Why So Many People Are Turning Toward Witchcraft Right Now

If you had told me a year ago that I would be writing this, I probably would have laughed...or at least resisted the label.

2025 didn’t unfold the way I expected it to. My work changed. My relationship to time changed. My understanding of what I could carry, and what I could no longer afford to, changed. What surprised me most wasn’t the shift itself. It was how many people quietly said, “Me too.”

Something is happening right now. And it isn’t about aesthetics, trends, or social media algorithms, even though those are where it’s most visible. It’s about disorientation.

The Collapse of Certainty

Across the last several years, many of the systems we were told to trust have shown their cracks. Healthcare feels transactional. Politics feels volatile. Religion feels weaponized. Work feels extractive. The future feels…unclear.

Historically, this is always when people turn inward — not out of escapism, but out of necessity. When external authority fails, people begin looking for internal orientation.

That’s where witchcraft enters the conversation.

Not as fantasy. Not as rebellion for rebellion’s sake. But as a framework for listening, pattern recognition, and personal sovereignty.

Witchcraft Has Always Appeared in Moments Like This

Before witchcraft was demonized, it wasn’t a religion at all. It was practical knowledge: How to read seasons. How to treat illness when doctors were scarce. How to protect a household. How to listen to the body. How to survive uncertainty.

The people who practiced it weren’t outsiders — they were relied upon. What changed wasn’t the practice. What changed was power.

As institutions centralized authority, especially religious and political ones, any knowledge that existed outside approved channels became threatening. What could not be controlled had to be discredited. What could not be discredited had to be punished.

That’s how the witch became a warning instead of a resource.

Why WitchTok, Tarot, and Folk Practices Are Everywhere Now

The modern resurgence of witchcraft didn’t come out of nowhere. It coincided with a global pandemic and political extremism. It was born out of climate anxiety, religious nationalism, and economic instability.

In other words, the same conditions that have always preceded a return to folk practices.

People don’t turn to witchcraft because life is comfortable. They turn to it because they are trying to make sense of instability.

Tarot, astrology, ritual, spellwork... these are not about predicting the future. They’re about orienting yourself inside uncertainty.

Modern Witch Hunts Still Exist — They Just Look Different

Today’s witch hunts don’t involve bonfires or gallows. They look like mass reporting of creators, moral panics framed as “concern,” laws targeting non-Christian spiritual expression, accusations of delusion or danger, and online shaming disguised as accountability.

The language has changed. The behavior hasn’t. The witch is still threatening because she doesn’t outsource authority. She trusts lived experience. She questions narratives. She notices patterns.

That has never been comfortable for systems that rely on obedience.

This Isn’t About Becoming a Witch

This is the part I want to be clear about. You don’t need to call yourself a witch. You don’t need tools, altars, or labels. You don’t need to abandon any belief system that genuinely sustains you.

What many people are responding to right now is permission.

Permission to:

• trust their intuition

• question inherited beliefs

• move slowly

• choose meaning over performance

• live with intention instead of urgency

Witchcraft, at its core, is not about magic. It’s about attention.

Where I’ve Landed

This year taught me that clarity doesn’t arrive through force. It arrives through listening. Through removing what no longer fits. Through naming what remains. Through choosing how to cross thresholds, rather than pretending they don’t exist.

That’s what this work is for me now. And judging by the messages I receive, I’m not alone. If you’re here because something in you is stirring, welcome. You’re not late. You’re not broken. You’re responding appropriately to the world you’re living in. And that has always been the beginning.