As American Christianity slowly exits the scene, witchcraft has suddenly become popular again.
According to The Telegraph, the number of Americans who identify as witches now outpace the total number of Presbyterians – 1.5 million.
“As Christianity declines across the country, paganism has swung to the mainstream, with witchcraft paraphernalia for sale on every high street and practices normalized across popular culture,” reports the outlet.
Witchcraft has become especially popular during the Trump administration. Following the president’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, witches gathered to cast a collective binding spell against him. They repeated this following the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Dakota Bracciale, a 29-year-old transgender/queer witch and co-owner of Catland Books and witch shop in Brooklyn, told The Telegraph the rise in witchcraft among millennials speaks to their desire to find spirituality outside of traditional religion.
“The hex centres on the notion that we live in a universe of chaos, entropy, destruction, death, decay with a final ending of oblivion – scientists are telling us,” said Bracciale. “So the witch does everything for themselves – there is no other help in this universe of decay and chaos. If you don’t get in the driver’s seat things will just get worse.”
