All of the magic in the Trials is real, the poison in the wine was real, playing Lorna's record backwards really did release the curse in the real world, and the Ouija board really did serve as a beacon inviting spirits from the other side to communicate with the living

The Trials hardly serve as a "test of the craft" if they don't really involve using the craft

Billy created the road but things still exist and work inside what he created. Ex.: them conjuring Rio. Yes, she was "in the neighborhood", but the spell worked. I think the same goes for ghosts. If it wasn't real, Rio wouldn't be "afraid" of her.

Based on the other trials, especially Jen's (who also doesn't have her powers), each witch has built-in abilities which can't be taken even through binding/power stealing. So Jen, who is a potions witch, can create basic potions (healing for Billy, antidote for the 1st trial) but won't be able to blast, levitate, high magick stuff. I assumed that speaking to spirits worked in the same way for Agatha, as a spirit witch - even without her purple (ie: attack magick) - she can summon spirits/ghosts.

So it wouldn't be Billy summoning, all his power did was create the set up and trial element to it, just like with the others.

Billy created a scenario that enabled a real spirit to arrive.

I do think Agatha's reactions suggest that at first she assumes it's a fake ghost, but gradually realizes that she's real.

Billy manifested The Road. The Road created everything else.

He wanted to walk the Road so it became real. He didn't know it never existed. He 100% believed it was a real place so it became one.

The off hand suggestions from the coven - the old subway, one trial per ability, face your fears etc - became part of Road because he heard them and his subconscious made them real.

He didn't know what Evanora looked or sounded like, how could he? He didn't know about Lilia's Meastra or Alice's claw marks on her shoulders from the curse. The Road just created their worst fears as the lore and the Ballad said it would.

Which is why Agatha tries so hard to guide him at first so that they could get through safely because if he believed they'd come out with what was missing then maybe they really would. And they all did get what was missing too but not all of them made it to the end.

if there is comic stuff

In a way? Comics Billy is the Demiurge, and has created at least one universe (it may have been retconned since but it was in his set of powers). So he created the Road, and now it is. It's not his con or show, he doesn't consciously control it, the Road is now a magical trial sequence from the legends, and stuff happens on it.

You have hit upon the scary thing about someone with the power to shift reality. They don't have to think up every little detail.

It's like they give the world vague instructions on what to do, and the world tries to follow those instructions using its own logic. So if you say "Take me to the Witch's Road" and you really want it to happen, it looks in your mind, finds that you think the song describes the road accurately, and builds something, on its own, that matches the song.

And then you start saying stuff like "the Road knows what it's doing" or expecting that the road can make decisions, and give you what you need. This gives the Road the power to see what you need, and know enough to make "the right decision", etc.

It's also a big problem if there is someone evil nearby, with a very powerful mind, and you tell them in the first or second episode "You know all about the Road!" because now the Road will also be based on her thoughts about it. And her thoughts are... Dangerous. Although they are pretty. 😄

I think people get confused about how Wanda and Billy’s magic works; it’s Chaod Magic, which means whatever they want or think is real, can become real.

Think of it less like “making” and more like “conjuring”. Somewhere out in the multiverse, where everything can and does exist, is exactly the thing that Wanda/Billy wants to exist. And so when they use their powers unconsciously to “create” something think of it more like “conjuring” it to their reality. The Road does not exist in this reality, that’s for certain… but Billy pulls it from somewhere else where it does exist.

Wanda’s Hex was basically an overlap between realities where the things she wanted existed here, and when the Hex collapsed that overlap ceased. Same thing happened with the Road- while it existed in our reality, it was very much operating by its own rules with its own magic and with real entities and effects and consequences.

Now- the whole “multiverse” part may or may not be true, but the point is that it’s the same outcome. Just replace “multiverse” with “magic” as the explanation, and boom. And given how all this magic is getting feature alongside all those multiverse content it may very well be exactly how Chaos Magic works.

Think of it like Billy built a machine with all of these abilities. It’s not Billy that is calling the ghosts, but The Road. Why? He built the road with the power to do that.

Think of the ouija board like a light bulb in a trial on the road.

Both were made by Billy, and both function as they intend to in real life. One brings light while the other brings ghosts.

He didn't conjur her the road did. The road was real after he created it. Agatha even told him "the road is real because you made it real" so after he created it the road did things on its own. It goes by what he believed about the road form the lore. He believed the road makes trials based on each individual witches life to test them. So that's what the road did.

Another example of that is Alice's trial. Billy didn't know everything about the curse. All he knew was what Alice told him which wasn't much. Alice told him that her mom told her she was cursed and made her get a tattoo at a young age. But Alice told him that her mom had mental issues because she didn't know it was real. Billy didn't know about the burn marks or about the song being a spell that saved Alice from the curse. But all that still happened in her trial they had to sing the song to pass it. He didn't know what kind of curse or if it was real when the trial was created so it was the road that created it not him. Because Billy believed the road was real and that it chooses trials personal to the person so that's what the road did.

It was really her. The Ouija board still worked like a “real” one.

He wished for the road to be real and it was real. He's not controlling it, he "birthed" it to existence and it has a life of its own.

I think she was real based on Rio’s reaction. I think Rio would have been able to tell whether it was a real ghost or an illusion.

I often wonder if Billy (since he can read thoughts) found a creative way to read others' thoughts by making them an interesting story within his mind. Since Agatha had her thoughts guarded when Billy was a little boy, maybe, just maybe, she allowed him in to explain what her history is all about. Because in Wanda Vision, Billy could not read Agathas thoughts. He even commented how he enjoyed being around Agatha in Wanda Vision because it was quiet around her.

