselves up so we can network, yet remain relatively assured that our boss, or others, do not find out about our beliefs. You will eventually correspond with other people of like beliefs. You may both mutually agree that you would like to meet in person. How do you know that it is safe to meet this person? I do it in steps. I first start out by giving my real name. After I get to know someone better, I'll often give them my phone number. After talking on the phone a few times, if we are both up to meeting face to face, we set a time and place. It should be a public place, at least for the first meeting. I like to pick a restaurant in a shopping mall. You can meet out front, there are plenty of people around, and you can chat over lunch or dinner. It is wise to let someone know of your whereabouts and the time you are expected home.
It is a shame that we need to do these things. I know of witches who are school teachers or in the medical field. If their beliefs were to become public knowledge, their jobs or practices could be in jeopardy. There are those who believe we are evil, despite all of our efforts to educate them. Many of us remain in the broom closet because it would just not be safe to let the people around us know the truth. Remember this when dealing with people by mail or on the net. Pay close attention to what they say. If you've been studying the Craft, you should be able to spot a deception. These people will use terms in odd ways, or be inconsistent in their knowledge and usage of things. I was once approached by a reporter that thought a story on witches was just the thing that the local paper needed. They went surfing on the net and found my e-mail address on one of the networking pages. I was local so they thought that they would approach me and meet me in the guise of a fellow witch. By being careful I was able to spot the deception early on, before they got any of my personal information. I would have probably been written up in a local article that would have been something like, "Witches live among us, maybe right next door to you!"
The advice here is just a few things I do. It is in no way placed here as the end all procedures or solutions. If anyone has any additional advice, please e-mail us with it. If it seems sensible, we will include it here and give you credit, only if you want it. Even though we put ourselves before you to provide information, we humbly admit that we learn new things everyday. Blessed Be.