What’s Your Path? (And How Can They Sell It to You?)

It seems like every wannabe-influencer these days is teaching classes. If you’ve got the cash or a pay-in-4 plan, you can learn how to make money with drop shipping, investing in cryptocurrencies, the art of manipulation, and yes, even pay someone to teach you how to do witchcraft. As I was idly clicking around the internet while writing the articles for this zine, I stumbled across more than one website that offered some slop AI content wrapped around a sales pitch for witchcraft classes. It seems there’s no shortage of grifters in the magic community looking to take advantage of the ever-increasing number of new witches on the scene.

I want to be clear: I am not against other witches selling their goods and services. Items made with love and intention, for example, have a wonderful place in the witchy world and serve to strengthen our community; I believe it’s only fair that people with skills to offer are fairly compensated for said skills. No, my diatribe is against the grifters. The ones selling you bullshit “classes” on how to practice witchcraft where you get an AI-written booklet and some pre-recorded videos that have affiliate links to Amazon and Temu for cheap imported ritual garbage. The influencers curating beautiful reels and videos of their altars and aesthetic tarot spreads (also all conveniently available for purchase through TikTok Shop). And so on. These people will feed on your insecurities and desires and take advantage of your inexperience. An honest practitioner will always freely share their knowledge and experience with you. You might owe them for their handmade candles, though.

And let me be clear again: I LOVE new witches. Magic has been a transformative force in my life and a framework for self-growth, expression, and connection with the wider world. The more people who feel drawn to that in our hyper-capitalist and hyper-isolated unnatural modern world, the better, in my opinion. But I want y’all on the right path.

And that word, “path,” brings us to the main topic of this article: the untruth of having to “choose a path,” the marketing of aesthetics, and the capitalist, hyper-consumerist issue that is plaguing the magic community in modern times. One of those slop articles I discovered highlighted this issue well. It was written in a Buzzfeed-style list, titled something along the lines of “What Is Your Witchcraft Path?” It outlined all the usual suspects: Kitchen Witch, Hedge Witch, Moon Witch (what the HELL), and so on, and presented them as if they were Dungeons and Dragons classes you get affinity bonuses for picking. Then, of course, at the bottom, some paid classes in how to find your path and learn witchcraft basics.

I’ve never been one to really ascribe to NEEDING a Path (with a capital P) in witchcraft. I believe that you should work with what frameworks you need and what you find effective, and don’t get hung up on what KIND of witch you are (I guess I’m on the eclectic Path). I do think that there’s some value in these descriptors, but over the years as The Discourse ™ around witchcraft Paths has increased online, I’ve noticed some rather alarming trends. People stressing about picking the “right” Path, people neglecting or even deriding aspects of other Paths, and perhaps most egregious, people prescribing an aesthetic style to each Path. “Cottagecore Kitchen Witch” is a thing, apparently, and there’s a whole market of drop-shipped slop out there on Temu and Amazon to cater to it, complete with tags so you can find the perfect aesthetic witchy herb knife for the low low price of $2.76 and some human rights violations.

The title of this inaugural Ritekeeper issue is apt: The Witchcraft Industrial Complex is real. And it is out here to sell you garbage items and garbage services, to provoke your insecurities and anxieties and turn them into purchases, to keep you mired in a hyper-consumerist mentality and distract you from the power and beauty that is the actual Craft. You are told you should pick a Path, which then becomes your marketing demographic. You become a targeted niche. You surround yourself with algorithmic social media feeds of your chosen Path, assaulting your dopamine receptors with an endless scroll of curated images of “aesthetic” altars and ritual tools. You are told subconsciously that to follow your Path, you must buy the right things that signify said Path, or you aren’t Path-ing correctly. To combat the anxiety and numbing effect of filling your time shopping and researching rather than practicing magic, opportunists offer you convenient classes to teach you how to do witchcraft, how to “find your path;” the torrent of capitalist slop never stops.   

And don’t get me wrong: by all means, if “Cottagecore Kitchen Witch” resonates with you, then great! I’m glad you’ve found something that you can really connect with. I just ask you not to go shopping and redecorating your house for it.


I implore you to keep in mind:

Magic and the practice of it is a framework, a way of understanding and interacting with the wider world. It is not an “aesthetic,” it is not something that you can buy your way into or curate into existence on Pinterest. Witchcraft is deceptively simple; all it really takes is intuition and intention. And yet those two things are like muscles you must exercise and develop over time; there are no safe and effective shortcuts and there’s no set timeline. You cannot buy the “right” bodybuilding supplement and workout outfit and walk into a gym expecting to squat 300 pounds on day one. You start with what you have, where you are, at this point in time, and progress from there. The further away we allow ourselves to be drawn from intuition and intention, the harder actual practice becomes (and the more expensive). The most important part is to DO, and by doing we “be.” To be a witch, you must do witchcraft. You don’t need anything else but that.

So as you dive into your exploration of the craft, put on your blinders and metaphorical earplugs against all the noise on the internet. Charge naively and confidently ahead and learn to flex your intuition muscles as you go, practice discernment as you learn, set intentions to grow and progress with as little hand-holding and 3 AM internet rabbitholing as possible. If you read or hear something that makes you begin to feel anxious, or inadequate, or unworthy of your chosen way of practicing magic, ask yourself “is someone trying to sell me something?” I bet you will find most of the time that the answer is “yes.”