The Journal. - The Witch Economy Is Booming

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

The Etsy witch trend has taken witchcraft into the mainstream. These online witches are making their magical services available to anyone willing to pay for them. Want a job? Or a boyfriend? There’s a spell for that. WSJ’s Chavie Lieber explains why it pays to be a witch. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: -Etsy: Big Commerce or Crafters' Community? -Lady Gaga, Low-Rise Jeans, and the Next Recession   Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My favorite witch, don't we all have one, is probably Hermione from Harry Potter. It's Leviosa, not Leviosa. But there is a witch for every personality. There's the kooky sisters of hocus pocus. I put a spell on you. And now you're my. Or for a more sophisticated listener, how about the three witches

in Shakespeare's Macbeth? Fair is foul and foul is fair hover through the fog and filthy air. For the most part, witches are known to be scary, nightmarish. And this has had some very real consequences throughout history. Tens of thousands of people, mostly women,

have been burned at the stake or otherwise executed for being accused of witchcraft. But today, In this economy, witchcraft is back. It seems like the business of witchcraft is pretty mainstream at this point. I think people are really interested in magic as a whole. My colleague Javi Lieber recently wrote about witches.

And she says that these days, you don't need to go into the deep dark woods or to Hogwarts to find one. Just like everyone else, they're online. They are on Instagram or Shopify or TikTok, but I think Etsy is really the go-to. I hired an Etsy witch and it 100% worked and here is my true story. Yesterday morning at 8 a.m., I paid an Etsy witch. She casted four spells for me. If I could have someone cast a spell to hopefully speed my manifestations and my wishes and my dreams along, I'm here for it. I paid $14 and it was the best $14 I've spent.

Hashtag Etsy witch has become a viral trend. These online witches are making their magical services available to anyone willing to pay for them. Want a boyfriend or a job or a clear sky on your wedding day? There's a spell for that. If you go on to Etsy, you'll just find like thousands and thousands of witches or people who say that they're witches. And they are selling all sorts of like spells, enchantments, good luck, charms, et cetera, for all sorts of prices.

It looks like it's a witch's market. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, October 31st. Coming up on the show, why it pays to be a witch. This episode is brought to you by SAP. From pleasing investors to keeping customers happy, it's your job to make it all happen.

Not to worry. With the AI-powered capabilities of SAP, you can streamline costs, connect with new suppliers, and manage payroll, even when your business is being pulled in different directions, to deliver a quality product at a fairer price while paying your people with their worth too. So your business can stay unfazed. Learn more at SAP.com slash uncertainty. This episode is brought to you by SAP. From pleasing investors to

keeping customers happy, it's your job to make it all happen. Not to worry. With the AI-powered capabilities of SAP, you can streamline costs, connect with new suppliers, and manage payroll, even when your business is being pulled in different directions to deliver a quality product at a fair price while paying your people with their worth, too, so your business can stay unfazed. Learn more at sap.com slash uncertainty.

In thinking about the business of witchcraft, one of my first questions was who is actually paying for these spells? So I talked to Tatiana Fernandez. She's 33, lives in Los Angeles, and works in social media. And for a long time,

like me, was witch curious. I was raising the air of, like, the craft and teen witch and, like, I've always wanted to be a witch. Same. I'm also scared. Everyone's like, whatever you do, comes back to you in threes, and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to do any of it. Well, can you tell us what led you to buy your first spell? I started a job last year in, like, middle of summer, so 2024, and then I got laid off from in March of 2025. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was so confident just because, like, I've always gotten so many replies from, like, any job applications that I put out. Recruiters have always been hitting me up. I've never struggled to get a job ever in my career.

But to her surprise and disappointment, the weeks became months. And still, no jobs were coming through. It was really, it was tough putting out so many applications out there, endlessly fixing my resume. just not getting any replies back. After two months or so, it's like when I started kind of getting really antsy and anxious about it. Yeah.

In this country, we only get unemployment for like X amount of month, so I'm like, the time is ticking for sure. Tatiana was getting desperate. Finally, she thought, why not? She gave in to her witch curiosity and bought a spell, paying a witch $4.95 on the online marketplace at sea.

So I was like, you know what? I've been already praying about it. Like, what would some, you know, a little bit of reinforcement? That wouldn't hurt. And so I was like, you know what? It's $5. I can spare the five bucks. I know I'm broke, but not that broke yet.

