The online “spiritualists” preying on the vulnerable
By now, we’re all familiar with #WitchTok. Up in the rankings there’s @chaoticwitchaunt (or Frankie Anne), who boasts 1.4m followers and shills everything from “veiling spray” to “garlic beeswax candles” on her online shop. There’s the hordes and hordes of tarot readers too. Though your feelings towards these online personas will be dependent on how new-age-inclined you are already, it’s safe to say that something like #WitchTok feels relatively well-intentioned compared to the latest iteration of online spirituality that’s sweeping TikTok and Instagram: scroll for long enough, and it’s likely that you’ll come across a dubious pocket of creators asking you to “claim the energy” that’s purportedly contained within their videos.
“He will start missing you badly and text you ‘I love you’ by tonight if you save or use this audio and type affirm” reads the text in one of these videos. Though it’s not discernible what about this video gives it that power, head to the comments and you’ll see that people have gone ahead and obeyed its dubious instructions — there are literally hundreds of people taking the time to write the word “affirm”. I’m pleased to say that I’ve never gone as far as commenting on one of these videos. But in a few particularly dark moments, I have saved them, seeing their existence as a cosmic semblance of hope when everything else was seemingly falling apart. People won’t be quick to advertise that they’ve succumbed to this kind of delusion, but judging by the response to this content, it’s clearly more common than you might think. When I asked on Instagram, a few people I knew even admitted to interacting with them. “I have a few times, but mainly for the money and luck ones,” said one person I spoke to. “I think it’s a bit of a faith thing. It’s nice to think that the universe or God would give you such an easy route to those things”. “It triggers my OCD,” another person said. “The one where they say if you don’t play this sound you’ll have bad luck is lowkey awful. You can spiral if you have intrusive thoughts”.
But for anyone who does choose to interact with these videos it’s often short lived. The first person I spoke to continued: “I feel like it totally defeats the purpose of what it’s intended for — the universe calling out to a particular person. Now I think it’s a load of BS. Definitely just a way for people to indulge in whatever fantasy they want to actualise in their life”. Whether it’s because of your own waning interest in spirituality or something else, this content has a sell-by date, and that’s normally reached thanks to just how quickly it becomes obvious that it’s, erm, completely meaningless. That is, if you’ve got an ounce of critical thought knocking about up there, it should be clear that these videos are created with the purpose of racking up likes, comments, saves, and the potential for virality. And all the commenters demonstrating the cognitive dissonance that allows them to obscure that fact – those who believe that hitting the save button will summon their ex to text them “a heartfelt message” at “exactly 11:24 tonight” – can only be described as vulnerable. Or, at least, they’re desperate. Either way, it’s murky waters.
Unlike TikTok and Instagram’s witches (who often put a face to a name and seem to have put at least a little effort into their “craft”), when it comes to who can practise this new genre of online spiritualism, it’s apparently absolutely anyone. As well as the big names – your @spiritualsocietycommunity and your @manifest.truelove, who together have a total of 324k followers – there’s creators who have clearly just emerged on the scene, looking to help the lovelorn and, well, make a quick buck. Someone like the Instagram creator @haitarot7 is the perfect example of this. With content that revolves around either an AI-generated witch-stroke-old-woman or a slapdash tarot set-up consisting of an Urban Outfitters tapestry, cheap tarot cards, and a few pebbles, @haitarot7 parades her bare essentials of witch-dom in the hopes that some hapless fool will head to the link in her bio and buy a personal tarot reading. I reached out to @haitarot7 on WhatsApp to inquire what the price of that was, but she didn’t ever get back to me. In fact, the message didn’t even deliver.
