A clothing store may not spring to mind as the go-to place for spiritual supplies, but chains like Urban Outfitters now sell smudge sticks, tarot cards, and healing crystals — and they’ve been at it for years.

Fashion retailers aren’t the only ones commodifying indigenous spirituality and the occult. Customers can also find alternative religious goods at stores as mundane as Dollar General and Walmart. And those who prefer not to shop around for such products can sign up for witch and magical subscription boxes.

As more Americans abandon organized religion, efforts to capitalize on the occult will almost certainly persist. But outcry related to this trend has recently grown louder, with pagans and people of color objecting to the idea that corporations can pass down their traditions. When word spread in September that Sephora planned to sell a $42 “starter witch kit” from Pinrose with perfume, tarot cards, crystals, and sage, it faced a backlash so fierce that the company pulled the product.

This whole over the counter tarot cards x Sephora starter witch kit dangerous es hell and very headass .. don’t do magic at the mall kids ‍♀️ — SZA (@sza) September 1, 2018

Both practitioners and scholars who study the occult argue that corporate takes on these beliefs are shoddy versions of the real thing. They accuse businesses of bastardizing traditions and twisting magic’s purpose — implying that it is something to be consumed rather than accessed from within.

The craft can’t be put in a box, let alone sold out of context

When Gabriela Herstik was just 12 years old, she felt called to become a witch. As a rabbi’s daughter living in the Bible Belt state of Georgia, the decision was not one that scored her any points, she recalls, especially with her classmates. But as the generation raised on Harry Potter came of age, Herstik, now 24, started to notice that witchcraft seemed to be everywhere.

She encountered it in clothing stores like Free People and television shows like American Horror Story: Coven (2013). If it wasn’t altogether acceptable to be a witch, it was at least cool to look like one, says Herstik, author of Inner Witch: A Modern Guide to the Ancient Craft. So when Sephora’s “starter witch kit” sparked controversy last month, she was initially unfazed.

“Urban Outfitters and Free People have been selling books on witchcraft for years, so when I saw the Sephora kit, at first I was like, ‘Whatever,’” she says. “For a lot of people, [mass-marketed products] are their introduction to witchcraft. I don’t care how you find it. It doesn’t matter how you find witchcraft.”

But the more Herstik reflected on the starter witch kits and discussed them with others, the more her concerns grew. She disliked that they included sage, a plant that Native American groups have used in religious ceremonies for generations. Increasingly, indigenous tribes have spoken out about sage being over-harvested for commercial purposes.

“Now they’re not having access to this plant that’s sacred to them,” Herstik says.

She also took issue with the fact that the witch kit did not include a book about the craft. Instead, it packaged objects associated with New Age beliefs, divination, and indigenous practices together in one box. Witchcraft can be practiced without any item in the kit, and many indigenous people and other practitioners who use sage for spiritual purposes don’t identify as witches.

According to Kate Horigan, assistant professor of folk studies at Western Kentucky University, when folk traditions are appropriated, discrete belief systems are often lumped together.

“What happens particularly with supernatural beliefs is that they are fragmented and trivialized,” she says. “That to me is the bigger problem and what people tend to resent, the trivialization aspect, making light of something that is sacred. In the witch kit, you have a crystal next to sage, which are completely unrelated traditions, taken out of context and jammed together.”

This mishmash of faith traditions is an offshoot of what occurs in pop culture. In film franchises, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Nordic gods, African spirits, and Greek monsters occupy the same space, Horigan says. When this happens in the form of merchandise, it’s worrisome because customers may believe they’re buying something authentic. For millennia, different cultural groups have taken unique approaches to the supernatural. So authenticity stems from family customs, oral tradition, religious texts, historical records, or how effective a practice is for any one person.

“There’s no such thing as a starter witch kit,” Herstik points out. “The idea that you need physical things outside of your connection to yourself, nature, or the cosmos to be a witch is wrong.”

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My debut book “Inner Witch: A Modern Guide to the Ancient Craft” is out NOW and I couldn’t be more excited✨



This book is an invitation for you to find your own magick, and I’m so honored to share it with y’all https://t.co/j7R9WphmLO pic.twitter.com/6YbXLH7anj — (@GabyHerstik) September 4, 2018

In Inner Witch, Herstik acknowledges that witches may use tarot, crystals, and astrology as tools. But she defines witchcraft as “magick: using intention, through spells and rituals, for a desired outcome.”

How witches practice magic depends on their own spiritual gifts, beliefs, and interests, Herstik asserts. It is not a one-size-fits-all tradition, another reason why the idea of a mass-produced witch kit has rankled practitioners.

Witch kits and the like not only send troublesome messages to consumers, they also signal that paganism is not taken seriously in the United States, according to Tok Thompson, an associate professor of anthropology and communication at the University of Southern California.

“There wouldn’t be a Catholic starter kit or a Hindu starter kit,” he says. “You wouldn’t do that.”

