Despite a near decade-long ban on the sale of “metaphysical services,” the $6 billion arts and crafts e-commerce platform hosts thousands of spells promising everything from untold wealth to cures for chronic depression — modern day snake oil sold as “entertainment.”
By Cyrus Farivar, Forbes Staff
In 2021, “Nick the Alchemist” started selling magical spells on Etsy. For just a few dollars each, he offers spells for pet protection, quick money and overcoming fear, and emblems known as “sigils” to confuse your enemies, attract women or become a “famous influencer.” Most of his dozens of spells have been rated five stars by apparently happy customers.
Since then, he says he’s made about $100,000 — enough to help him quit his job as a stocker at Lowe’s in Michigan, where he lives.
“I’ve always been drawn to entrepreneurship but I’ve been attracted to metaphysics and spirituality so I just put those two things together,” the 28-year-old entrepreneur said. “Before my Etsy, I tried a lot of things, dropshipping, writing articles, creating websites, nothing stuck until the Etsy shop.”
For almost a decade, Etsy has been a showcase for handcrafted, one-of-a-kind items, generating $1.6 billion in profit last year from 9 million sellers. Its selection is as vast as the human imagination, featuring everything from tea cozies to “human face pies.”
But alongside the custom pet portraiture and six foot plush giant squids are listings for something the platform has banned for nearly a decade: magical spells. Sellers like Nick the Alchemist offer thousands of them: “Extreme Millionaire Lotto Spell,” ($13.13), “Best Death Spell” ($60.87), “14th Dimensional Master Energy” ($365.01), “Wonderful Holiday With Family Spell” ($19.01”) and “Child Athlete Spell” ($11.95). There are also “Social Media Fame Spells” ($2.88) and, predictably, too many penis enhancement spells to bother counting.
Etsy does not break out witchcraft and wizardry in its quarterly financials. But interviews with people who claim to practice it and some rough math suggest the platform has facilitated millions of dollars in spell sales. Etsy’s own public data shows that some of its most popular spell sellers, who boast hundreds of offerings and thousands of largely 5-star reviews, have made hundreds of thousands of dollars on tens of thousands of sales.
Etsy did not respond to multiple detailed requests for comment on its policies, buyer protections, moderation practices and witchcraft and wizardry sales numbers.
It’s worth noting that Etsy’s rivals don’t appear to struggle as much with “metaphysical services” sellers. It’s almost impossible to find spell listings on Amazon, though the company does host listings for materials associated with magic. And while eBay has a few, appears to be orders of magnitude less than Etsy. “Our intangible items policy prohibits the sale of items or things that buyers can’t track or confirm they have received, including spells, souls, or ghosts,” eBay spokesperson Scott Overland told Forbes.
There is currently no scientific proof that magic exists. “This is snake oil, modern day snake oil,” said Kenny Biddle, the chief investigator for the Center of Inquiry, an organization devoted to defending science. “There is no evidence whatsoever that any of these things work. It’s no different than prayer, or thoughts, or well-wishes.”
Most spells marketed on Etsy feature a disclaimer noting they are offered for entertainment purposes only, which provide them legal protection in most states, Charles McCrary, a professor of religious studies at Eckerd College in Florida, told Forbes. But it’s hard not to view them as deceptions — especially when Etsy exempts them from the platform’s mediation system. (“Orders that do not provide expected results cannot be mediated through Etsy’s case system, should concerns arise.”) Many sellers won’t do refunds, either.
If the “Dream House Spell” ($11.61) you purchased does not manifest the “decadent french chateau with rare antique furniture” you expected or that “antidepressant” spell ($35) does not cure your depression, you have no recourse. Same for “Sickness and Disease Curses” ($99.99) and the like.At best, Biddle said, these are inexpensive, harmless items. But fundamentally, they’re about separating a desperate person from their money.
“These are scams,” Biddle said. “They’re taking money from people and they’re going to keep consumers from looking at science-based medicine, which is harming them.”
“No ordinary astral entities”
To say that Etsy, a company with a market capitalization of over $6 billion, has historically struggled to moderate its website is an understatement. It has been caught hosting deepfake pornography of female celebrities, counterfeit and mass-produced goods and AI-generated tripe. Earlier this year, following a widely publicized ban on sales of sex toys, Forbes found a proliferation of them two weeks later — all quickly surfaced with the most obvious of search terms. Many persist today.
Since 2015, Etsy officially has explicitly forbidden the sale of “metaphysical services,” which includes prayers and also “spellcasting,” or “Items with a metaphysical outcome (e.g. attracting wealth, love, gambling luck, more business, employment opportunities, or assistance with legal or relationship situations).” Yet a cursory search for any one of those terms and others like them returns at least 20 pages of results, including a black magic cursed destruction spell (on sale at $115.01, original price: $153.35) and a teleportation spell from a 5 star seller.