Other flavours of this brand of digital spiritualism include teenage boys, ostensibly “good looking” guys, and “clairvoyants” like Serena, who edge up their content by throwing a few swear words into their vaguer-than-vague readings. There’s also the nameless, faceless accounts which aren’t so much about spirituality as they are about the equally abstract notion of “inspiration”. @dailymotivation08, for example, purports that their mission is to “inspire 10 million people”, which they do so by posting videos of heart graphics with text that reads something along the lines of “you will be in his dreams tonight”. How exactly will you appear in your unrequited love’s subconscious? By claiming not one, not two, but three times. @dailymotivation08’s paid offering is not tarot readings, but Instagram promos which they instruct you to DM them for. Though some of the creator’s that populate this space are better at obscuring the fact, it’s someone like @dailymotivation08 that makes it clear what these accounts are really all about: gaining an online following.
For one person that I spoke to, their main problem with this kind of content lies in how it puts the onus on women. “I think it’s related to women taking too much responsibility for other people’s (and particularly men’s) emotions,” they said. “Underpinning that responsibility is a sense that you can totally control another person’s emotions toward you, whether it’s by being incredibly loving and caring with someone who doesn’t show you the same, or through ridiculous shit like this”. And with the popularity of witchcraft in recent years stemming from anti-patriarchal ideas around female empowerment, it’s the woman-centric aspect of this content that makes it feel like such a sad and unfortunate fall of grace — its existence points to the fact that we’ve forgotten the roots of prominent aspects of spirituality.
Really, though, the current online sphere’s problem with women far transcends this genre of content, and someone like @serenasastrology_psychic (who aligns herself with a female demographic with her near constant mentions of the “divine masculine”) is just a small part of the issue. It’s hard not to see these spiritualists as deeply interconnected to TikTok and Instagram’s growing obsession with the “divine feminine” or the “that girl” aesthetic. It’s even difficult to separate them from the digital space’s preoccupation with attachment styles. Though aeons away from the baseless claims of Instagram and TikTok spiritualists, both types of content go for a demographic that’s at least adjacent to one another: those who think about romantic relationships in a way that implies they can control them rather than viewing them as an ungovernable entity. Those who believe their problems can be solved by hitting the like button, or pathologizing their partner’s behaviour as one of three (rather reductive) attachment styles. Really, we’d all do well to take the advice of an Instagram user going by the name of @fkn_catherapie, whose comment appeared on a video by @lawofattractions786: “No thanks. The people who ignore me can fuck off. You simply don’t need them in your life”.
Still, despite the mounting ethical and practical issues rife in this novel area of “spiritualism”, they’re going relatively unscathed. While you can take to X to find people lambasting prominent witches for encouraging “dangerous” behaviour, people apparently have no issue with content that tells you to “interact” or “claim” to solve your problems. Perhaps that’s because it’s relatively harmless. To be fair, it is — unless you give it palpable credence, it’s completely meaningless. I’d argue it’s more insidious than that, though. If the events surrounding TikTok psychic Ashley Guillard are anything to go by – a tarot reading led to her falsely accusing someone for the 2022 Idaho massacre – it’s evident that there can be serious ramifications. And though the ramifications are especially significant in the case of Guillard, it’s not like the seemingly innocuous “claim” videos are comparatively fine and dandy. With a 2022 survey of Gen Z young adults revealing that 42% are diagnosed with a mental health condition, videos like these – imbued with false hope and false promises – might be playing with fire. “All these posts have ever done is give me […] hurt and pain” reads a comment on one of these videos.
Of course, for as many people that have been duped by this kind of content, there’s the same (if not more) that quite literally don’t pay it any mind. Some creators are even doing their bit to mock the absurdity of these kinds of videos — a tongue-in-cheek one was posted by a UK driving instructor, and *checks notes* Jedward had a pop. So, where do we go from here? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Those interacting with this kind of content could be a lost cause, but they also might be onto something far beyond my grasp. One of the most interesting videos that I found while researching for this article came in the form of one by Instagram user @tarotlovespell222. In that, a voice said to “remember that karma is real” and to “treat this video with love and care”. Could writing this article be construed as a lack of care? Let’s just wait and see what happens to me after it’s published. I might take a little more care crossing the street.
