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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

The Terrible Truth That Donald Trump Won’t Tell You Is That His Department Of War Has Fired Years Worth Of Munitions In Weeks, Leaving America Exposed

Published

1 day ago

July 28, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Donald Trump Says America Is Stronger Than Ever, But The Pentagon’s Emptying Missile Stockpiles Tell A Far More Dangerous Story About The Nation’s Readiness For A Larger War

The United States may still possess the most technologically advanced military force on earth, but advanced weapons mean very little when the magazines holding them are being emptied faster than American factories can refill them. That is the terrifying reality behind America’s growing munitions crisis. Patriot interceptors, Tomahawk cruise missiles, air-defense weapons and long-range precision munitions can take months—or even years—to replace, yet they can be fired by the hundreds in a matter of days. America has built a military designed to win spectacular opening battles, but it is increasingly questionable whether that military has the industrial depth necessary to sustain a long and brutal war.

“There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.” Psalm 33:16 (KJB)

For decades, Washington behaved as though the United States would always have unlimited time, unlimited money and uncontested access to the global supply chain. Factories were closed, production lines were reduced, skilled workers disappeared and critical components were outsourced overseas. Meanwhile, politicians continued sending weapons around the world while assuring the American people that our own stockpiles remained strong. Now the wars in Ukraine, Israel, the Red Sea and Iran have exposed the truth: America has been spending missiles like they are bullets, while manufacturing them like they are handmade luxury automobiles. Trump’s promise to “rebuild the military” remains, as of this writing, largely unfulfilled. Posting about it on social media is not the same as actually doing it.

President Trump inherited much of this industrial weakness, that’s is true, but it is also true that he cannot, and will not, escape responsibility for what happens next. His administration has projected overwhelming strength while simultaneously acknowledging that replenishing America’s most valuable weapons will take months and years. You cannot boast that the arsenal is overflowing while urgently requesting tens of billions of dollars to prevent critical shortages. The public rhetoric says America is stronger than ever, but the frantic scramble to reopen plants, expand production and rebuild inventories tells an entirely different story.

The greatest danger is not merely another confrontation with Iran. The nightmare scenario is that America becomes trapped fighting multiple wars while China makes its move against Taiwan. Every Patriot interceptor fired in the Middle East, every Tomahawk launched against Iran and every missile transferred overseas is one less weapon immediately available in the Pacific. You better believe that Beijing is watching the numbers, that Moscow is watching the numbers, and that North Korea is watching the numbers as well. Every enemy of the United States is calculating how long America can fight before its launchers remain loaded but its ammunition bunkers stand empty. And if we are where I think we are on the end times timeline, it’s just about time for them to take their shots.

A modern war between major powers would consume munitions at a rate the American people have never witnessed. The United States could expend years of production in the opening weeks. Once those weapons are gone, money alone cannot instantly replace them. Congress can appropriate another $100 billion overnight, but it cannot manufacture a missile overnight. It cannot instantly create rocket motors, guidance systems, explosives, rare-earth components or trained industrial workers. The weakness is not merely financial—it is physical, industrial and strategic.

America has spent decades financing the image of military supremacy while neglecting the machinery required to sustain it. That illusion is now colliding with reality. The United States remains extraordinarily powerful, but power without endurance is a dangerous deception. A nation that prepares for war through speeches, slogans and televised airstrikes—but not through factories, stockpiles and production capacity—is a nation gambling with its own survival.

The lesson should be unmistakable: America cannot continue attempting to police every conflict, arm every ally and confront every enemy while assuming its arsenal will never reach the bottom. The munitions crisis is not simply a Pentagon bookkeeping problem. It is a warning that the world’s greatest military power may be entering the most dangerous period in generations with fewer arrows in its quiver than its leaders are willing to admit. America right now is in an incredibly tenuous position, and Donald Trump is the one who put us there. World War Trump just might be about to run out of gas and nowhere near the finish line.

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

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

Headline News

From Sickness And Scarcity To Fresh Water And Hope, Operation Africa! Finishes Kenya Well Project And Watches God Turn Desperate Need Into Lasting Miracle

Published

3 days ago

July 27, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Operation Africa! Completes A Life-Changing Well In Kenya, Bringing Clean Water, New Hope And A Powerful Testimony Of God’s Faithfulness To Pastor Dancan’s Children

What began as a burden for children suffering without dependable clean water has now become a finished well, standing in the soil of Kenya as a testimony to answered prayer, faithful giving, and the goodness of God. Those children gathered around it are not looking at concrete and stone; they are looking at life, health, hope, and a future that has been changed because God moved through His people. Pastor Dancan wrote to me this morning and said “the children are shocked at how much life has now changed for the better, something they never could have imagined.” To tell you the truth, I am a little shocked, too, at how quickly the LORD brought all this to come to pass.

