The Rise of #Witchtok
by lisa harris of @pennydreadfultarot
“The Call” came on a glorious autumn day last October. Queuing beneath the harsh lights of The Works in Camden, London, I gripped the purple and black cardboard box in my sweaty little hands. The bored, and possibly hungover (well, it was Sunday morning), cashier was completely oblivious to the life-changing effects this innocuous-seeming transaction would hold. But I knew. For a mere £7 I was changing my future. Literally changing my future, because I was buying… tarot cards.
Over in London that weekend for a gig (I’m from Dublin, Ireland), I had a vast amount of time to kill before I had to be anywhere (thank you 4 am €12 Ryanair flight - you are a blessing and a curse) I followed my feet and they led me to this discount book/gift store.
Oddly enough, I’d just been reminiscing about an old family tarot deck we used to have that I adored as a child. Long since lost, I hadn’t read or thought about tarot for thirteen years. Until the moment of entering said shop and coming face to face with a massive front-of-store stand of not only tarot cards nearly identical to my beloved childhood deck but all manner of mystic trinkets and cosmic colouring books.
Boxsets of crystals, moon magic vision board kits, aesthetically pleasing spell journals for “green witches”, and a stack of books on “Wicca for Self Care”. I know it’s October but it isn’t Halloween yet, mate. However, these witchy wares were nothing to do with October 31st, but a clear commercial trickle-down effect of #WitchTok.
Unless you’re one of the lucky ones who’s managed to live under a lovely mossy rock like a happy little bug impervious to the outside world (a gal can dream) you know what TikTok is. #WitchTok is a current TikTok trend of women (women make up the majority of the demographic but anyone can participate) who utilise a range of traditional and eclectic witchcrafts to make their daily lives a little more magical.
#WitchTok incorporates everything from young women in flowy celestial print dresses and floral crowns twirling in abundant meadows while Stevie Nicks haunts the soundtrack; visually arresting videos of “candle magick” (yes, with a k) and homemade bubbling wax melts on cauldron wax burners; coquettishly harvesting herbs from your own balcony window box and crafting “spells” with them; collage after collage of impressive manifestation boards; how-tos on the moon’s cycle and astrology (which is really mathsy and much harder to grasp than you’d think); and sharing stories from grandmother witches who passed down folklore and home remedies from the “Old Country”. I could go on and on.
#WitchTok seems to be a combination of a relatively harmless creative outlet and holistic, nature-based approaches to healing and self-care. (Which in my opinion should always be taken with a pinch of medical science salt.) And in this era of tech bombardment and social media-based mental health issues - is it any wonder people are seeking an alternative way of living? Connecting with the earth and grounding themselves with little mysteries and self-made magic that are the complete antithesis to the misery of modern living. Makes sense to me.
And as I make my way from The Works back to my hotel I spam every WhatsApp group I’m in with photos and voice notes about my new purchase. “Tarot cards!! I’m gonna quit my job and be a fortune teller!!” (Yes, I was completely swept away by the whole romance of “destiny” and completely unaware of the witchy rabbit hole I was about to fall down and make my entire personality.)
The chat responses were overwhelmingly positive. Pals sending me pictures of their own themed tarot decks, Insta perfect altars, or using my post as an excuse to rant about a retrograding Mercury being the reason their life is such a shambles (Eh, you just need to get your shit together, Sinead). A resultant breakaway WhatsApp group just for “witches” ensued.
I was in awe of the openness of it all. Women plainly discussing their divination tools of choice, swapping recipes for herbal brews, using sage to cleanse the negative energy left behind by toxic family members after a BBQ… How far we’ve come!
Brazen talk like this back in “the day” would have had us all burned at the stake, drowned, or hung and quartered. Progress! Or, is the reality just that the patriarchy has found more subtle, socially acceptable ways to persecute “the witches”?
I won’t bore you with statistics about the seemingly never-ending rise of violence against women or the terrifying instability of our basic human rights… But an equally insidious form of low-key oppression is running rampant on social media. For every educational and creatively inspiring #WitchTok video - there’s a video of a man (because it’s always men) maliciously ridiculing followers of the trend.
Come on… How many Instagram reels, Netflix special sketches or YouTube videos have you seen of a male stand-up comedian (or a regular Jack the Lad) mocking the girl he ”went out on a date with last night and she said she was a witch”? And everyone laughs, and for validation-through-audience laughs he tears down her belief in astrology, and love of yoga, and slags off her “magic rocks” on the nightstand, reduces her - and her beliefs - to nothing more than an anecdote about a delulu unwashed hippy worthy of no one’s respect?
Trying to keep women away from witchcraft, no matter the era, is like raging at an eclipse. You can’t stop it. Nature’s gonna nature. Women always seem to find a way to it in one form or another. Walking the witch’s path requires confidence, nonconformity, and power that threatens everything the patriarchy has been built upon.
The sisterhood between those in covens - or spooky WhatsApp groups - is fierce. Such strong women banded together is a dangerous thing, in the eyes of the patriarchy at least. Men, be it with flaming torches and pitchforks or keyboards and comedy sketches, will find a way to either outright persecute them or manipulate the narrative into one that makes them feel comfortable. They know they can’t stop us, so they “allow” us our #WitchTok; and since they can’t openly “burn the witches” - they patronise, infantilize, and belittle any woman who embraces spirituality or alternative medicine.
Lovely lads, am I right?
Although it’s been almost a year now since that fateful Sunday where that one random purchase on a mini-break led to me starting my own tarot reading business and witchcraft wellness brand, I still feel as excited about it all as if I haven’t even ripped the cellophane off that first deck of cards.
In my opinion, a pinch of salt and some actual medical science should go hand-in-hand with any spiritual practice, but if it makes you happy and you’re hurting no one - go forth and #WitchTok! Bake that bread with herbs you grew yourself, choose your partners based on their sun, star, and rising signs, frolic in a field like your rent’s not due (and you’re not drowning in student debt) and film it.
Film it all for TikTok.
Show them all the joy and freedom #WitchTok brings. Leave a visual record for the generations to come that this was a thing and it was okay; in fact, it was (mostly) perfectly acceptable. And if not for the future generations, then do it for your own soul. Or at the very least, do it cos it really pisses off the patriarchy - and that’s just bloody funny.
