practices as diverse as integrating natural, sustainable ingredients and the medicinal properties of herbs into personal diets and celebrating nature and its cycles, to more collective actions like raising awareness of global warming, and casting spells for protecting conservation efforts. Magic also intersects closely with personal empowerment and individuals’ entrepreneurial goals, as reflected by the popularity of manifestation. Based on a kind of “magical voluntarism”, manifestation dominates much of the WitchTok activities online and promotes the idea that as a witch, you can manifest your goals. Through practising affirmationinspired “spellcasting” – whether around money, love, relationships, selfcare, or career goals – manifestation reflects and reinforces an ethos of selfconfidence and thinking that it is within every witch’s power to become and to achieve anything they want to. The hashtag #moneyspell has upwards of 223 million views. A MARKET HISTORY To get a handle on the resurgence of witchcraft today, it is important to turn the dial back a few centuries to see where the practice first intersected with markets and consumer culture. During the early modern period (15th to early 18th centuries), witches were perceived as evil seductresses, leading to judicial prejudice and spirited witch hunts. Although early modernity is characterised by the introduction of the printing press, intercontinental trade, and the increasing emphasis of rationalism in business, commerce, medicine, and politics so necessary for liberal society, this period was also a time of patriarchal and industrial domination of women. The witch became a source of moral panic, a social archetype to suppress women’s influence over commerce and land, police their reproductive function in society, and legitimise male-centred systems of exploitation. One of the ways women were restricted to the nuclear family, excluded from the waged-workplace, and made economically dependent to men was through a popular culture that portrayed witches as sexually licentious and fiercely disobedient women in league with the Devil. The social reproduction of witches as promiscuous and unruly devilworshippers was achieved through anti-witch pamphlets, fine art, and pornified woodcuts, creating a flourishing market demand for witch erotica. Although more recent centuries saw the dissolution of cruel laws that legitimise belief in and violence against witches, the idea of the witch remained a compelling figure for popular culture. Whether as a seductive aesthetic category that exotic dancers of the early 20th century could tap into for their personal brands, or as a symbol of female rebellion to protest the patriarchal military-industrial complex, the witch has remained drawn upon for various purposes. The advent of British Wicca and goddess spirituality throughout the 1950s and 1960s carried a remarkable influence on the marketisation of witchcraft. Later in the 20th century, the commercialisation of the witch intensified through the proliferation of new, alternative media and music. By the 1990s the witch became more benevolent and glamorous with the likes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Buffy, The Craft, and other media. MAGIC: A MARKET FRONTIER Magic, as a wide-ranging system of practices and beliefs, is interwoven with diverse lifestyles and variegated value systems. The kinds of magical thinking we see play out on WitchTok provide a creative and participatory space where individuals can display their talents, curate for themselves particular identities, and accrue charismatic authority among likeminded others on a global stage. The revival of witchcraft in the 21st century has been made to function as a therapeutic play zone that is perhaps more compelling, interactive, and relevant for younger audiences than much of what is available to them through organised religion. There has been a surge of witch entrepreneurs and celebrity witches, with many building lucrative careers from personal branding efforts. Today’s witches are capitalising on the public’s fascination with esotericism and the supernatural. Beyond WitchTok, witches have weaved their way into many industries, with some speculating that “witchcraft” is a billion-dollar industry. Cosmetics companies are launching magical thinking-inspired beauty and personal care products, including ‘sacred’ goods supercharged by certain energies, crystals, and other mythic ingredients. You only need to switch on Netflix to see content underpinned by witchy, spooky, gothic elements, such as Tim Burton’s Wednesday. Many of the witches I have spoken with, whether identifying as pagan, hedge witches, Christopagan, neopagan, wiccan, or others, do not take issue with the marketisation of their craft. They wholeheartedly embrace its mainstream growth, recognising they are a religious-spiritual group who are extremely easy to market things to. For them, witchcraft in the marketplace plays a vital role in destigmatising alternative mindsets and removing negative tropes and stereotypes attached to witches. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 45 Sophie James is a PhD researcher in the Department of Marketing. Her research draws upon consumer interest in witches and witchcraft in the contemporary marketplace. She is recruiting self-identifying witches and those interested in the Occult more broadly for her research. s.james7@lancaster.ac.uk
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