unfortunately it seems jezebel completely took down the article in question, though before they did they made a couple statements
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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honestly not going to be that mad if this results in etsy witches being taken down. i looked it up a bit after the kirk death and the most popular listings were all for getting a job / earning money. so it feels like it just preys upon vulnerable people :/
Yeah as amusing as they are they're very exploitative. Such is the long tradition of Occult themed confidence scams going back thousands of years.
I engage in magical practice myself and would be happy to see these Etsy Witch types taken down, finally. There's always going to be 'magic' scams but the Etsy Witch phenomenon is so open and blatant it's particularly predatory and doesn't exactly help the reputation of actual genuine Occultists/Neopagans/whatever.
Why do you pretend there is a difference in legitimacy between their magic and your magic? All magic is fake.
All magic is fake but there's a massive difference between people who do versus don't sell theirs.
Because of personal experiences I have had that I find to be extremely compelling. Obviously if I explained them to you you'd just blame them on psychosis or delusions, as that is the atheistic framework for such experiences, but I did not find such an interpretation of the events satisfactory.
You do realize this is the worst sort of reddit atheist behavior? I'm perfectly fine with criticizing hegemonic religion, but your immediate impulse upon seeing someone talk about practicing magic - a sure signifier, at least in the western context, of engagement in some form of non hegemonic religion - is to immediately jump to an accusatory 'you know that's fake, right?'. Really?
Would you react like this to someone saying they prayed and they didn't like influencers who exploited the idea of prayer for money?
And to give you an answer to your question that may fit with your understanding of the world:
If we accept that 'all magic is fake' then at least someone like me is, for its own sake and those of it's friends if requested, actually doing something with genuine intention to help.
These Etsy hucksters are doing nothing with the intent to make money.
Okay, but you know that's the same as the motivation for every devoted Christian, and Buddhist, and so on. How can you think that of all the billions of people in the world with their own ideas of how magic works, you are the person who has uniquely encountered the truth by personal experience? That you alone have experienced the truth of magic and that all the billions of other people with just as much conviction as you are all delusional? You're operating under the exact same "atheistic framework" as me, except that you have the arrogance to believe that your conviction is special. You disbelieve in 99.9999% of all magicians in the world, I disbelieve in precisely one more.
No, not really. I'm genuinely curious what could bring someone who "practices magic" to think themselves better than any other. Since, again, they are all equally incapable of actually practicing magic.
I'm not a "reddit atheist" I'm a materialist. I, like most communists, fundamentally oppose the idea that we should entertain the notion of magic. If any person ever shows me evidence of magic, I will change my mind. But the fact is that in all of history, every single question ever answered has turned out to have nothing to do with magic. Even where magic has been the dominant explanation for thousands of years, it always turns out not to be magic. Because, quite simply, magic isn't real.
Yes, I am probably more hostile to Christians in particular who tell me what they're praying about. I like to quote Matthew 6:5-6 at them: "5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." In other words, even your own holy book says to shut the fuck up about what you're praying about.
Prayer grosses me out, and frankly the God described in the Bible is one of the most evil characters ever imagined. It absolutely freaks me out that people are okay worshiping that demon and I absolutely feel offended to be the subject of "prayer" to it.
Well, no, you're doing nothing except having genuine intention to help. And this is why I find materialism important and belief in magic unacceptable. You could be channeling that genuine intention to help into actual acts that do things on the Earth we live on. But instead you're not. You're taking that energy, and doing nothing with it. Every single time you "cast a spell" with your good intentions, your belief in magic has had a measurable negative impact on the world because if you didn't believe in magic you would actually be taking a real action.
Goodness. Right. I'm not going to bother quoting you, I'm just going to go down the line of what you're saying here.
Why are you assuming that I am operating under a framework that's at all similar to you? Decrying these Etsy Witch types as the obvious charlatans they are means nothing regarding my respect levels for the beliefs of even people who follow hegemonic religions - indeed much of my practice is fundamentally derived from a hegemonic religion, that being Christianity. I criticize religions for their effects in the real world, like maintaining hegemony, and when I think they follow entities that while real are Not Good - meaning that yes, I do think that their magic works, it's just different frameworks and lenses and methods. This is a massive simplification, naturally, but I do not have the arrogance to believe I am special, as you baselessly and very rudely put it.
If that is a requirement of materialism (it is not except in the most vulgar sense of the word) then oh well, I am not a materialist. I am not going to deny my own experiences for the sake of being socially acceptable in internet communist circles.
Much of my practice is derived from Gnosticism and I mostly agree with you on the subject of the Christian god, although it's a bit complex when one really picks things apart. Anyway, point being, yeah that's fair enough, I respect that you are an equal-opportunity hater in this respect.
My friends, I should note, generally have much more similar beliefs to me than they do to you, and there have been a number of occasions where they've attested that my advice on this sort of subject and my assistance with rituals and such has been helpful. That's good enough for me, bluntly.
I'm not looking to get involved in the rest of this discussion but I'm very interested in learning about materialism with supernatural/magic characteristics if you'd like to tell me more.
spelling error
This reading is also true, but my intent was to communicate that I literally don't believe the Etsy Witches do anything when they're paid to do something. They're like an Anglerfish - sitting there waiting for someone to press money into their hands for existing because of their evidently-appealing-to-some lure.
sleight of hand is real. all supernatural everything is fake
aw man, i didn't notice the comment chain to your post til now, just wanted to say sorry you had to deal with that.