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Modern Witchcraft Combines Self-Love, Feminism, Self-Help With A Dazzling Array Of Crystals And Spell Casting

Gala Darling looks every bit the Instagram-famous modern witch, with nearly 60,000 followers. Being a professional witch is her full-time job.

Published

9 years ago

July 4, 2017

Geoffrey Grider

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Modern witchcraft combines feminism, self-help, and wellness. But is there more to it than pretty crystals, stunning Instagram pictures, and lucrative business opportunities?

“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” Deuteronomy 18:10-12 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the past year, I have noticed on my Instagram feed a seeming explosion in women posting pictures promoting topics like “self love”, “wellness”, “be good to yourself”, “praying to the Universe” and “boss babe”. Harmless fun, right? Just motivating women to succeed, right? Wrong. Every one of those things I just mentioned are part and parcel of modern-day witchcraft practiced by modern-day witches. You’ve been pulled into witchcraft and don’t even know it. Or maybe you do.

Gala Darling reveals that her “spiritual awakening” was like the moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy wakes up, miraculously transported from the sepia world of rural Kansas to the technicolor land of Oz.

Darling is standing beside her altar—a round, pink table laid with energy-charged crystals and magic candles—at The Wing, an all-women social club in Manhattan where 60 members and guests have signed up for her “Radical Self-Love Workshop.”

Gala Darling says how witchcraft changed her life:

Think twice the next time you use the #bossbabe hashtag, it comes from the witchcraft world. And in particular, it comes from Gala Darling, resident witch and spell caster.

A 33-year-old writer and self-help guru, she explains how her years-long fog of depression lifted when she discovered “tapping,” an ancient Eastern healing technique that she describes as “a combination of acupuncture and cosmic psychology.”

The audience is rapt because Darling isn’t just a self-help guru but a stylish, sassy witch who swears often and radiates cool-girl vibes. She used to be “really goth and cynical” and thought tapping was “bull****”—until, she says, it worked. Now she casts spells on Donald Trump.

Darling is tall and striking, with alabaster skin and kohl-rimmed green eyes. She wears a rainbow sherbet-colored maxi skirt, a grey tee knotted above her navel, and a silver pentagon ring. Her black hair is dip-dyed a raspberry, purpley pink shade that almost matches her lipstick. All of this makes for a punk rock-meets-My Little Pony aesthetic, complete with bicep sleeve tattoos and glittering fingernails.

Gala Darling looks every bit the Instagram-famous modern witch, with nearly 60,000 followers. Being a professional witch and self-love priestess is her full-time job. (She declined to say how much she earns through her practice.)

At a time when millennial women are embracing wellness fads and are bent on toppling the patriarchy, the contemporary witch is their enlightened, rebellious role model.

She has seen a resurgence in pop culture over the last few years, from the campy and wildly popular 2013 TV series American Horror Story: Coven to Robert Eggers’ 2015 film The Witch. Gwyneth Paltrow’s website Goop sells tools for female-oriented practical magic like jade and rose quartz “yoni” eggs that purport to do more than just exercise your kegels.

Celebrities like Katy Perry, Victoria Beckham, Cara Delevingne, and Lena Dunham are hooked on crystals’ alleged healing powers and positive vibes (it doesn’t hurt that they’re also pretty). Adele chalked up her lackluster Grammy’s performance last year to misplacing hers.

The ’90s were another heyday of witchiness—of the benign, Hollywood variety—that saw films like Hocus Pocus and The Craft become cult classics, Charmed become a TV smash, while J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone and Gregory Maguire’s Wicked were instant bestsellers (Rowling’s Potter books went on to become the second-highest-grossing film franchise of all time, and a musical adaptation of Wicked was named one of Broadway’s top-grossing shows ever last year).

Today’s witchy sweet spot lies somewhere between the mind-body wellness movement and intersectional feminism. Embracing all things witchy and “magical”—believing that visualization rituals can help you manifest your dreams; that tarot cards can tell you something about your life which your logical brain might otherwise ignore; that wearing a crystal pendant necklace will protect you from negative energy—has become a way for women to feel empowered and trust their instincts.

