A burgeoning market in witchcraft aimed mostly at teen-aged girls and young women is operating under the radar.
Well, not completely. Nearly all bookstores devote shelf after shelf to black and white magic, the occult, pagan rites, sorcery and other witchy stuff.
Movies and TV have long featured such themes. But the real action is now online.
“Witchtok,” a part of TikTok, features self-professed “witches” who are paid to cast spells on people, such as romantic rivals, uncooperative boyfriends or annoying teachers or bosses. The spell buyer’s motive could be anything from unrequited love to a new job, a good test score or some sort of revenge.
These sites have attracted more than 30 billion views, according to a Washington Post article, which also said that 30 million posts on Instagram have the “witch” or “witchcraft” tags.
Etsy, the online marketplace for crafts and vintage fare, is doing a booming business in witchcraft customers, the Wall Street Journal reported last Wednesday.
One witch in Columbia, S.C., said she averages 15 spells a week, charging from $35 to $250 for each one. An online shop “has over 4,000 sales on Etsy and 4.9 stars and sells a permanent protection spell for about $200.” Another shop offers a “bring your ex lover back” spell for $7.
Overall, the witchcraft retail industry is worth more than $2 billion, according to the Post.
“Witch kits are sold by large companies and in stores – something unheard of when I began my research in 1986,” wrote Helen A. Berger, an expert in contemporary witchcraft with a doctorate in sociology from New York University, in an article for the AP in 2023.
“Witches, Wiccans and other contemporary Pagans see divinity in trees, streams, plants and animals,” she explained. “Most Pagans view the Earth as the Goddess, with a body that humans must care for, and from which they gain emotional, spiritual and physical sustenance.”
This sort of error was cited 2,000 years ago in Romans 1:25: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”
Modern-day fascination with pagan mysticism has been around for several decades, spurred by Hollywood, the Harry Potter franchise, the Twilight vampire series, Buffy, Charmed and other popular portrayals.
It’s also been a subtheme of the feminist movement, sold as empowerment. In fact, that’s the whole idea behind pursuing magic: acquiring power.
An early version of this is found in Genesis 3:5 in which the serpent lures Eve into disobeying God with the promise that “your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
If you don’t believe that evil is a very real force or that a mighty battle is underway for men’s souls, this might seem like a sideshow at most. The unseen spiritual realm is either of no importance whatever or it is profoundly important, depending on whether it’s real.
If so, it has earthly and eternal implications. An old cartoon in the New Yorker showed a church with a sign out front that says, “Important if true.”
There is a growing impatience with Christians for getting in the way of what passes for “progress.” It’s why parents with traditional religious values are told to stay away from influencing public schools if they know what’s good for them. It’s why people praying outside abortion clinics are arrested while “mostly peaceful” rioters are celebrated.
Linda Harvey, who wrote the book “Not My Child: Contemporary Paganism & the New Spirituality,” has warned parents that teens’ growing obsession with magic and witchcraft is not kids’ stuff. It can lead to estrangement, depression, sexual experimentation, drug abuse and exploitation.
Kids who live in broken families or who suffer abuse are the ones most vulnerable to the lure of something – anything – that will give them more control.
“American children are the most privileged ever in the history of humanity, yet terribly troubled,” Ms. Harvey wrote. “Could some of these issues result from dining on the daily bread of spiritual confusion? Children are learning to welcome and embrace the darkness.”
Taylor Alesia, a Christian blogger who goes by the handle of @thebiblechick, has uploaded a series of videos directed at her fellow Gen Zers showing witches’ sites where girls are buying spells to manipulate other people. She also provides copious evidence of rap artists and other celebrities engaging in occultic practices.
As an antidote to all this, she shares Bible verses and gives the good news of the Gospel.
As for magic in the larger sense, it’s part of the miracle of life, a gift from God. It’s the wonder we experience upon seeing a beautiful sunset or hearing a baby’s laugh.
In “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” C.S. Lewis’ Christ figure, the great lion Aslan, calls out the main villain over her boast about mastering magic. It’s a bit like Jesus rebuking the devil for having the gall to miscite Scripture as a way to tempt him in the desert (Matthew 4:10.)
Lewis makes the important distinction between the real, limitless magic of God’s handiwork and occultic attempts to abuse it:
“Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch,” Aslan says. “I was there when it was written.”
This column was first published at the Washington Times.