BOOTHBAY — Bob Hackett was initially leery of succumbing to a trance and working with power tools.

“(Even) people who are paying attention lose hands,” he said. “It got to the point it was a trust issue.”

Hackett said his spirit guides pointed out that they hadn’t steered him wrong yet.

Three years later, he has all of his fingers and a growing business.

Hackett, 58, with a long, white ponytail and arms covered in tattoos from his former motorcycle club days, practices shamanic witchcraft. He mentally steps out of the picture as tree spirits step in to move his body in crafting elaborate wands, ceremonial blades and other wooden novelties, he said.

He calls himself a witch. He has heard people say they’d prefer he call himself a shaman or a pagan, but, much like talking about his ability, he believes it is what it is.

He’s a witch. Who can talk to trees.

Hackett is a relative newcomer to shamanic witchcraft. Four years ago, after a lifetime of manual labor — blacksmithing, working at ship and yacht yards, carpentry — he found himself with chronic nerve pain, taking morphine and OxyContin for relief. A doctor told him he was done working with his hands.

“At one point, they had so many different (drugs) running through me I’d have to concentrate to walk,” Hackett said. “It was like I was made of parts.”

He began researching alternative medicine. The take-away after one session with a self-described medicine man: “‘If you keep referring to it as a permanent disability, it will in fact become a permanent disability. If you think about it differently, you’ll put better energy out there.’ It was the one thing that got through the haze.”

Hackett and his wife, Irma, began studying at the Temple of Witchcraft in Salem, N.H. Eventually, he dropped all of the opiates.

“In return, the trees stepped forward for me,” Hackett said.

Before woodworking, he asks for guidance, then meditates into a trance. He said he isn’t sure with his conscious mind what he’ll make or which wood he’ll use.

“I started out with wands; I make rattles,” he said. “Six or eight hours later, I come out of the trance and have something really neat in front of me and have limited memory of the process that brought it here. And I don’t have any pain. For me, that’s one of the definitions of magic.”

His wands are sold at Merkaba Sol in Augusta. A website for the Hacketts’ online business, Ancient Star Herbals, is still under construction, with plans to sell his works from there.

Hackett will teach a class on “Tree Magick” in Durham at the end of the month. Classes started at the spirits’ prodding, he said.

He walks participants through species and properties — oak, for instance, is good to turn to for strength — then leads the group in “tree breathing exercises.” Hackett said he often gets most of the class in a light trance.

“Magick with a ‘k’ is the spiritual end of it,” Hackett said. “It’s a different thing than like David Copperfield or Criss Angel and sleight of hand. Magick with a ‘k’ takes place inside you.”

Hackett communicates with trees by placing his left hand on the bark. When he’s in his backyard, surrounded by woods, he’s able to filter out the chatter. Trees, though, he said, can be “pretty insistent” when they need to get through to him.

He teaches through Leapin’ Lizards in Freeport. Not far from that store, he said, is a white pine upset about its roots being paved over and winter roads’ gnawing salt and sand.

“The tree just started screaming, ‘You’re killing me! You’re killing me! You’re killing me!'” Hackett said. He said he asked the tree to calm down — “I understand you’re a little hectic” — and it recounted an overheard conversation with the property owner who, according to the tree, wants it gone.

“They witness everything,” Hackett said. “They hear everything.”

Weird, Wicked Weird is a monthly feature on the strange, intriguing and unexplained in Maine. Send ideas, photos and everything nice to kskelton@sunjournal.com.

Go and do

Bob Hackett’s “Tree Magick” class

When: May 27, 1 to 4 p.m.

Where: Durham

Cost: $50

FMI: 865-0900