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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

European Union

As Spain Watches While An All-Male Horde Of Foreign Muslim Invaders Violates Its Sovereign Borders, The World Lurches Forward Toward All-Out Global War

Published

2 days ago

July 31, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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The Invasion Of Spain By Muslim Migrants Reveals How Quickly National Sovereignty Can Collapse As The Entire World Moves Toward Permanent Emergency Government

Look around you, the world is not merely experiencing a collection of unrelated crises, it is literally convulsing. The war with Iran is spreading across the Middle East, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, striking American interests and pulling nations like Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and China closer to the battlefield. In Europe, Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is pressing against the borders of NATO, with missiles falling dangerously close to the tripwire that could ignite direct conflict between Russia and the West. Now Spain has watched its sovereign border buckle beneath a reported human wave of tens of thousands of Muslims pouring into Ceuta, followed by another coordinated assault against Melilla. The Middle East is burning, Eastern Europe is exploding, and Western Europe is discovering that an invasion does not always arrive behind tanks—it can come through an abandoned border while a paralyzed government stands helplessly watching.

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:6–8 (KJB)

Jesus Christ warned that the closing days would be characterized by “wars and rumours of wars,” with nation rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom. That is precisely the atmosphere now gathering over this sin-cursed world. These wars are no longer contained within neat geographical boundaries. Iran strikes across the Middle East, Russia threatens the security architecture of Europe, China arms Tehran while watching Taiwan, and great movements of desperate people are being weaponized against weakened Western nations. Every border is becoming a pressure point, every military alliance a potential tripwire, and every regional conflict a possible doorway into something much larger. The world constructed after the Second World War is coming apart before our eyes, and the demons of nationalism, religious hatred, conquest and empire are coming roaring back from the grave.

Matthew 24 is doctrinally aimed at the Jewish people during the time of Jacob’s trouble, but the shadow of that coming period is already stretching across the nations. In fact, it is our position that verses 3-8 can, and do, refer to the end of ther Church Age time period. We are not yet standing in the Great Tribulation, and will be raptured out before it starts, but we are watching the scaffolding being erected for it. The military alliances are forming, the ancient enemies are awakening, national borders are disintegrating, economic systems are straining, and frightened populations are being conditioned to accept emergency rule as a permanent way of life. The coming Antichrist will not rise in a peaceful and prosperous world. He will step forward from the wreckage of a world exhausted by war, overwhelmed by migration, terrified by economic collapse and begging someone—anyone—to restore order.

That is the real prophetic significance of what is happening. Iran, Ukraine and Spain are different flashpoints, but they are all producing the same result: confusion, fear, destabilization and a growing demand for international control. Satan is preparing the sickness before presenting his counterfeit cure. First comes the chaos; then comes the man promising peace. First the nations are shaken; then the world reaches for a ruler powerful enough to control them. First comes the cry for safety; then comes the covenant that will begin Daniel’s seventieth week and lead straight into the time of Jacob’s trouble.

The world is not falling apart randomly, it is falling into prophetic alignment. The actors are taking their places, the ancient nations are moving, and the machinery of global war is grinding into motion. The Church is waiting for the Pretribulation Rapture, Israel is being prepared for the furnace, and the nations are being gathered toward judgment. The headlines are no longer whispering; they are shouting. Iran is burning, Russia is advancing, Europe’s borders are breaking, and the words of Jesus Christ are casting their unmistakable shadow over the entire world.

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

Anthony Fauci

They Censored NTEB For Questioning Fauci In 2021, Now He Pleads The Fifth As Republicans Use The Spectacle To Hide Trump’s Failing Iran War From Voters

Published

3 days ago

July 30, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Anthony Fauci Pleads The Fifth More Than 100 Times As Republicans Resurrect The COVID Scandal To Distract Americans From Trump’s Widening Iran War Before The Midterm Elections

Back in June 2021, Facebook began the process of erasing the Now The End Begins Facebook page with 250,000 followers for daring to challenge the official COVID narrative, question the vaccines and expose the alliance forming between government power, pharmaceutical interests and Big Tech censorship. NTEB had spent more than a decade building its Facebook presence, publishing at that time nearly 9,000 articles and King James Bible teachings, only to be branded as ‘dangerous to the community’ for asking questions the political establishment did not want discussed. We were told to sit down, shut up and “trust the science,” while the social-media gatekeepers worked to make dissent disappear. We did not remain silent back then even as we were being unpublished by our social media overlords, and LORD willing, we will never be silent here in 2026.

“And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” Isaiah 59:14

Now the man who became the face of that entire operation has returned to Capitol Hill—and suddenly Anthony Fauci has nothing to say. Subpoenaed before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 29, Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer more than 100 questions concerning COVID’s origins, American funding of research in Wuhan and whether his private records contradicted his public testimony. Fauci accused Senator Rand Paul of conducting an “unhinged” campaign to put him behind bars, while Paul announced that the committee would vote on holding him in contempt. Fauci had already received a preemptive pardon from Joe Biden covering his government service through January 19, 2025, but his lawyers argued that new testimony could expose him to fresh accusations of perjury. Fauci needs to stand trial, but don’t be fooled as to why this is all happening now.

