Research and sources is something of the most important in witchcraft, but sometimes it's difficult to find out what to read. First hint is to cross reference, read more than 2 sources and compare it. It doesn't matter if you would choose to do books, podcasts, or websites, but there are some green and red flags in all of them.
My personal favorite is old books for information and modern books for decolonizing my craft. Some of the old books were written while some countries still were colonizing the native or indigenous people, and therefore some of these books suggest the use of white sage, palo santo and other closed or endangered plants, and use the terms black and white magic, which is a racist term that should not be used anymore. These things I wouldn't know unless I had read modern books that told about these.
Now a bit what's the green and red flags in sources?
First the green ones;
-They include the history and origin of the topic
-Open to different beliefs
-If blogs, podcasts and even some books and websites, include the sources they used, if any
-Especially blogs, if the author is honest about mistakes
-If it is a recommended source by more than one group of practitioners, with this I mean don't just ask one coven/server/group of any sort but ask more if anyone read it and would recommend it
The red flags;
-Writing things that only belong in a fantasy world (things like literally being invisible is not possible, however, there is spells to not be seen that easily, to blend in)
-If the author through multiple books or blogs have gotten corrected on closed practice and never apologize and actually fix their problems. Now, alot of authors of books never gets better but bloggers, website makers and others that can't "hide" themselves as easily can't just ignore this.
-Listening to witches that only learn from tiktok, discord, wattpad etc. It's some great sources but a lot is also filled with personal experience or has a lot of misinformation
You might see I wrote blogs a few times, and yes, some are okay. However I still don't recommend them as the first sources to read. They are best if you want to hear others opinions and beliefs, get insight and inspiration from others practices. Still there might be some straight up misinformation, but I have good experiences with some of them, as long as you remember to not trust everything blindly and think a bit critical. A lot of these bloggers also do proper research and are serious about their craft, but that doesn't mean they should be your only source, the more knowledge you get, the better!
