Witchy Woman: High Priestess Alura Rose of Milton is the real deal

HAPPY IN NATURE'S REALM: High Priestess Alura Rose tosses leaves in the air in the back yard of her Milton home. (Rochester Voice photos)

MILTON - Is Alura Rose of Milton a "good witch?"

"I like to think so," she retorts with a smirk.

Rose, a high priestess, tarot card reader and Magickal Artist, says she knew she wanted to be a witch at the age of six.

"My family would ask what do you want to be when you grow up and I said a witch," she laughs. "You can imagine how that went over in a Roman Catholic family."

Rose who exudes joy in her witchdom, defines her calling's mantra as being "all about nature."

BEWITCHING ATTRACTION: When Alura Rose saw these dolls within a stone wall in the back yard the first time she toured the property, it only convinced her more this was the house for her.

"We're healers and caretakers of nature," she said. "It's all about earth, taking care of Mother Earth."

Rose said she used Mother Earth to cast a spell that got her the house she wanted on Depot Pond Road in Milton.

"I took some dirt from the ground of the property and put it in a candle - sprinkled it in - then I took care of if for seven days till it burned down," she said proudly. "That was my spell. And I got the house. And that spell was published in a book by another witch."

She said witches - at least good witches - never cast spells on people they don't know or negative spells on anybody due to the three-fold, 10-fold principle they live by.

THE GOOD WITCH: Alura Rose says an authentic witch would never cast an evil spell.

"If I do a negative spell on you, it's going to come back on me threefold, or even tenfold," Rose explains. "Why would I want that!"

She said if you listened to the verbiage and the tone of spells she does cast, "it sounds a lot like prayer in a church. It's about love and good intentions. Spells are like prayers, our rituals are very similar, it's my spirituality."

While she said growing up she knew she wanted to be a witch, she didn't really grow her knowledge till she joined a coven in the 1990s.

A coven is a group of eight to 13 witches who gather and learn as a collective, she expalined.

She said what some might call the supernatural has been a part of her life story.

"When I was younger I could hear voices, see things," she said. "In my 20s I moved to an old farmhouse in Essex, Vermont. It was a part of the underground railroad before the Civil War. There was a lot of (supernatural) activity there.

"So I'm very scared of mice, I mean very. So I went down in the basement of the farmhouse to do laundry and there was one dead in a trap. I turned around and rushed back upstairs terrified. Then I waited and said be brave. I went down and the trap and mouse were both gone. Just gone."

She said she later moved to South Hampton along lay lines, and it was very marshy.

Lay lines are theorized by many in the occult community to crisscross around the globe, like latitudinal and longitudinal lines, that are dotted with monuments and natural landforms, and carry along with them rivers of supernatural energy.

Rose said she felt a lot of activity while living in South Hampton.

"I would feel lots of things," she said. "One night I was sleeping and felt a presence lay down on my bed. I thought, well, that's weird, but then it got on top of me, that's when I got freaked out. I tried to scream, but I couldn't. I had forgotten that I was a witch I was so scared. Then I remembered all I had to do was tell it to go away. So I did and it got off me.

"Then I turned and looked at it. It was the father of one of my friends (the father had passed) that he had refused to talk to (while alive). I recognized him because I had seen his pictures at my friend's house."

She said she later told her friend about seeing his dad.

"He wanted me to ask him what he wanted, and I said that's not how it works," Rose said.

The next time she saw the apparition of the man's dead father she produced the names of both him and the friend's mother, indicating she knew who he was.

"That seemed to appease him," she said.

Asked if her craft has changed over the years, she grimaces.

"Well a lot of the tools we use in our rituals are now being made out of resin," she said. "Plastic!"

"We're all about nature, then they start making the stuff we use out of plastic. And it ends up in the landfill!"

Besides doing tarot card readings at her Depot Pond Road home, Rose also practices reiki, does life coaching and works at a metaphysical shop in Peabody, Mass.

She formerly worked at a metaphysical shop in Salem, Mass., where she became friends with Laurie Cabot, 89, America's most renowned high priestess and occultist.

Rose also serves as the Southern New Hampshire Pagan Pride Coordinator.

Rose has a website that offers a cornucopia of witchy-type stuff, including amulets, charms, candles, dolls and puppets. For more info click here.