Okay. So in your head, you're like, well, why not get a little reinforcement? How did you decide which spell, who to reach out to? Which, which? It's funny because for this, I kind of just like, whatever. I'm just going to go on Etsy and whoever is really winning the SEO ranks here is going get my five bucks. And so like, I think I clicked probably like the first one. And I was like, okay, he's got good reviews. And like, it was specifically a career spell because he had different

offerings at the time. And I was like, all right, let's give it a go. Here's what Tatiana's five bucks got her. First, a message from the witch, saying he had cast an initial career and job success spell for her and that he'd recast it every night for 30 days. He also gave her some homework. He told her to write down on a piece of paper some symbols, which he called a sigil, and to keep it with her at all times. Tatiana did that and slipped the paper into her cell phone case. The witch also told her to get into a meditative state before she fell asleep that first night, which she did while thinking positive things about her job search.

Okay, I can do this. Like, okay, I'm going to have a job. And, like, I'm inviting this opportunity in. And that's exactly what I did that night. reciting affirmations, meditating, positive thinking. These are pretty standard practices in the spellwork marketplace these days. Here's my colleague Javi again. A lot of the people that I interviewed for my story were equating witchcrafts with this concept of manifesting.

You know, you envision a positive outcome or something that you want to happen and then you just like march to it. So you are reciting, you know, these affirmations and you're doing things that's sort of sort of like get you to your goal. The rise of modern witchcraft coincides with a broader cultural interest in tarot, crystals, astrology, or what skeptics might call woo-woo. Chavi says, today's witchcraft is not all about positivity, though. You can also buy curses or hexes, though they're often more expensive. And some witches say they won't dabble in the dark arts for a client for ethical reasons.

But it isn't necessarily the practice of black magic that can get a witch and double double toil and trouble. It's website user policies. Etsy, where a lot of witches set up shop, technically doesn't allow the selling of spells. Etsy has a page of house rules where they say that they don't allow metaphysical services, so they don't allow spellcasting

or something that will advertise a metaphysical outcome, and they specifically list attracting wealth, love, luck, more business, employment, relationship situations. So Etsy says outright that this stuff is not allowed. So how do all these thousands of witches? Yeah. How do they get away with that? Yeah.

So important to note, Etsy declined to comment for my story. But the witches that I spoke to did tell me that they all tell their customers that they can never promise an outcome. So just because you're buying a love spell does not mean you're actually going to get love. Kavi also says that some witches will include a photo or a physical gift when customers buy a spell. They'll get a picture of like candles and crystals and like, you know, sometimes like a little poem.

Even though they're not really paying for the item, they're paying for the spell. If you're not happy with the outcome of your spell, can you get a refund? No refunds, no exchanges. Huh, interesting. However, some witches will offer to recast a spell if the buyer feels like it hasn't worked

after a period of time. How big has this industry gotten? Honestly, it's impossible to tell. Like I said, Etsy doesn't really condone this market, and so they aren't really aggregating data about it. So getting an exact figure on this would be a little bit of magic. And there's certainly a lot of paying customers out there

who want to believe in men. Many of them are Gen Z or millennial women, like the spell buyer we talked to, Tatiana Fernandez. Tatiana says things started to change in her job search after she bought the spell from her witch. Did it work? Oh, yeah. It was wild. It was day and night.

He told me it's like, be patient. It takes about two weeks to kick in. And like literally two weeks after I started getting requests to interview and I was kind of like I have good jobs that I, would like to take if any of these would be like a blessing. And I landed one of them. I actually had to like project the other two kind of like in the middle of the process. Yeah.

What made you feel like it was the spell and not something that you did or even coincidence? I honestly think it was the timing. Yeah. And like the fact that kind of to the tee of like when he told me things would start working, they did. I have nothing but great things to say about it. After the break, Hi, my name is Carissa, and I'm 23. I am a witch.

Welcome to my home. We go to meet a witch. Carissa Perez doesn't live in a gingerbread house in the woods. She lives in an apartment in Fremont, California. And she doesn't own a black cat or a magic wand, but she does have a business card. It says she's a witch. It says Bay Area Witch, Spellwork, Products, Readings, and it has my Instagram name so that people can find me. Carissa says she got into witchcraft because she was close to a pagan family growing up.

But she's mostly a self-made witch. She's been reading spellbooks since high school, and she started her witch business four years ago. It's like basil is really good for luck. Stinging needle, you can use that for cleansing, banishing, roses. Good for love, self-love, things like that. Everything has its purposes. Carissa has another job.

