It’s playtime at a primary school in Norwich and, in the house opposite, two witches are staring into a crystal ball.
On the table in front of them are candles and spell books, a bunch of white sage and a bottle of magic moon water. A skull named Yorick sits between some tea lights and, under the table, a cat called Lucifer swishes her tail.
Harmony Nice, 20 and Georgia Burns, 21 are 21st century witches. Specifically, they are wiccans and with their heavy eye makeup, septum piercings and crystal ball tattoos they couldn’t be more hip.
Witchcraft, you see, is becoming more and more fashionable, with thousands of young women (and some men, too) picking up the ancient craft and learning spells in bedrooms across the country. One theory is that the Harry Potter generation has found “real” spell books, but many of this cool new set see parts of it – like gazing into a crystal ball – as a form of mindfulness. And it’s certainly more interesting than yoga.
But being a modern witch isn’t easy. Georgia has had to ask her mum not to vacuum near her altar, in case she accidentally sucks up some magic. While Harmony has a hard time stopping Lucifer from eating her sage. “She loves it,” she says, rolling her eyes.
Some of these hipster witches refuse to believe you can divide the community into “good” and “bad” (with black magic believed to be the work of the devil). Harmony might have a pet called Lucifer, but she was a rescue cat named by her previous owners.
The two girls don’t believe in satan but paganism, celebrating nature via ‘Sabbat day’ holidays that revolve around the seasons and the Earth’s natural rhythms. For wiccans (and warlocks) the new year begins on October 31 and there are eight holidays during the year, including Winter and Summer solstice.
“White witches” have similar beliefs, with moons particularly symbolic for both; Georgia’s bottle of moon water was collected especially to harness the power of January’s super blue moon. Make your own by leaving a bottle of water out during a full moon, then add drops to soup, she suggests, for a touch of magic.
There were 57,000 pagans in England and Wales, according to the most recent Government census in 2011, and 18,000 wiccans, druids and heathens (which are offshoots of the pagan religion). In two year’s time, when the next census takes place, it’s expected that the numbers could well be double that.
You only have to look at the following of everything witchy on social media to see how huge this modern version has become. Georgia, a psychology student from Bromley, has 18,000 Instagram followers and practices from an altar she’s set up in her bedroom, complete with cauldron, wand and chalice.
Harmony, who lives in Norwich and makes a living out of her YouTube channel, has a whopping 260,000 followers and a book out later this year.
“A lot of it is fashion,” Harmony explains. “The witchy aesthetic is definitely now seen as very cool. But it’s also more and more popular because it’s an empowering faith. It makes you feel like you’ve got a hold on your life, and can bring yourself more positivity when you’re not given much power by society in other ways.”
Harmony started reading about witchcraft when she was 14, after learning that her great grandmother was a witch, and picked up wicca two years later. Becoming a wiccan involves a private “self-dedication ceremony” (the equivalent of an initiation when you join a coven), which involves casting your first spell, performing a ritual or meditating with crystals. Her parents, atheists with “normal jobs”, didn’t object to their daughter taking this new path. “They were pretty cool about it,” she says.
They still face some backlash from people who “don’t understand”, albeit nothing compared to being burned at the stake, like they might have been centuries ago - Harmony acknowledges. “I would have easily been burnt at the stake: tall, redhead and wiccan.”
Georgia - incredibly petite and slightly gothic-looking with huge eyelash extensions - learnt to read tarot cards from her mother. She grew up as an Irish Catholic, but says she found it controlling, especially towards women.
She is currently reading a book filled with spells to enhance your sex life and become a millionaire. Others - a quick cash potion, strength and safety soup and relationship rescue pie - are more like recipes than spells, and could almost fit into the current foodie trend.
When it comes to casting spells, wiccans are banned from “intentionally” causing mental or physical harm to people, or playing with free will. “Witches don’t have that rule,” says Harmony. “They could intentionally harm you if they wanted to. My great grandmother was a witch and she was a force to be reckoned with. She gave anyone she didn’t like a headache.”
The majority of young witches practice solitarily rather than in a coven, which are seen as “secretive clubs with strict rules”, but social media brings them together. Tonight, the friends, who met online, are going to Jamie’s Italian in Norwich for dinner - and to talk spells.
In Derbyshire, 23-year-old Laura Brookes, will be practicing the mindful elements of witchcraft, which for her are the most captivating parts. “Knowing I can dabble with a bit of magic when day-to-day life is getting to me, is an amazing feeling,” she says. “I know if I read my cards, hold a few crystals and meditate, or even just do a small spell, my attitude and the way I feel improves tremendously. It is very empowering.”
For this generation of young women “feeling good is the new looking good,” says Jane Kellock, creative director of Unique Style Platform, a trend forecasting company. “Mind and body enhancing experiences are embraced as aspirational, ancient rituals and modern mysticism offer alternative self-care solutions, and the quest for good mental health has become as important as physical fitness,” she explains.
“Witchcraft is seen as a framework for political change and a way to seek spirituality away from modern religion, fuelled by a wave of modern mystics on social media.”
A whole host of websites as well as fashion, beauty and home products are cropping up to cater for a taste in everything witchy, she adds. Tanya Townley, 27, a white witch from Lancashire, is running one of these new businesses. She launched a subscription box last May, which delivers altarware, incense and crystals for £27 a month. Since she started, customers have increased by 500 per cent and more than half of them are in the UK (others are based in New Zealand, Brazil and Finland).
Still, there might be a little way to go, thinks Harmony Nice. A ouija board once owned by her great grandmother is lurking somewhere in the family collection, but her mother won’t let her anywhere near it, she tells me.
At least you’ve got a nice skull, I say, picking up Yorick.
“That’s not a real,” she laments. “They cost about £1,000. I got it on Amazon for a tenner."
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