The Wing is an appropriate setting for a witchy workshop on self-love and empowerment. The club describes itself as a “coven not a sorority,” and many of its 650 members—a politically progressive group of women, most of them in their twenties and thirties—work in creative industries.

Darling kicks off the “Radical Self-Love Workshop” with an exercise in “connecting to our intuitive selves” that requires dabbing her coveted “gratitude oil” on our wrists (“it has tiny crystals inside and smells am-a-zing”) and telling each other what we’re thankful for.

Next she hands out “Witchling Oracle Cards”—a whimsical take on tarot cards—and encourages us to decipher some personal message from cutesie illustrations of Witchlings like “Dreams” and “Abundance.”

Later, we write down what “spirituality” means to us (I’m tempted by Darling’s reassurance that “it’s OK to draw three big question marks!”).

We whip up “happiness recipes,” or lists of feel-good rituals that fall under “mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual” categories. “I’d like everyone to write ‘orgasm’ under the physical category, because sex magic is the best magic,” Darling says to whoops and cheers.

We also make note of things we want to “leave behind,” in the metaphysical sense, post-Summer Solstice—which, per Darling’s instructions, we must “ceremoniously burn” when we get home.

Finally, we break off in groups to create “wishing circles,” an exhausting exercise that involves blowing a wish into your hands, vigorously rubbing them together for several agonizing minutes (the witch’s equivalent of Tracy Anderson’s arm workout), then joining scalding palms with your circle neighbors and, per Darling, blowing your wish “up to the sky like a little baby birdie.”

Admittedly, I expected something called a “Radical Self-Love Workshop” to be ripe for parody: a hipster witch rhapsodizing about the healing powers of crystals to a group of spellbound, modern-day Stevie Nicks impersonators. But Darling’s tactics for cultivating self-love are relatively practical, as these things go, and dispensed with casual humor. (On reliable ways to achieve an orgasm: “While you’re working up to that moment—you know, the moment—visualize yourself beaming it out into the universe because that stuff works! Try it this week and then tag me on Instagram. Don’t make me a video, but tell me what happened because I want to know.”)

She’s not excessively moony or self-serious about the spiritual stuff (“I define spirituality as whatever makes me feel alive, thankful, and connected”). And the witchcraft-lite she weaves into her teachings—feminine power, sexuality, creative enrichment, astrology—is broadly appealing to many young women.

The Babe Collective movement is firmly rooted in witchcraft

My introduction to the occult scene in New York City was in 2015, when I attended a “goddess circle for curating extraordinary confidence” organized by three women in Brooklyn who called themselves the BABE Collective; “BABE” being an acronym for “Badass Beauties Elevating Society.”

It was a workshoppy event similar to Darling’s at The Wing: a description advertised “bringing a heightened awareness to what being confident means in the spiritual, practical and personal sense.”

It was part coven and part 12-step program: Roughly a dozen women gathered in a teepee in Williamsburg and meditated while eating expensive, organic dark chocolate—an “offering to ourselves” and an exercise in “taking time to savor something.” We prayed to Kali, the Hindu goddess who is worshipped as the Mother of the Universe.

“I haven’t focused exclusively on creating a community of witches, though that’s kind of happened indirectly,” said Robin Lee, 28, who has grown the BABE Collective into a global community with $47-a-month membership rates. “Tons of women from all over the world are just awake and curious about understanding themselves on a deeper level. When you get down to the route of witchcraft, magic, alchemy—all these things are about the Wild Feminine and using your own energy and power to change your consciousness at will.”

In a moment when feminism has escaped the academy and captivated the popular imagination, it’s fitting that the witch—a radical and dangerous figure who can’t be controlled by stuffy and uptight men—has been recast as a symbol of resistance.