She also works at a pizza restaurant. But she says she can make up to $3,000 a month on witchcraft, and that's helped her afford to live by herself for the first time. Her new apartment is where she practices her spellwork. She gave one of her producers a tour of it. I need to start. This is one of my altars, first altars. I like to have it out here in front of the house.

I do have a bunch of my products here. Carissa has three of what she calls altars in her home, small tables filled with candles, shells, crystals, and herbs. Carissa offers spells for things like sediments. and glamour, reconciliation, and new opportunities. And she charges between $35 and $120 for her spellwork. So for this one, I am using as an example. With the candle, I always like to have the person's name. Carissa sits at one of her altars, where she starts to cast her most in-demand enchantment,

which she calls Under My Spell. It's basically a love spell, meant to make her client more alluring to those around them. We're opening that one up. Just spreading it right on the candle. Perfect. Carissa lights a homemade candle in the shape of a woman's figure, which she douses in oils and herbs.

And what I like to say is now we are in session. Carissa reads off the words of the spell. Their energy flows like water, clear, calm, and irresistible. They are a mirror of beauty and enchantment. Then, she constantly, on the candle's flame. It's just having truly that patience with it and just genuinely being present with it the whole time.

When the candle has burned all the way through, the ritual is over. To end it, I just kind of, like I say, cleanse again and allow the wax to dry up, and then it's complete. Carissa updates her clients to let them know that this spell has been cast. She does not offer refunds. she says her clients keep coming back.

She says she's heard criticisms of witchcraft before, and she's aware that some people call what she does a scam, or even devil's work. Everyone has her own opinions, own religions, and I respect that, and I am open to all of that. But I am a witch, and this is just what I practice, and I've financially blossomed. And, you know, it's funny enough

because that's not, like, the most important thing to me here. It's what I do for my clients. But it definitely has brought me to where I am now, and that's what I'm very grateful of. Still, lots of folks don't think anyone should pay for so-called magic. People who see the rise of online witches is more of a trick than a treat. So I hired a witch, and she was supposed to help with our importility. And, spoiler alert, it didn't work, okay?

If you can order a spell through a website, there's an issue going on. Because I'm abacabra and not impressed. My colleague Havi, like any good reporter, is a bit of a skeptic herself. Do you believe in magic, Havi? Ooh. I'm a religious person, so I don't believe in witchcraft. But, you know, at the same time, like, if somebody wants to put their belief in another being, like, you know, I shouldn't judge. What sticks out to you about, you know, this industry?

and how all of that relates to the economy? Yeah, I think my answer is a little bleak, but I feel like it points to desperation. I think it sort of indicates the moment that we're in in terms of our economy and all of the, you know, current factors that young people are facing. You know, it seems like for a lot of the sources that I talk to, they are trying all of the regular avenues,

and that doesn't work. So if the job market or the dating apps or the rising rents are not working in their favor, then maybe, you know, why not swing the other way and try something just completely abstract? Javi says that a lot of the people buying spells aren't the type to go into a psychic or palm reading store. But the anonymity and convenience of online shopping lowers the barrier to entry. And the magic of technology doesn't hurt either. I think the algorithms are totally responsible for fueling a lot of this. When your favorite influencer is posting on TikTok that they are hiring a witch,

and then you have all these people commenting like, hey, I tried it or like, you know, why not? Then it sort of like fuels the fire and becomes trendy. You've covered a lot of trends in the reporting that you've done over the years. Is this trend going away? Hmm. I feel like it's not going to go away because, you know, right now it's Etsy and like in a couple years who knows what it will be. But like, you know, witchcraft is centuries old. It's always been here. And I feel like it will probably never disappear. That's all for today, Friday, October 31st. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. The show's made by Catherine Brewer, Pia Goodkari, Rachel Humphreys, Isabella Jopal, Sophie Codner, Ryan Knutzen, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Annie Menoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez-Espinoza, Heather Rogers, Pierce, Singer-Singie, Jivica Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zemise, and me, Jessica Mendoza.

Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok, and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by So Wiley, remixed for today's episode by Peter Leonard. Additional music this week from Catherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Billy Libby, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapok, Griffin Tanner, So Wiley, and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact-checking this week by Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening, and happy Halloween. See you on Monday. Thank you.