Everyone is piling on Anthony Fauci now, and rightly so, because he is effectively a COVID mass murderer. But what I want to know is where were these ‘brave souls’ back in 2020 and ’21, when Fauci was given the green light by DONALD TRUMP to do his evil deeds? And what about… pic.twitter.com/ODBkgmn1ow

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) July 30, 2026

Republicans are dragging Fauci back beneath the television lights precisely as Donald Trump’s Iran War is widening, American munitions are being consumed, diplomacy is collapsing and Tehran’s regime remains alive and fighting. The United States has resumed heavy strikes against Iran, Iran is again firing toward American forces, Saudi Arabia is striking Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and what was sold as another display of overwhelming American power is mutating into an open-ended regional war. The Fauci hearing gives conservative media the perfect spectacle to relive the rage of 2020, watch Fauci squirm, and keep Republican voters from staring too closely at the strategic disaster unfolding in the Middle East.

After Americans were censored, suspended, ridiculed and threatened for questioning him, his refusal to answer legitimate questions under oath is historically stunning. At the same time, Republicans must not be permitted to turn Anthony Fauci into a political smoke bomb. Donald Trump placed Fauci before the American people, kept him there, launched Operation Warp Speed and repeatedly promoted the vaccines. Now the GOP wants applause for questioning Fauci while demanding silence concerning Trump’s war. Same stage, different distraction—and once again, the American people are being told where to look and what they are permitted to question. The players will change, but the song remains the same. Anthony Fauci only had power because Donald Trump gave it to him, remember that.

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

China

Here On Day 151 Of World War Trump, China Is Now The Official Supplier Of Shoulder-Fired Air Defense Missile Launchers To Iran As The Conflict Greatly Expands

Published

3 days ago

July 29, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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China Moves To Rearm Iran With 400 Shoulder-Fired Missiles As World War Trump Widens Into A Dangerous Global Confrontation With America In The Crosshairs

What you are watching is no ordinary weapons sale, it’s the widening of the Middle East war into a confrontation between the world’s great powers. According to Reuters, Iran could soon receive as many as 400 Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 shoulder-fired air-defense systems in a deal worth up to $70 million. America and Israel spent months blasting holes through Iran’s defenses, and now Communist China appears ready to help Tehran fill those holes with hundreds of portable, heat-seeking missiles. Washington drops the bombs, Beijing replaces the weapons, and Iran prepares for the next round. This is how a regional war begins mutating into something much larger and infinitely more dangerous. Welcome to World War Trump where things have been going very badly, and getting worse by the day.

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:” Ezekiel 38:5 (KJB)

Do not underestimate these weapons because they are carried on a man’s shoulder. A fixed radar installation can be photographed by satellites, targeted by coordinates and destroyed with a precision strike. A MANPADS team, or Man-portable air-defense system, can hide inside a building, travel in an ordinary vehicle, emerge without warning and disappear immediately after firing. These missiles will not make Iran’s airspace impenetrable or bring down high-flying B-2 bombers, but rather transform the lower skies over Iran into a deadly ambush zone for helicopters, drones, surveillance platforms and low-flying aircraft. Every airbase, missile facility, refinery and command center could suddenly be protected by launchers that American planners cannot easily locate or eliminate.

This is the terrible arithmetic of America’s unfinished war, otherwise known as World War Trump. The United States expends million-dollar missiles and billion-dollar aircraft to destroy Iran’s defenses, while China helps Tehran replace a dangerous layer of those defenses for a comparatively modest $60–70 million. Iran does not have to defeat the United States in the air; it merely has to make every mission more expensive, every flight more dangerous and every strike more politically costly. Tehran is learning from every American attack, dispersing its weapons, hardening its facilities and purchasing exactly the systems needed to complicate the next assault. The longer this war continues, the less Iran resembles the vulnerable target struck at its beginning.

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Then comes the China factor. Beijing does not have to fire directly upon American forces to wage war against American power. It can arm Iran, supply dual-use technology, sustain Tehran’s military industry and force Washington to drain its own stockpiles thousands of miles from home. If the reported shipment travels through Pakistan and into Iran, it would reveal the emergence of an eastern military-supply corridor operating beyond Washington’s control. China, of course, has denied the report and Pakistan denies involvement, but if the delivery occurs, the strategic message will be unmistakable: America’s enemies are beginning to replenish one another, the nightmare does not end at Iran’s borders. Portable missiles can be hidden, transported and transferred far more easily than large air-defense batteries. If even a fraction of these weapons eventually reached Iranian proxy forces, American troops, Israeli aircraft and civilian aviation throughout the region could face a whole new level of danger. Once these systems are dispersed, tracking every launcher will become virtually impossible, and Iran will have gone from surviving to thriving. How can that be? Because your King James Bible declares that Iran is a major power in the last days, that’s how.

Jesus warned that the closing days would be marked by “wars and rumours of wars,” and we are watching the machinery of those wars being assembled before our eyes. America strikes Iran. China rearms Iran. Russia strengthens its relationships across the East. Israel prepares for another attack, while every ceasefire becomes merely a pause to reload. These are not isolated headlines anymore, they are pieces of a rapidly forming global alignment. World War Trump has lit the end times fuse, the weapons are moving, and the nations, and the kingdoms, are busy choosing their sides. Exactly how the prophets say that it will be in the last days.