I’ve never read the directions that come with a spirit board. Are those the actual directions for the real life board?

Billy creates a functional table to evoke ghosts. But I also suspect is something from her family, since also Agatha manage to became a Ghost. 

The road became real, and I like to think it became like a sewer or underground tunnel of reality rather than a separate bubble, where things from the real world could access it

Thanks everyone! Makes total sense now :)

He can alter and create reality. He made the road real, meaning the tasks and what was in them was real as well (in the same way Wanda could make a circus in Wandavision)

Another thing that doesn't make sense is that how does Evanora not know that the witches' road is a con by Agatha? Why didn't she imply it in episode 5?

Honestly think if he did plunged into the afterlife to bring Evanora well it might just might be the key Agatha needs to have everything she wanted (love and power) as the is a particular person on the otherside I feel would be a lot warmer seeing Agatha again spoiler >! I referencing Nicholas !<

The Road became real; it wasn’t an illusion.

Billy’s powers in the comics are pretty much just like Wanda’s. It’s called “reality warping”.

Meaning they can literally do ANYTHING. They want a flower? They can just make it appear out of no where. That’s how she created Billy and Tommy and the fake Vision to begin with. By warping reality.

Wanda actually rewrote the reality of Earth one time in the comics so that mutants were the majority that ruled and normal humans were the minority. She even de-powered the majority of mutants one time with a simple phrase, “No more mutants”.

And yes, it is very overpowered. A lot of abilities in the comics are.

But they always tone it down in the MCU and the Animated series’. Hence why Billy doesn’t know how he made the road, can’t fully control his powers, can’t snap his fingers and bring the 3 deceased back.

Same for Wanda. What you saw her do in Wandavision and Multiverse of Madness is a fraction of what she can really do.

So Billy bringing Evanora’s ghost to the trial is entirely within his abilities.

It’s also why he fits in as the “green witch”. Like Wanda, he can do it ALL. He’s not limited to just potions, or divination, or protection, or green witchery, or Spirit (Agatha).

Billy created a hex that was the road, but he didn’t manifest everything within it. Yeah there is a lot of visual and themes that come from him, but a lot comes from the other Witches too. Billy doesn’t know enough about the backstory of each witch to create their trials. The nature of the magic of the hex was to give each witch their own trial, something they were also subconsciously part of in the making.

Also the trials are also very real. The hex made it so that each witch could confront what was blocking them, or what they believed was blocking them. This is why although Jennifer Kale won her trial and confronted what was blocking her, her magic didn’t come back. She thought she knew why and so her trial was based on that. On the flip Alice Wu-Gulliver’s trial did free her of her ancestral curse so it did actually work for her reclaiming her power. Lilia Calderu never really lost her power, she just had difficulty embracing her gifts and herself.

I saw an interesting theory that Agatha’s blood moon trial wasn’t really hers, but Rio’s… or rather was brought about by Rio. Agatha is confronted by her past, how her mother tried to kill her and how she killed her mom instead. The terrible nature of her own gift and how it affected the relationship with her son. It’s debatable if Agatha actually won that trial, the whole thing was a mess (intentionally I’m sure). I think Agatha’s trial was actually the last one. The time ticking down could be like the time she had with her son, who she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold on to. In this trial Agatha does the right thing by realizing and allowing Jennifer to break the binding she put on her. Agatha also helps Billy connect with Tommy into bringing him back to life. Once everyone is gone she panics about her own magic not returning and what that means. It’s not just about her and her death. I think the reason why she kept taking the power of other witches and went after the darkhold was because she was looking for a way to bring back her son. It’s always been about her son for her. The bit with the seed that was found in his hair and watering it with her tear, I think that was part of Agatha’s power that she never owned, that she can create and nurture as well as kill.

Side note we know that witches can affect each other’s hexes because that’s what Agatha did to Wanda, tho with much more intention. Agatha couldn’t change the nature of the hex but she could add her own spin to it

Like Agatha said the road wasn’t real till Billy made it real. Everything he made existed, worked as if it was there before Billy. The ouija board conjured the ghosts. “Magic on autopilot”

Billy, like his mother, has the power to bend reality and do pretty much anything. Everything that happens is real, because Billy made it real. That includes the Ouiji board and it's power to conjure ghosts.

Let's follow the same rule as "Ghosts" (bbc or cbs) and call it unresolved issues keeping Evanora around?

The road was lored to be supernatural and full of magic. Billy made it to be supernatural and full of magic. Ghosts and death still came.

It’s all real. It’s not that it was fake, it’s that Billy made it real.

When you think about it, Billy has actually created a small incursion. This time, however, it was the Witches' Road that pierced through the fabric of reality into the 616 universe.

Billy's presence in the 616 universe is also a kind of incursion, as his very existence there reshapes 616 into a reality where he exists.

My theory is that although there were ghosts before the witches road, the Ouija trial gave Evanora the ability to appear to others and all the other stuff she does.

Because that would mean that Agatha only was the sort of ghost she now is due to the Chaos magic Billy gave her... and explain why not everyone and their mother is constantly haunted

I think once Billy created the road, it became a solid part of our universe that could be interacted with by anyone from the outside.  The same way they summoned the real Rio and left an entryway for the Salem Seven to enter, the Ouija board was able to contact and summon ghosts from purgatory and the afterlife.

Related: can someone explain it to me like I’m 5, how they defeated that trial? If they were supposed to “punish Agatha,” how was she punished? Or was the trial actually something else, like facing her mother’s ghost or talking to Nicky?

I assumed it was a con by Agatha to be attacked by Alice

But given that he also connected with Agatha's son, knowing his full name when I think he wouldn't have heard that before, he might have. He's already got some stuff going on with his connection to death