Reliable data about the number of pagans globally doesn’t exist, nor does solid information on the growing category of people who count themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” However, the Pew Research Center projects that the number of North Americans who practice a non-mainstream religion will jump to 6.6 million in 2050, up from 2.2 million in 2010. Pew includes pagans in this category, as well as followers of religions like Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism.

The growing number of Americans who define themselves as “spiritual but not religious” often take a grab-bag approach to faith, Thompson says. When alternative beliefs and consumerism intersect, problems arise when people get the idea that they can buy an object, such as a Native American drum, and “achieve that spirituality,” he notes. Appropriation occurs when a product is sold without a learning process, context, or recognition of its source.

The occult has cycled in and out of the mainstream for centuries

To say that the occult is having a cultural moment isn’t quite accurate. Sure, this month alone has seen reboots of witch-themed TV shows like Charmed and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Witches continue to make headlines for would-be hexes on political figures, and celebrities like Victoria Beckham and Kim Kardashian are packaging their products with crystals. The truth, however, is that the occult — be it witchcraft, astrology, or magic generally — has cycled in and out of popularity for centuries.

“There are periods of greater interest in the occult and then other periods, when it goes underground,” Horigan says. “During the Enlightenment, people who believed in the supernatural were really shunned and demeaned. During the Spiritualist movement, Mary Todd Lincoln was holding séances in the White House. You have ebbs and flows in social acceptance and mass popularity and belief in the supernatural.”

Thompson pointed out that consumerism’s absorption of the occult also isn’t new. Ouija boards, for instance, have been sold for mass consumption since the late 1800s. They could be purchased from major retailers like Sears and reportedly outpaced board games like Monopoly in sales in the late 1960s.

That period saw the formation of the feminist group Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (W.I.T.C.H.), which aimed to hex the patriarchy, much like the witches who have taken part in hexes against Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. During the ’60s, Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan, recently referenced in a controversial episode of American Horror Story: Apocalypse. By 1973, The Exorcist debuted featuring a ouija board, which only made them more popular, according to the Badfads Museum.

As the horror movie genre gained momentum the next decade, entire films about ouija boards, such as 1986’s Witchboard premiered. The ’80s also introduced a glut of cinema about witches, vampires, and werewolves, including Michael Jackson’s landmark music video “Thriller.” Even Ronald and Nancy Reagan took an interest in the mystical, garnering headlines and sometimes ridicule for their consultations with astrologers.

In the 1990s, when Hillary Clinton became first lady, a psychological exercise she took part in led to reports that she’d communed with the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt. Despite identifying as a Christian, Clinton has repeatedly been accused of being a witch. During her tenure in the White House, a series of films about witches, including The Craft, The Crucible, and Practical Magic hit the screen. These movies have been credited with influencing young girls to take an interest in the occult and precipitated its commercialization today.

“When people sell products, it’s usually driven by cultural forces,” Thompson says. “It comes and goes. Certainly, Wicca has itself grown steadily and has been on a bit of a trajectory, but witchcraft has always seemed to be in movies and TV shows. The Harry Potter generation knows a lot about magic and wizardry. I wonder how many of us today have a magic wand.”

Commodified magic grows more contentious when race is involved

Attempts to profit from magic get particularly thorny when cultural appropriation is at play too. In addition to Native American beliefs, traditions from people of color such as hoodoo and santería, which sprang from the Yoruba faith Beyoncé has shined a spotlight on, are creeping into the mainstream. But the spiritual services and goods linked to them are often sold by white entrepreneurs. At the start of this decade, for example, articles from the Wall Street Journal and CNN on hoodoo, an African-American folk tradition, described how white-owned businesses selling products related to the practice were earning more than $1 million in revenues.

This trend even took place in the early 1900s, when white pharmacists started selling hoodoo goods to black customers based on their interest in roots, oils, elixirs, and herbs. By the 1970s, these shops began to shutter as blacks, many of whom had migrated from the rural South to Northern cities, distanced themselves from the practice. But now that interest in folk magic and the occult is on the rise, people of color from a variety of backgrounds say it’s hurtful to see corporations profit from these traditions, since their ancestors may have fought to follow their religions, been arrested for doing so, or practiced them in secret to avoid discrimination.

Brown University professor Adrienne Keene, who is of Cherokee descent and runs the Native Appropriations blog, called the Sephora witch kits “spiritual theft.” And discussing how Urban Outfitters sells bundles of palo santo, a tree from Latin America that’s traditionally used in folk medicine, journalist Cindy Rodriguez felt conflicted.

“I’m Peruvian,” she says during an October episode of the Morado Lens podcast. “My parents are brujos… Like this part of their lives that they kept on the low for many reasons, for safety, for shame, now it’s being taken on by other people, and they’re almost like owning it. ...I’ve been denying that part of myself so much, and now someone is selling it at a store.”

Giving credit where it’s due and partnering with respected practitioners of various traditions is one way businesses can minimize claims that they’ve engaged in appropriation or been culturally insensitive, says Mecca Woods, author of the book Astrology for Happiness and Success.