“I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.” Isaiah 41:18 (KJB)

Pastor Dancan carried the burden on the ground, Operation Africa! carried the need before NTEB’ers, and the Lord brought everything together in His perfect timing. Every prayer offered, every dollar given, every obstacle overcome, and every foot drilled into the earth became part of a miracle those children will remember for the rest of their lives. Long after the excitement of the project fades, that well will continue giving water day after day, becoming a silent preacher declaring that God sees the forgotten, hears the cries of the needy, and rewards those who act in faith.

THE KENYA WELL PROJECT UPDATE: Operation Africa! is thrilled to report that we have now successfully completed the drilling and installation of a well at the Glory Fellowship Orphanage in Kisii, Kenya. All glory to the Lord Jesus Christ for this incredible lifechanging miracle!! pic.twitter.com/0VvWz1ZRfv

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) July 27, 2026

This is what we have accomplished together so far. We’ve given them over 1,100 Bibles, enough medicine to heal 81 children of malaria and typdoid, a 10,000 liter permanent water tanked, filled it twice with fresh water, and now a beautiful, amazing, incredible and permanent 60-foot well complete with charcoal filtration system that connects to the water tank. The “cherry on the sundae” was sending them, this morning, 20 wash basins to bathe in and 20 jerrycans for water transport. Thank you all so very much for your prayers and faithful giving, this entire project is now 95% paid for. If you would like to help us get the last 5% in, right around $1,200, please click the donation link below.

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

If God has prospered you, please take a moment to click on the donate button to help us in this overwhelmingly urgent task of providing the children of Glory Fellowship Orphange with medicine and clean drinking water. We need your prayers, we need your generous financial support, and we need you to stand with us in the closing days of the Church Age. Thank you so very much, TO THE FIGHT!!!

NOTE: If you need a 501 C3 Letter of Donation for tax purposes, please send your donation to:

NTEB Ministries
1340 N Great Neck Rd.
Ste. 1272-129
Virginia Beach, VA 23454.

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

End Times

New Roadside Billboard Campaign Denying The Deity Of Jesus Christ Reveals A Growing Satanic Assault On The Biblical Doctrine Of God Manifest In The Flesh

Published

5 days ago

July 24, 2026

Geoffrey Grider

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Jesus Christ Did Not Begin In Bethlehem: New Billboards Deny His Pre-Existence, His Deity And The Unmistakable Testimony Of Scripture

A new billboard campaign has appeared declaring, “JESUS IS NOT GOD,” followed by the equally blasphemous claim that Jesus Christ did not pre-exist in Heaven. That is not merely bad theology, it is a direct attack on the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The billboard says “Scripture says,” but Scripture says the exact opposite. The King James Bible declares, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus did not begin in Bethlehem. Bethlehem was the place where the eternal Word was made flesh and stepped into the world He created. Jesus Christ is God the Father in a human body, take it or leave it, like it or lump it.

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” 1 Timothy 3:16 (KJB)

Jesus Christ Himself said, “I came down from heaven.” He prayed concerning the glory He possessed with the Father “before the world was.” He declared, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Paul tells us that all things in Heaven and Earth were created by Him and for Him, and that He is before all things. A man who began his existence in Mary’s womb could not have created the universe, shared glory with the Father before creation, walked with Israel in the wilderness or come down from Heaven. The billboard cannot be reconciled with the words of Christ because its message is built upon denying them.

COME HELP US PROVIDE A WELL FOR 81 ORPHANS IN KENYA, CLICK FOR MORE INFO AND HOW TO DONATE!!

This is how religious deception operates. It keeps the name Jesus, quotes selected verses, speaks reverently about God and then quietly replaces the biblical Christ with a counterfeit. A Jesus who is not God, did not pre-exist, did not create all things and did not come down from Heaven is the “another Jesus” that Paul warns us about. He may wear the name, but he is not the eternal Word of John chapter one, the great I AM of John chapter eight, the Creator of Colossians chapter one or God manifest in the flesh of First Timothy chapter three. Satan has always desired a Jesus without deity, a cross without saving blood and a gospel without the power to save.

“For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” John 6:38 (KJB)

“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” John 17:5 (KJB)

The truth remains unshaken: Mary did not create Jesus Christ; she gave birth to the human body prepared for Him. The One lying in the manger was the One who made the stars shining above it. The infant wrapped in swaddling clothes was the eternal Creator entering His own creation. The Man nailed to the cross was the Lord of glory shedding His precious blood for sinners. The One who rose from the dead was not merely a prophet vindicated by God—He was God manifest in the flesh, victorious over death, Hell and the grave.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” John 1:1-4 (KJB)

So let the billboards shout their lies from the roadside. The King James Bible answers with thunder: “The Word was God.” Jesus Christ existed before Abraham, before Mary, before Adam, before the angels and before the foundation of the world. He is the eternal Son of God, the Creator of all things, the great I AM, the crucified and risen Saviour, and the coming King. The billboard says Jesus is not God. Thomas looked upon the risen Christ and gave the only answer the Bible allows: “My Lord and my God.” That’s exactly who Jesus Christ is.