“The timing makes perfect sense: Spiritual hunger, environmental concerns, and gender politics all combine here,” Stacy Schiff, author of The Witches: Salem, 1692, told The Daily Beast of the witch’s trendy resurgence. “Plus witches are subversive, something which our political times demand. We’ve little vocabulary for female power, or at least few words of which we can be proud. It’s all the more enticing to reclaim imagery and nomenclature that has been used against you for hundreds of years.”

The witch’s taboo appeal is a double-edged sword, and Schiff suggested it could be more empowering for women to identify with real women, or at least a mythological figure who didn’t have such a fraught history.

“In a perfect world it would be lovely if women could reach to more nonfictional role models, as boys are able to. If we’re in the world of myth, why witches rather than Athena? I suppose she’s part of the establishment, and she doesn’t come down to us with a long list of martyred forebears. Plus, we know that Athena is wholly mythical. It seems at least some men are still concerned there might be sorcerers among us.”

Indeed, the witch remains a threatening figure, particularly to the Alex Jones’ and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world. Days before the 2016 election, Jones ran a story on his alt-right website, Infowars, claiming Hillary Clinton “‘regularly’ attended witch’s church,” and citing a “Clinton insider” as his source. After the first presidential debate, Limbaugh called Clinton a “witch with a capital B.”

Right-wingers wielded rhetorical pitchforks at rapper Azealia Banks when she came out of the broom closet in January 2015 (“The truth is I’m a witch”) in one of her infamous Twitter rants.

“The most magical people are the ones who have to deal with oppression, because the non-magical are jealous,” Banks wrote. “That’s why Jews and Blacks have been persecuted over and over again throughout history… all I’m trying to say is that black people are naturally born SEERS, DIVINERS, WITCHES AND WIZARDS.”

Witches band together to cast a binding spell on President Trump

Last February, Lana Del Ray took to Twitter to promote dates for a series of online “binding spells” to prevent President Trump and his administration from doing harm. Gala Darling was among the self-identifying witches who orchestrated an anti-Trump binding spell on Facebook live, though hers wished harm on the president.

“120,000 people from around the world signed on with pictures of Trump and wrapped them in string while I said an incantation,” she told me, speaking on the phone the day after the workshop. Most of the online participants were women between the ages of 25 and 34, according to Darling (geographically, California, Texas, England, and New York saw the highest volume of participants).

The hex wasn’t as harmful as participants hoped. Indeed, casting spells can seem hokey and ineffective—even to other patriarchy-defying witches.

“People always assume I do that stuff, but I just help women who want to have their witch awakening, which is just an awakening to their feminine energy and the cause of healing Mother Earth,” said Sarah Wilson, 37, who lives in Martha’s Vineyard and organizes online covens.

But for others, channeling their feminine energy in massive online spells offers a sense of community.

“There was some pushback on Facebook from people saying things like, ‘The most effective thing you can do is vote,’” Darling said of her Trump binding spell. “But why not do both? I believe in marrying the physical and the metaphysical. Obviously the spell didn’t work in the sense that he’s still alive. But have you looked at his life right now?” source

Donald Trump

HELL WILL REIGN DOWN: Trump Threatens Iran With An End Times Holy War Ripped From The Book Of Revelation If They Don’t Make Peace In 48 Hours

Published

1 day ago

April 4, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Trump Warns Iran “All Hell Will Reign Down” In 48 Hours, And That Strange Word Choice May Reveal A Little More Than He Intended

President Donald Trump just dropped one of the most explosive warnings of this entire Iran confrontation, posting on Truth Social: “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD! President DONALD J. TRUMP.” Multiple current outlets and live reports quoted that post verbatim on April 4, 2026, as Trump tied the ultimatum to his earlier ten-day deadline over the Strait of Hormuz.

“Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.” Isaiah 14:9 (KJB)

This is not merely another political post. This is the language of countdown, consequence and collision. Trump is telling Iran that the clock is nearly spent, that the deadline is real, and that failure to comply will bring devastating force. The Strait of Hormuz is not some minor patch of water. It is one of the most strategic choke points on the face of the earth, and whenever that narrow passage is threatened, the whole world feels it. Oil markets feel it, shipping lanes feel it, militaries feel it, and world governments feel it. So when Trump says “open up the Hormuz Strait” and attaches a 48-hour warning to it, he is not playing word games. He is putting the entire region on notice.