Below them all is a recommendation module that algorithmically suggests more spells for purchase. In the case of the teleportation spell above, Etsy touted “body swap” and “life swap” spells ($40 each) as well as a “Draconic Ascension BLACK DRAGON Servitor” ($696.07 / “only 3 left and in 7 carts)” with the description “YES YOU GET AN EXTREMELY POWERFUL DRAGON!”.
“These are no ordinary astral entities—they represent the pinnacle of advanced metaphysical beings! A Servitor transcends ordinary astral assistance; it is a meticulously designed entity summoned to accomplish precise tasks and transform your desires into palpable reality,” the listing enthuses. The seller has 29 pages of 5 star reviews.
Among the most popular spell categories on Etsy are financial ones promising “fast,” “powerful” or “extreme” money. “Imagine waking up to your bank account doing the happy dance because it’s suddenly getting fed with a steady stream of cash flow you never saw coming,” a listing for “NON-STOP Money Magical Spell” explains. “We’re talking promotions, unexpected bonuses or that side hustle suddenly taking off like it’s been turbocharged.”
“What’s interesting to me is that this has always been a market niche for a long time, it makes sense that there would be an online version of this,” McCrary, the religious studies professor, told Forbes. “But maybe Etsy has a moral responsibility to do more than what it’s doing.”
For spells promising health benefits — to cure depression and disease, to immediately enhance fertility, to “ensure successful surgeries” — this seems particularly problematic, given the government agencies that typically regulate products making such claims.
An FDA spokesperson said the agency had obviously not approved any spells to “diagnose, cure, treat, mitigate or prevent” any disorder or disease, adding that any product that makes such claims is “subject to the requirements that apply to drugs, even if they are labeled as another commodity.”
“People need something to believe in”
In 2021, a California woman was in need of a financial boost. She went to Etsy and purchased an inexpensive money spell and related sigil that promised to turn her fortunes around. Not long after, she claimed, she received $4,000 from the community college where she was a student at the time.
She doesn’t think it was a coincidence. “I had never randomly received large amounts of money like that before…and it’s happened more than once,” she told Forbes. “It is often said that results manifest as coincidences or increased good fortune.”
Winfred Ruiz disagrees. Down on his luck and nursing an interest in the occult, the Los Angeles-based digital imaging technician started browsing Etsy’s metaphysical offerings looking to turn things around. He purchased a “6 spell bundle” for $44 —discounted from $110. The seller “Mystic Morwen” promised to provide “photo proof” that the value pack, which included a “luck spell, curse removal, job spell, justice spell, remove bad luck & more,” had been cast.
But after the seller sent a photo of a burning candle, Ruiz quickly realized the image already existed online. He asked for a refund. “I feel like anyone who is purchasing these spells is being taken advantage of,” he said. “People need something to believe in, but it’s taking advantage of their current situation.”
Still, some spellcasters have built thriving small businesses. Rowan Morgana, a 74-year-old Canadian woman who describes herself as a “practitioner of Wicca” has sold occult items on Etsy for over a decade. She said she has made over $200,000 in income on the site selling spells that people can practice on their own, including a “Money Ball,” and a “Beautiful Hair” spell, she told Forbes.
“I discovered Etsy about 13 years ago and thought I would throw on a couple of my spells as printable downloads and see what happens,” she said. “They sold within minutes of posting them, so I kept at it.” At the time, she said there were very few spells on offer, helping her get established as one of the most popular spell sellers on Etsy, with hundreds of listings and over 13,000 reviews.
For another U.S.-based metaphysical vendor, who requested anonymity fearing reprisal from Etsy, spells were a financial lifeline during the pandemic. At the time, this vendor sold crystals and elixirs, but pivoted to selling spells because they were easier to make.
“It was a natural extension when the supply chain was totally destroyed during the pandemic,” they said. “There wasn’t any way to buy crystals, so we were trying to find things like that. So instead of elixirs, why don’t we send them the spells?”
Now, they’re largely focused on spells, which appear to be more profitable. And one advantage has been the ability to charge for add-ons, like a “magic crystal spell accelerator” or a “dragon’s blood spell power up,” each for $3.95.
Not all customers have been happy, but the seller said they’re unfazed. “We let the customer have the last word,” he said. “We don’t try to argue with them.”
Nick the Alchemist isn’t bothered by the smattering of one-star reviews on some of his products. His Casanova sigil, which promises to “make more women notice you and enhance their attraction to you, has a few unhappy buyers among over 100 five-star reviews. (“Perfect!!! Perfect!!! Perfect!!! Perfect!!! Perfect!!!” wrote one person. Another said: “It just plain didn’t work. That’s all I can say.”)
“Most people see results, but you’re always going to have one or two bad reviews, and then I give a refund and then that’s it,” he said.
“My work is genuine. The sigils that I create, I put work into them. It’s not like I’m trying to trick people.”
“That’s the thing about magic,” he added. “It’s not like money is going to fall from the sky. You need channels for that money to come through. And evidence of that is my Etsy shop.”
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