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Image Credit: Kate Dehler for NBC News

Understanding the Rise of the “Etsy Witch”

A recent NBC News feature examining the viral rise of so-called “Etsy witches” turns to Emily D. Crews, Executive Director of the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion, to explain why the trend resonates so powerfully in the current American religious landscape.

The article traces how online spellwork, often marketed as low-cost, low-stakes “entertainment," has surged in popularity amid economic uncertainty, political division, and widespread burnout. For Crews, this moment reflects broader shifts in religious life, particularly the steady decline of institutional affiliation and the rise of highly individualized forms of belief.

“In this kind of religious landscape,” Crews notes, “it makes sense that someone might just as easily seek help from a witch than from a priest or a rabbi or a sacred text.” Increasingly, especially among millennials and Gen Z, people are assembling meaning and ritual from multiple traditions, seeking agency and spiritual expression outside formal institutions.

Crews also situates the phenomenon within a longer historical arc. While the platforms are new, she emphasizes, the underlying impulse is not. Humans have long paid religious specialists to perform rituals, blessings, and services—today’s Etsy storefronts are simply a digital extension of that enduring practice.

By placing a viral pop-culture trend in a historical and religious context, Crews’ commentary underscores the continued relevance of rigorous scholarship for understanding how belief adapts in moments of social change.

Read the full NBC News story featuring Emily D. Crews’ analysis: https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/spell-2025-was-year-etsy-witch-rcna248853