But there is something else in Trump’s Truth Social post that absolutely jumps off the page. Trump did not say hell would “rain” down. He said hell would reign down. Meaning Hell will begin to rule on Earth.

IS TRUMP HAVING A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS? IS HE TORTURED BY DEVILS? THIS BOOK WILL TELL YOU, CLICK TO ORDER!!

Now maybe some people will dismiss that as a typo. Maybe it was, I don’t know. But words matter, and when a world leader is issuing a fiery public threat in the middle of a fast-moving regional crisis, every syllable carries weight. “Rain down” would mean destruction falling from above. But “reign down” carries a very different flavor altogether. Reign speaks of rule. Reign speaks of authority. Reign speaks of dominion imposed by superior power. That one word transforms the sentence from a mere threat of attack into something that sounds like judgment descending with force and rule attached to it. That is what makes this so striking. Whether Trump intended it or not, “reign” gives the whole statement an apocalyptic tone. It sounds less like a military response and more like a pronouncement. It sounds like power enthroned. It sounds like punishment backed by dominion. It sounds like the kind of language that reveals the deeper spirit of the moment. America is no longer whispering to Iran through diplomatic back channels. America is standing at the edge of the battlefield, pointing directly at Tehran, and warning that the next move may bring apocalyptic fire.

For years now, the Middle East has been a boiling cauldron, each fresh crisis drawing the nations one step closer to open alignment, open hostility and open war. Iran has long been a chief agent of chaos in the region, using proxies, terror, shipping threats and military posturing to push the entire area toward ignition. Now the Strait of Hormuz once again stands in the center of the storm, and Trump has decided that the time for measured talking points is over.

This is where we are on the end times timeline. Not in an age of peace, but in an age of ultimatums. Not in a season of calm, but in a season of escalation. Not in a world stepping back from the brink, but in one racing toward it. President Trump may indeed see his ‘Hell Will Reign Down’ threat come to pass in ways he’s never dreamt of. Or maybe he will TACO and forget all about it entirely. You never know with Trump.

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

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When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Gospel Witness Billboard Program

Just In Time For Resurrection Sunday, A New Gospel Witness Billboard Proclaiming Salvation Through The Shed Blood Of Jesus Christ On The Cross Goes Up

Published

2 days ago

April 4, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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On this Resurrection weekend, NTEB is proclaiming new life through the shed blood of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world

The NTEB Gospel Witness Billboard Program continues going at full-speed ahead here in its sixth year of operation, proclaiming new life in Jesus Christ with a message that takes less than 3 seconds to read while traveling past it at an average of 60 miles per hour. We are working on one right now that will go up somewhere in Tennessee shortly, please pray for that, and this one you see in the photo at the top of this article that went up yesterday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;” Ephesians 1:7 (KJB)

If you don’t believe that we live in a lost and dying world that has rejected Jesus Christ, just go read today’s headlines for 60 seconds and you will. But it is into this fallen world that Jesus Christ first appeared, and it is into this fallen world that we who are His witnesses are called to bear witness to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus on the third day according to the scriptures. Our billboards over the past six years have generated more than a billion views, and only the Judgment Seat of Christ will reveal just what manner of fruit was gained through this outreach. Please pray for the Gorzell family at Broken Pieces Ministries whom we partner with in this billboard, that the Lord will give them fruit, more fruit and much fruit for their labours.

How about you, Christian? Will you come and partner with all of us here at Now The End Begins to keep these billboards up? It costs thousands of dollars per month to do it, and we reach millions of people in the process. If God has prospered you, prayerfully consider clicking on the donate link to help us. We can’t do it without you.