In recent years, astrology has experienced a resurgence in popularity just as witchcraft has; often the two traditions are intermingled. Astrology can be found on jewelry and in witchy subscription kits such as MoonBox, which includes an astrological moon calendar, crystals, and “artisan products.”

Woods takes the widespread interest in the tradition in stride. She’s practiced astrology for eight years and says that while products such as zodiac jewelry don’t bother her because they’ve been around for years, she’s on the fence about the corporate foray into New Age culture.

“I don’t think making money is a bad thing,” Woods says. “If you have corporations doing collaborations with witches, tarot readers, and astrologers, people who are trained and have been doing this stuff for years, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with that. Where it starts to get tricky is when corporations try to remove the source of legitimacy, when they try to take shortcuts to making a dollar. That’s when you have situations like witch kits getting sold that have nothing to do with witchcraft.”

Brands have the responsibility of making sure the information they put out is accurate, she says. And consulting actual practitioners is the best way they can do that. She says companies have asked for her input about their projects, and she’s been happy to share her opinions with them.

“We want the exposure,” Woods says. “We want people to learn, to get interested and definitely know about astrology, but we want to make sure people learn the right way. We don’t want it to be a free for all. We want it to be structured.”

The occult may be trendy, but practitioners still face bigotry and violence

Despite the occult’s influence on society, practitioners still face bias and persecution today. The United Nations estimates that thousands of alleged witches, often children and elderly women, are killed annually worldwide, particularly in Africa, the Pacific, and Latin America. Deadly witch hunts are also taking place in India.

While witches are no longer burned at the stake in the US, just the idea that one is involved in the “dark arts” can have grave consequences. In 2011, the West Memphis Three were released from prison after serving 18 years for murders that evidence suggests they didn’t commit. Their perceived ties to the occult, however, raised suspicion in their small Arkansas town that they were satanic killers.

While it’s uncommon for Americans who follow alternative religions to be imprisoned for their beliefs, several employment lawsuits involving discrimination against pagans have been filed in the 21st century. Google, MaryKay, and the Transportation Security Administration are among the organizations that have faced claims of such bias.

Fear of bigotry may keep some witches from stepping out of the “broom closet,” the colloquialism for publicly declaring oneself a witch. Herstik came out in high school and also regards her Mexican mother as a witch but says her parent would never identify as such. In Mexico, witchcraft, or “charlatanism,” is illegal, though folk magic is widely practiced there.

“You can’t buy books with the word witchcraft in it,” Herstik says her mother used to tell her. “That’s because she grew up in Mexico, where the idea of witchcraft is different. There are still witch hunts; people are still being killed, especially in different countries. You don’t want to be accused of being a witch. You can be killed; you can be ostracized.”

Even pagans born and raised in the US don’t necessarily feel comfortable sharing their beliefs. YouTuber Eadig is an example; she posts videos about witchcraft but doesn’t use her real name. She’s not sure how members of her Christian family would react to her pagan beliefs.

“My personal life is disconnected from my YouTube life,” she says. “Not very many people in my family know about paganism and that I practice witchcraft.”

And Woods says she’s aroused suspicion because of her work as an astrologer.

“I definitely experience bias when it comes to folks who may have come from a more traditional background,” she says. “They may have more of a Christian background, or they may just be people who are skeptical. I have definitely come across those folks. For me, it’s part of the work I’ve been doing to educate people.”

Eadig teaches others about paganism to deconstruct the stereotypes about witches. She uses her YouTube channel to discuss different elements of witchcraft and to let viewers know “they’re not doing something bad or wrong” if they’re practitioners, she says. The 28-year-old resents businesses that capitalize off witchcraft by selling a fantasy version of it.

“It’s not like Hollywood where celebrities use crystals, and, ‘Boom, this will happen!’” she says. “Many people capitalize on something they don’t understand or know about. They really don’t understand the basics of crystal work or spell work; they can’t even define what witchcraft is. People don’t understand how real it is. TV and movies make witchcraft look like fantasy rather than what it’s like in reality.”

Eadig has been a witch for a decade and will soon be teaching classes on the craft at Liberate Hollywood and the House of Intuition in Los Angeles. She became interested in paganism after learning that one of her ancestors was a witch and may have been killed as a result. She urges people seeking legitimate sources of information about witchcraft to read books or watch the YouTube videos of respected practitioners.

“But be careful of those who are doing it because of the popularity of it,” Eadig warns. “With my channel, I want to give people the best information. I do as much research as I can so they know what works and what doesn’t.”

Horigan recommends anyone interested in exploring paganism to seek out practitioners. Despite the notion that witchcraft isn’t a modern practice, Horigan says, witches have websites where they can be reached, and many welcome newcomers who are serious about learning. She advises fostering a personal connection with a witch since commercial goods so often trivialize the craft. But there’s another reason she takes issue with such merchandise.

“It takes away the power from these marginalized traditions,” she says. “It takes away their threat if you box it up and put it in pink plastic and sell it and integrate it into mainstream culture. It takes away the threat of difference and makes people feel you can get the magic without the witch.”

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