The Commercialization of Paganism
By: Megan Mcclintock
Tags: Culture, Spirituality, Religion, Self, Marketing

The Commercialization of Paganism

How Upscale Stores and the Wellness Industry are Selling Witchcraft

In Bethesda, MD, the Anthropologie is three stories — a true flagship of the overly-expensive-yet-absolutely-lovely brand. Here you can find your wedding dress, your sunday picnic outfit, your yoga mat, your organic lunch, and your next house plant all in one store. Walking through their wellness section in the bottom level, I saw a plethora of healing crystals, astrology books, and books on “everyday magic”. I stopped in my tracks, looked at the prices, and laughed.

Anthropologie had found a way to commercialize witchcraft, make it cool, and mark it up 150% compared to the occult store selling the same products in Old Town, Alexandria.

It’s hard not to buy in to Anthropologie. The marketing team is a genius. It glamorizes the world of easy, just-threw-this-on Audrey Hepburn aesthetic. It makes beauty interesting and approachable. It’s just so pricey.

Childhood Magic

Growing up, the only places I saw crystals were in TV shows — Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Crystals and magic were part of the occult — the antithesis to suburban Christian values and hard to get. After all, Amazon was in its infancy and why would Target sell rose quartz or opalite, let alone incense or spell books?

When I was 12, I asked for a deck of Tarot cards for Christmas and my parents looked a little concerned (though they did find a deck for me). I loved it. I loved the magic and implicit strangeness of it all. I loved that I found small, every day magic that existed somewhere in my own ordinary world.

Image by Mira Cosic from Pixabay

The Lopsided Normalization of Witchcraft

Now, witchcraft is normalized — to a point. While witchcraft itself is still left in the dark, the monetizable parts of the craft are more mainstream than ever before. Walk into an Anthropologie or an Urban Outfitters and you too could have this love triangle crystal for $99. Or this essential oil blend for $35. And if you’re pregnant, don’t forget about this mother to be crystal set for $60. Or maybe you’re in the mood for an amethyst-infused candle for $48. All the better for your summoning spells.

Don’t know where to start? Never fear. Anthropologie sells Everyday Magic: Rituals, Spells & Potions To Live Your Best Life. Just $14.99.

Over the past decade, we as a culture have seen a wide-spread embrace of wellness and self-care. And you know what, marketing teams love it. Now that we’ve established self-care as essential to our well-being, they can convince you to buy this Vitruvi White Stone Essential Oil Diffuser that you simply must have for $119. It’s for your health, after all.

I’m not against self-care. I love sitting on my couch, lighting candles, and snuggling up in a blanket with a face mask. I just find the concept of marketing it as essential incredibly problematic. It’s a system convincing us that we need to buy these things to be happy.

Now that list of things we “have to have” continues to expand, encompassing products and materials that used to be taboo or inappropriate in mainstream society. It’s taking the occult and making it not just consumer-friendly, but also expensive.

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

Sure, you could go to Sacred Circle Books in Alexandria to pick up large crystals for $5 a pop, but then you’d have to see the context of what you’re buying: the bookshelves of grimoires, the display shelves of scrying mirrors next to the holy water, and the cauldrons side-by-side with athames, magic wands, and rune kits.

That would be too intimidating and outside of our comfort zones. That would be ridiculous. That would be witchcraft. No, I’ll stick to my friendly neighborhood Anthropologie and get my healing rose quartz wand for $75, thank you. After all, it’s just Wellness.

Oh don’t worry, I’m presbyterian. It’s fine.

Culture of Wellness

As an Anthropology major (the discipline, not the store), I find the expansion of the occult into mainstream fascinating. The integration of witchcraft is genius, and a glimpse into the growing movement of self-care. We’re so wrapped up in productivity and entrepreneurship, almost to a scientific degree. “Have you tried the Pomodoro technique?” “How to get shit done in 15 minutes or less.” “How to optimize your morning routine.”

On the flip side, we’re simultaneously headed in the opposite direction. We’re leaning in to the intuitive, nurturing side of self-care that finds its roots in the earth. In ritual and inner peace. In feminism and a mother-earth concept. In the magic we can create for ourselves. It’s balancing out the stress of white collar jobs and student debt with controlled relaxation and focus on the self.

Don’t get me wrong — I love it. I love the normalization of something that was taboo or worthy of consternation. I love that people feel empowered to try new things. I love that I have candles on my coffee table next to my tarot cards and quartz, and I don’t hide that away when guests come over.

What bothers me is the commercialization of products, sanitized from their history. Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and so many other corporations have capitalized on the idea of self-love to generate profit by appropriating and misrepresenting the origin of their products.

They upsell rocks. Sure, they’re pretty rocks that are great to have around. But when they sell labradorite crystal balls and say, “when placed in your work space or office, this labradorite crystal promotes inspiration, power, and calm,” do you think the average shopper thinks about the theories of magic, energy, and vibrations that sit at the heart of crystal practices? Do you think they’re well-versed in lore and ritual? Does the customer at Anthropologie know the history and culture of what they’re buying? Do they realize that they’re being sold witchcraft? Do they realize we were once burned at the stake for less?

Does it matter?