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Headline News

Showing Themselves To Be Neither ‘Decimated’ Nor ‘Obliterated’, Iran Shoots Down American Aircraft At Will As World War Trump Takes A Dark New Turn

Published

2 days ago

April 3, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Neither decimated nor obliterated, Iran downs American warplanes and exposes the lie that this widening World War Trump is under control

For weeks now, the American people have been told that Iran was “decimated” and “obliterated,” that its ability to resist had been shattered, and that overwhelming force had already reduced the enemy to rubble. But now the battlefield is answering back with a very different testimony. AP reported Friday that two U.S. military aircraft were shot down as the war escalated, including an F-15E over Iran with one crew member rescued and another still missing. The Washington Post likewise reported that a second U.S. aircraft, an A-10, was also brought down, even as American rescue operations intensified. That is not what “obliterated” looks like. Today marks the single worst day for World War Trump since the conflict began. It only gets worse from this point on, so buckle up.

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?” James 4:1 (KJB)

As the skies darken overseas, the Pentagon is being thrown into visible turmoil at home. AP reported yesterday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and also dismissed two other generals, adding to a broader pattern of removals among senior military leadership during this widening war. That is what makes this moment so dangerous. America is now watching a war grow more costly and less predictable at the exact same time that the military chain of command is being shaken at the top. Iran is proving it can still strike, still contest the fight, still bloody American power, while Hegseth is purging senior officers in the middle of a regional firestorm. That is not stability. That is not control. That is not confidence. That is a government trying to project strength while the structure underneath it visibly trembles. This is why a Fox News host is not fit to run the Pentagon.

Trump: “We’re flying wherever we want. Nobody is even shooting at us”

Iran: hits US F-15E jet, hits US A-10 plane, forces both F-16 and KC-135 into emergency landings.

Is anyone tired of the lies coming from Washington, or does that MAGA Kool-Aid still taste good? pic.twitter.com/ALanNmoOBO

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) April 3, 2026

What we are seeing is the same old lie that has dragged nations into disaster for generations. First comes the boasting. Then comes the inflated language. Then comes the media chorus repeating that victory is assured, the enemy is broken, and the situation is under control. But war has a way of stripping the paint off every official narrative. Jets fall. Men go missing. Rescue missions are launched. The enemy everyone said was finished keeps fighting. And suddenly all the slogans Trump has been feeding his base don’t sound so convincing anymore.

Hegseth’s role in this only sharpens the sense of disorder. You do not fire top generals in the middle of a shooting war and then expect the public to believe everything is proceeding calmly and according to plan. Maybe the administration calls it accountability. Maybe it calls it reform. But from the outside, it looks like upheaval at the summit while the battlefield below grows hotter by the hour. AP says more than a dozen military leaders have been removed in the past year under Hegseth’s tenure. By any fair standard of reckoning, that’s a purge.

The truly maddening part is that none of this should surprise anybody paying attention. Iran was never going to absorb repeated blows and simply disappear. A regime with missiles, air defenses, regional reach, hardened infrastructure, and ideological resolve was never going to be erased by chest-thumping rhetoric and triumphant press lines. The fantasy was always political. The reality is military. And now the military reality is tearing through the political fantasy in front of the whole world. AP has already reported other Iranian strikes during this war, including an attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia that wounded U.S. troops and damaged aircraft.

So yes, it’s safe to say that this war has taken a dark turn, a very dark turn.

Iran has shown itself to be neither “decimated” nor “obliterated.” It is battered, yes. Pressured, yes. Under attack, yes. But it is still capable of inflicting damage, still capable of challenging American power, and still capable of exposing how hollow the original boasts were. And while that reality unfolds abroad, Pete Hegseth is remaking the Department of War through abrupt removals that only deepen the impression of a war machine under strain.

The message from Washington is strength, command, and dominance, but the message from events is something very different: this thing is slipping, the cost is rising, the leadership is unstable, and the promises made at the beginning are already being swallowed by the flames. That is the dark turn. And once the official story can no longer survive contact with reality, the next thing to die is trust.