Tarot cards are as cool as Pokémon trading cards were in the early aughts, and the demand for essential oils to cure everything from jet lag to hormonal imbalances has catapulted natural wellness companies like Canada’s Saje Natural Wellness and Abundance Naturally into mega success stories. Mainstream beauty brands no longer just sell creams and serums; they trade in emulsions, potions and elixirs. Traditional Saturday salon outings for manicures are now treks to places like Toronto-based The Rock Store for reiki treatments followed by kombucha at the fittingly named Witches’ Brew in Kensington Market.

It’s a Friday night and I’m watching my best friend – a fully sane and high-achieving young professional – rhythmically parade around my apartment to a non-existent beat. She vigorously waves what looks like a massive joint in all directions, filling my entire condo with an earthy aroma.

No, my friend hasn’t had too many glasses of pinot grigio. She’s performing a smudging ritual to cleanse the aura of my new home and clear it of negative energy.

It’d be easy to write her off as a kooky eccentric, except many of my female friends have jumped aboard the same mystical bandwagon. It’s common to see altars in their apartments, not populated with crucifixes or wee Jesus statuettes, but with healing crystals, significant personal items, incense cones, candles and fresh flowers. They don’t use it to pray, but rather to “set their intentions.”

Smudging rituals and crystal altars aren’t the only witchcraft-inspired practices to go mainstream over the last year. Rituals and beliefs that would’ve gotten a woman burned at the stake or hanged in 16th-century Salem and Britain are increasingly the norm.

Tarot cards are as cool as Pokémon trading cards were in the early aughts, and the demand for essential oils to cure everything from jet lag to hormonal imbalances has catapulted natural wellness companies like Canada’s Saje Natural Wellness and Abundance Naturally into mega success stories. Mainstream beauty brands no longer just sell creams and serums; they trade in emulsions, potions and elixirs. Traditional Saturday salon outings for manicures are now treks to places like Toronto-based The Rock Store for reiki treatments followed by kombucha at the fittingly named Witches’ Brew in Kensington Market.

Depending on which source you believe, the number of women killed during the “witch craze” that occurred between the 15th and 18th centuries is anywhere from 50,000 to 9 million. Until as recently as 1951, you could be fined or imprisoned in Great Britain for practicing astrology, magic or spiritualism. But this isn’t just a travesty from our distant past.

In September of 2009, the UN identified witch-hunting as “a form of persecution and violence that is spreading around the globe.” The horrific practice of witch hunting is still particularly alive and well in Africa. An academic paper from University of Johannesburg philosophy professor Silvia Federici looks at incidents from the early 1990s (when 300 alleged witches were burned to death in Kenya) to 2005 (in Ghana, where 1,000 suspected sorcerers were at threat of being burned at the stake).

Despite – or perhaps because of the misogyny-plagued history of witchcraft – magick is suddenly everywhere. The guilty pleasure of reading one’s monthly horoscope has transformed into a serious belief in astrology, dictating who one should date and instilling a deep-seeded fear of Mercury retrograde. Life coach Gabrielle Bernstein, author of Spirit Junkie: A Radical Road to Discovering Self-Love and Miracles and May Cause Miracles: A 6-Week Kick-Start to Unlimited Happines, apparently “manifested” her books onto the New York Times’ bestseller list and is something of the de facto shaman for millennial women everywhere.

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