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Witchcraft, like almost everything in our modern world, has been heavily influenced by Capitalism. This, in my opinion, is Not A Good Thing.
To me, witches are meant to be in touch with the energies of the world whether that be nature, the people around them, or electricity/electronics. Unfortunately, I suppose that this leaves them open to the energies of corporate greed as well, because sometimes it seems like an awful lot of them are trying to summon some cash rather than anything beneficial to all.
Ok, here's the part where it becomes obvious what motivated me to write this post. I watch a lot of YouTube. I love witches and magic. Wouldn't it be great if we could combine these things? Well, we can! But it seems like this has produced some mixed results.
I have watched so many witch videos that are supposedly about a certain elementary topic but in reality are focused entirely on their sponsor and just putting out a video for the week to satisfy the needs of the algorithm.
If a person is posting a 10 minute instructional video over a topic they've already discussed 4 times on their channel, where 3 minutes of that time is taken up with a sponsor's message and 30 seconds at the end are begging for follows and Patreon money, at some point they are no longer providing any kind of service at all.
I understand that it's wonderful these people have found some way to turn their passion into their livelihood, but for a spiritual subject like witchcraft I feel like at some point they need to think about whether they're still doing what they set out to do when they created their channel. I mean, maybe they created it with the intention to get rich. I've seen at least one witch who is blatantly doing that in a very Instagram influencer style. However, I think that most of them at least at some point honestly cared about what they were doing.
Here's the most difficult intersection of witchcraft and capitalism for me, and it's a place where I definitely don't have any good answers. People who are interested in witchy stuff generally have a hacker mindset. They want to know more about the world, and they're willing to do what it takes to learn.
Well, the way a lot of people enjoy learning is by reading books! And boy, are there tons of witchy books out there. I would say that 90% of them repeat the same material over and over again, but if it's your first book on the subject then you're going to love learning what's inside.
But there are so many books. And we want to know what's in them all, right? Then there are again so many influencers out there doing witch book reviews, talking about their "book hauls", showing off all of the cool covers and having fun interviews with the authors.
It's so easy to fall into Wanting, to become a Collector of books on witchcraft rather than someone who's there to learn. Especially if it's a book about some subject that you already know well, but it's just so pretty, and you love the author's previous work, and it wouldn't hurt to just get one more...
You don't need *anything* to do witchcraft, but you sure wouldn't know it from the people out there shilling every little shiny rock and toy that a person can imagine. Don't let anyone fool you, this is a big industry that everyone is feeding. There are even monthly subscription "witch boxes" in case you need more crap to fill your home with.
If you need a crystal, go dig a rock up. If you want to do tarot, there are free apps for your phone that'll draw a card for you. Moonlight is free and you likely already have water running to your house. Make it work. People don't need all of this stuff that is being sold to them.
I don't know if I really have a happy ending to this ranty post, but I do hope that people find a way to reject Capitalism and focus on the spiritual parts of magic that are actually beneficial to society. Having more things and shinier toys is not somehow going to make you more powerful. I get that there's some therapeutic quality to surrounding yourself with pretty things sometimes, but it just feels like it's gotten a bit out of hand.