I Traveled to Salem for a Renowned Witch’s Reading. Then I Tried WitchTok.
It was time to reexamine my assumptions about what makes modern-day witchcraft authentic.
In Depth
Photo: Francois LE DIASCORN/Gamma-Rapho
I was forewarned that renowned witch Lori Bruno would be late for our reading. First, by dozens of Yelp reviews concluding that despite her delay, she gave the “best reading of their lives.” Then, by Bruno herself, when I called to make the appointment. “My husband just died, god rest his soul,” she told me over the phone, which I took as a sign. Late she most certainly was. One hour, if I don’t count the time that passed as she arranged the space wherein my reading would take place—a small café table in the front window of Magika, her Salem, Massachusetts, shop—just so. I didn’t mind. “I love you,” she’d told me before hanging up. “OK, love you too,” I’d heard myself answering.
When I eventually take my seat and fix my eyes on Bruno, who’s dressed head-to-toe in black and toting an inky bouffant, it’s difficult not to draw comparisons to Stockard Channing’s character in Practical Magic. Each move she makes is cataloged by the distinctly metallic clamor of pendants, bracelets, and rings. Before we start, she reaches for a Costco-sized box of Lindt’s dark chocolate truffles at her feet and, much to my confusion, proceeds to shake them out, right there on the table. “I’m Italian, I like to feed people,” she rasps.
“Here, take notes,” she then instructs, sliding a pen and notepad across to me. And before I even have the pen in hand, her striking features rearrange themselves into a gravely serious stare that pierces me but hopefully also the veil to some other dimension with more optimism on offer than this one. “Who’s Michael?” she asks. I don’t know, but I sit up a little straighter.
In October 2021, Kathryn Miles of Boston magazine posed a question essential to people like Bruno—a witch from a generation that saw success as synonymous with brick-and-mortar businesses purporting to provide people with answers—and by extension, individuals like me, who are willing and able to travel to Salem in search of them. “Has Witch City lost its way?” Miles wondered. With the aid of candid interviews with local witches (Bruno, included), she interrogated whether the visitors of today’s Salem—a place once known for putting midwives, healers, and even animals to death with little to no evidence of actual witchcraft—are invested in the preservation of the historic city’s legacy, or if it’s become a tourist trap devoted to the almighty dollar and the “decidedly witchy.” Should one wonder what the latter looks like, Miles characterized it as “lots of black midriff t-shirts and crystal necklaces; harem pants bedecked with metallic suns and moons; and Chuck Taylor high-tops in spider-web prints.” Perhaps it was unintentional, but the description read as derogatory.
Ultimately, Miles reached a diplomatic conclusion—even if Salem’s magic is diluted, everyone deserves a share of it all the same—but her question conjured another: When witchcraft has gone mainstream enough to surpass any one city’s limits, earning its own genre on every social media platform, why does a practitioner I traveled to see in Witch City seem more legitimate to me than one I can reach with a few clicks in the nonphysical realm?
A quick perusal of #WitchTok, and one can learn whether or not their hands have the marks of a healer, how to tell if their spell jars are effective, and why there’s convincing speculation that Gisele Bündchen is a practicing witch. In the last two years, some of the more viral-prone creators have wracked up millions of views getting chatty with the Other Side, and are building online businesses selling products like ceramic cauldrons, spell boxes, and punny t-shirts on Etsy. This, while offering virtual readings in tarot, astrology, and the like. And because many of us have an undeniable curiosity in the occult but lack the resources to get ourselves to Salem, business is booming. Practical magic, indeed.
Still, it all feels hokey, a gimmick on par with wine mom merch and Zoom therapy. Frankly, I’ve spoken to enough practitioners to know that readings are dependent on the transference of a recipient’s energy. There’s a reason a tarot reader asks you to shuffle your own deck before they lay down the cards, and even those who’ve only ever had a palm reading for shits and giggles understand the significance of their hand being held. In short: Intimacy—a warmth that lets you believe this witch is the real deal. As old-fashioned as it might read, online practitioners have to work ten times harder to establish such by default. As someone who’s now paid for both a virtual and in-person reading, I can confirm there is a difference.
@thathoneywitch
