- Modern
witches are part of a vibrant subculture that has seen a recent growth in popularity. - Contemporary witchcraft is a pagan spiritual belief system venerating nature and observing seasonal festivals.
- Insider spoke with a number of practicing witches about how they are shifting their spiritual practices during the pandemic.
- Witches are holding their meetings via
Zoom and other online platforms. - They are part of a unique economy and are finding creative solutions for keeping their businesses operating.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Modern witchcraft is a vibrant subculture that has undergone a highly-visible renaissance in recent years, exploding across social media, redefining concepts of self-care, and contributing to a robust economy of the occult. Modern witches view nature as sacred, see deity as a diversified concept (gods and goddesses), believe in the practice of various forms of magic (defined by English poet and occultist Aleister Crowley as "the art of transforming reality in accordance with will"), participate in seasonal and lunar rituals, and engage with divination systems like astrology, tarot, the "I Ching," and runes, to try to gain insight about life's challenges.
While witches have plenty of options for quarantine entertainment, from the "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" to "Charmed", some have come up with creative solutions allowing for continued magic and ritual practice with their covens. Such engagement, not unlike a church or synagogue service for followers of Judeo-Christian religions, is part of the expression and socializing so important to spiritual communities.
Pat C. and Paul B. who own and operate Artes and Craft, a brick and mortar witchcraft shop in Hartford, Michigan, held an online ritual for the Spring Equinox (witches call it Ostara). "We chose Facebook Live because people can view the session after the fact. Our Spring Equinox ritual had over 4,000 views with many local folks attending." The Order of Ganymede, a group of covens based in Boston, has been using GoToMeeting for video conferencing with members using a creative mélange of connection options: iPad, laptop, smartphone, and regular dial-in phone participation. "It has a great 'record' feature for a replay of the ritual for others, since we all know that time doesn't matter on the inner planes," says coven member Steve W. aka Delios, referencing the realm of dreams and what modern witches believe is the liminal space between life and death: like the concept of the fairy realm or the Otherworld in Celtic
Ally L., an artist and witch in upstate New York, says her group is holding sabbats (another word for coven meetings) via Zoom. "We each take turns reading things we've found in books we've hung onto for far too long without reading," she said. Like folks learning new instruments or perfecting their baking skills, the pandemic is inspiring witches to use their downtime productively, with many studying and working to gain new skills.
Like college professors and other educators, witches are using technology for teaching, too.
"Cooped up in their homes or on the front lines of the pandemic, folks are yearning for learning and a sense of connection," says Lauren O'Leary, aka Madame Onça, creator of the World Spirit Tarot. O'Leary, a teacher, artist and tarot reader, designed the deck with colorful woodcut illustrations, updating older versions of tarot imagery with greater diversity of race and gender expression. She normally teaches tarot classes in person, but recently started offering weekly classes called "Kitchen Witchy Tarot" via Zoom.
Every week there is a different topic focus, on the week I phoned in, we discussed a handful of "scary" cards, including Death, the Devil, the Wheel of Fortune, the Hanged Man, and the Tower. They're only "scary," Madame Onça explains, because popular culture portrayals of these cards imply dramatic outcomes; what she calls the "Hollywood gasp" that occurs when a character sees one of these cards in a movie. "The Death card means transformation," she reassures the dozen or so attendees (who represent a diverse mix of ages, ethnicities and levels of experience) "leaving old ideas or methods behind, discovering what hasn't been working and reinventing your path."
Students can pay for the class with sliding scale donation via Paypal: flexible pricing means more folks can participate. Like many other freelancers at the moment, O'Leary must pivot to online business practices. "In my face to face classes, I strive to remove the stigma around tarot by being warm and accessible, and to lower barriers to learning by being down to earth, frank and (hopefully) funny," she says. "Taking all that onto a digital platform, in a hurry, has required I adapt, adding a layer of technology, and learning to function simultaneously as teacher, intuitive, and techie. I've always been more of a folksy analog witch, so it's been a strange brew for me, but the response has been fantastic."
Many witches are turning to digital platforms to continue connecting with audiences.
Pam Grossman, a New York witch and author of "Waking the Witch," is collaborating with poet and Boston-based ritual performance artist Janaka Stucky, offering digital versions of their classes on occult writing. Recently Grossman interviewed Lisa Marie Basile, author of "Light Magic for Dark Times" and editor of Luna Luna Magazine, on her podcast The Witch Wave. She told Insider, "I've been practicing ritual journaling to cope with stress and anxiety" during the pandemic quarantine. "I set up a sacred environment (lights, sounds, fabrics) and simply write. I often let myself follow a train of thought down to its core. You'd be surprised what self-honesty can do for the spirit." She's held some Zoom gatherings with Luna Luna authors, sharing music, poetry, and ritual ideas.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, witches engage with the economy in unique ways, and the current economic slowdown during the pandemic is affecting their livelihoods just as it is other retail and service industries. Authors and teachers can engage online fairly easily, but retail shop owners face different challenges. Jenn F., owner of Raven Moon's Oracle in Dubois, Pennsylvania, had to close her shop (which sells a wide array of products from candles, incense, and herbs, to crystals, jewelry, tarot decks, and books) temporarily because it is deemed a "non-life sustaining" business." But she is still doing online orders and shipping to customers.
Jacqui A., owner of The Cauldron Black in Salem, Massachusetts, has found the financial struggle to be challenging, "but this experience hasn't been complete doom and gloom. I've seen a major uptick in online service bookings for psychic readings, and our online class attendance has hit record numbers." Salem, known for its association with the Salem Witch Trials (though the actual location was Salem Village now known as Danvers), is a popular tourist destination, particularly in October, known as "Haunted Happenings." It's hard to say if this multi-million dollar economic juggernaut will be open for business by the autumn.
Witches who focus on healing, activism, and community engagement are working to help others weather this difficult time.
Witches also perform rites for social justice, as seen with the "Bind Trump" movement, that began in 2017, aiming to "bind Donald Trump and all those who abet him" through a ritual spell "performed at midnight on every waning crescent moon until he is removed from office. Byron Ballard, author and "Village Witch" of Asheville, North Carolina, has referred to the difficulties of recent years as "Tower Time" (the Tower card of the tarot means destruction and comeuppance). She performs a Prayer for the Dead at sundown each day, made even more poignant for her by the fact that funerals and traditional burials are not feasible at this time.
Matthew Paolucci, professor of psychology at Sonoma State University, shared his thoughts about the ritual meditation he's been doing, aimed at benefiting the global community at large: "My work is elemental and aimed at connection. For air, I ask scientists to bring clarity and evidence based truth, and for us to listen. For fire, I ask for hope, and the steadfast hearth fire to keep us safe at home. To water, I ask for tears. To the earth, I ask for a ground of sanity for us to walk upon."
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