It's a misty evening in Brooklyn, and a black-clad crowd has gathered at Catland Books – a shop selling esoteric books, crystals, incense and other ‘tools for ritual and divination’. Tonight sees the monthly meeting of the Tarot Society in the store’s cosy event space, which focuses on personal transformation through tarot, astrology and palmistry. The crowd is almost exclusively fashionable young women in their twenties and early thirties, a new generation of so-called ‘hipster witches’, who use the tools of the occult as what organiser Kevin Pelrine describes as ‘a “psychic weather report”.’ There are even ‘psychic sommeliers’ on hand to ensure attendees are matched with the
right reader for them.
Another New York-based organisation, the Moon Church, was founded in 2013 to cater to this growing tribe, with the organisers staging ‘moon ceremonies’, drawing crowds of Brooklyn creatives and incorporating intention-setting rituals, meditation and performance, often ending meditation and performance, often ending with an all-out dance party. ‘Living in an urban jungle like New York, a lot of people are seeking a connection back to earth and to nature – and the ceremonies are part of that,’ says co-founder Lyndsey Harrington. The trend is on its way here, with occult bookshop Treadwell’s hosting a hands-on ‘Sigil Magick’ session in July for London’s wannabe witches, and a tarot foundation course in September.
Broomsticks be damned – sorcery has undergone a serious image overhaul. And far from being all about practising the dark arts, the modern witch movement is about arts, the modern witch movement is about female empowerment. They may still gather female empowerment. They may still gather in covens to celebrate the different phases of the moon cycle, believing its waxing and waning affects all our moods, perform rituals to honour the seasons and cast spells, but the new hipster witch gatherings focus on more intimate ‘magic groups’.
‘Women gather in each other’s homes to talk about our experiences with magic, and cast spells relating to what the group needs most at that particular time,’ says Harrington, again linking the trend to an empowered new model of femininity. ‘Lots of these revolve around women’s issues like body image, and reclaiming sexuality.’ Fashion is also a huge part of being a hipster witch. Gothic glamour is all over the catwalks for A/W’15 – with Alexander Wang and McQueen, as well as Giles, and with darkly seductive independent labels such as Sisters Of The Black Moon and House Of Widow enjoying a surge in popularity. Cult spritz White Magic Love Spray by Brooklyn apothecary Species By The Thousands has become a bestseller, too, and bunches of sage (burned in witchcraft to cleanse a space of negative energy) are available in Urban Outfitters.
It’s not only in fashion that all things Wicca are enjoying a renaissance. A remake of hit 1996 movie The Craft is in the works and Black Magic – the new video by Little Mix – references more than a few of the film’s mystical influences.
Fittingly, Twilight star Robert Pattinson’s performance-artist fi ancée FKA twigs recently revealed she travelled with a witch doctor on her tour bus. Elsewhere, singers Grimes and Lorde are channelling witchy vibes, TV series American Horror Story showed girls taking supernatural revenge on their enemies, while beauty vlogger Michelle Phan tells her two million Instagram followers to ‘stay magical’.
‘All my friends now are witches – tapping their powers for good,’ says Sarah Durham-Wilson, a former editor at Interview magazine who now runs workshops to help women access their inner witch. ‘Women everywhere are going through witch awakenings. To us, the word “witch” relates to a powerful female energy that’s been repressed for too long. The word is a trigger, and with good reason, but the women killed in the original witch-hunts were actually just strong, autonomous females, who couldn’t be controlled by men.’
So do hipster witches actually believe in magic? Cat Cabral manages Enchantments, a store selling potions in Manhattan’s East Village, and also works with clients, teaching ‘basic spell-crafting techniques’.
‘Magic in its simplest form is taking your intention and marrying it with an action,’ she explains. ‘This could be something as simple as gathering flowers and creating a little altar, or burning a candle, and then letting it go, knowing
that the universe has heard your call.’
She says she often references the 1987 movie The Witches Of Eastwick, in which Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon summon a devilish Jack Nicholson when they try to manifest their dream man, in her work: ‘as a reminder to get really specific and be careful what you wish for!’
Meanwhile, self-help blogger Gala Darling, whose site gets over a million hits per month and whose first book, Radical Self Love, is out this month, says some of her most popular posts are on witchcraft. ‘The majority of my readers grew up watching The Craft, which redefined witch to mean a total badass.
‘There’s a common misconception that you can only do magic while wearing a velvet cloak,’ she says. ‘But magic is about being truly awake to the power and grace of the divine, and allowing it to be part of your life. For me, a modern definition of a witch is a woman who’s in control of her life – and we can all use more of that.’
By Ruby Warrington