Witchcraft has become a multibillion-dollar business, with a level of commercialization that has been affecting these Pagans’ practices and relation to the natural world, writes sociologist Helen Berger in The Conversation (July 26). Today, witch kits are sold by large companies and in stores—“something unheard of when I began my research in 1986,” Berger writes. She has seen a shift among practitioners, who have gone from gathering in covens to now being mainly solitary. She finds that many practitioners’ connection to the natural world is also changing. “When I first began my research, I would join Pagans when they went to forests, the seaside or other natural areas to attend a retreat or to participate in a ritual out in nature. I would often see them pick up a rock, a pine cone, a shell or another natural object” that held special spiritual meanings. Today, however, “most objects can be bought online, and fewer are handmade or handpicked…More recently, companies such as the cosmetic purveyor Sephora and celebrities such as the Olsen twins have started directly marketing starter witchcraft kits online,” she adds.
Source: Sophie Spincher / Etsy.
Berger notes how scholars have observed how knowledge—once shared at no cost in covens—became something to be bought in the form of a book, which shifted the focus from self-growth to individual fulfillment. Many practitioners who learned their practices in covens believe that the “marketing of starter kits and sacred items has reduced them to the mundane. There is no longer a need to enter into a forest or go to the shore to find an object that connects practitioners to Mother Nature. Instead, the object can be sent right to individuals’ homes. Nature is still seen as sacred and celebrated in rituals, but more and more practitioners are finding the objects for their altars on websites. There is less reason to actually go into the natural world and experience it, but it does make it accessible to more people,” Berger concludes.
(The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/as-witchcraft-becomes-a-multibillion-dollar-business-practitioners-connection-to-the-natural-world-is-changing-209677)
