In the recent hit horror movie Obsession, the main character’s search for a birthday present takes him to an occult-focused shop, where he buys a novelty wish-granting talisman that turns out to be very real.
The scene was filmed at The Green Man, a real metaphysical shop in Burbank, California, that has reportedly seen a burst of traffic from fans of the film. But the shop’s appearance in Obsession also reflects a broader cultural shift. Like other Southern California businesses that have become filming locations, The Green Man reads on screen as a familiar piece of contemporary suburban life. It also points to a retail trend: Occult, metaphysical, and witchcraft-focused shops have become increasingly visible in North American towns and cities.
“They do seem to be kind of popping up in a lot of new places,” says Chris Miller, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa who has studied contemporary witchcraft and paganism. “Me and my wife go on a lot of road trips, and you’ll be in these small, sort of quaint towns in Ontario, and you’ll find a witch shop.”
There is no official tally of metaphysical businesses, or even a strict definition of what counts as a metaphysical or occult shop. Store owners also use different language to describe what they do. In general, though, these shops tend to sell items such as crystals, books on magic and alternative spiritual practices, herbs, candles, and divination tools like tarot cards. Exact selections vary from store to store.
Their growth has coincided with the rise of online communities such as TikTok’s #WitchTok and the prominent presence of metaphysical goods and services on platforms like Etsy. That overlap appears meaningful. Many brick-and-mortar metaphysical shops began by selling spiritual items, crystals, artwork, or other handmade goods online. At the same time, people interested in witchcraft and alternative spiritual practices often seek out local shops when they want to see objects in person, find community, or take classes.
In that sense, metaphysical shops operate in a familiar online-offline loop. Record stores exist alongside Discogs. Independent bookshops benefit from online literary communities like #BookTok. Movie theaters have seen renewed attention from films such as Obsession and Backrooms, made by directors who got their start on YouTube. Metaphysical retailers are part of that same pattern: Digital discovery can create demand for physical spaces.
Local publications around the United States have also reported on mom-and-pop metaphysical businesses opening in recent years, even as the retail environment remains difficult for many independent stores. Like other small businesses, metaphysical shops reach customers through online reviews, Instagram posts, TikTok videos, and photos of their products.
But the storefront itself still matters. Indeed, many of these shops function as gathering places, offering in-person spiritual classes, readings, workshops, and community events.
“Witch shops have the bulletin board as soon as you walk in, and it shows you everything that’s going on in that community,” says Miller. “I think that’s part of what keeps it viable, is that there’s a yearning for people to kind of hang out and be connected to a place.”
Many stores carry candles, artwork, divination cards, and other goods made by local craftspeople, which matters in spiritual communities that often place a high value on connection, provenance, and authenticity. That sensitivity has surfaced before. In 2018, the perfume company Pinrose planned to sell a “starter witch kit” through Sephora, but the product was canceled after critics issued accusations of appropriating and commercializing traditional practices.
That does not mean customers are averse to the internet. But the kind of content that works online often looks less like conventional retail marketing. Candid social media posts tend to perform better than carefully scripted videos or overly commercial product showcases, says Danyel Harrison, who co-owns Handmade Mystic in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her husband, Andrew Harrison.
“I try not to overthink it too much,” she says. “When I was overthinking it and really planning it, those end up being flops.”
Brick-and-mortar stores also give shoppers a chance to handle materials before they buy and ask questions in person.
“It’s also a safe place where you can just come in and read a book and learn a little bit about things that you’re questioning, where you can put your hands on something,” says Lacey Wildd.
Wildd opened Wild Willow Metaphysical & Consignment Shop in her hometown of Charleston, West Virginia, earlier this year after returning to the area with her family.
“It’s not all on the internet, where you don’t know what’s right, what’s not right, and you can sit here with me and ask me questions,” she says.
Wildd offers psychic, palm, and tarot readings, and her shop sells herbs, candles, crystals, art, clothing, and other items on consignment. Wild Willow also has places for children to do crafts while their parents shop or get a reading, along with items that tend to catch kids’ attention, including shadow boxes filled with insects, she says.
Wildd has a sizable social media from appearances on reality TV and in a handful of movies earlier in her life, and she does advertise the business online. But she says customer relationships still drive much of her traffic.
“I think in these little towns it’s more word of mouth,” she says.
Interest in witchcraft and spiritual practices outside mainstream religion has long had an online component, says Miller at the University of Ottawa, going back to Myspace, Yahoo Groups, and earlier forums. Pop culture has also periodically fueled broader curiosity, from 1990s movies and TV shows such as The Craft and Sabrina the Teenage Witch to more recent online communities.
Metaphysical stores themselves, and the practices they support, trace at least back to the 1960s counterculture, says Damian Lanahan-Kalish, an assistant teaching professor at the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. He says concern from adherents of mainstream religions about witchcraft-influenced practices also appears to have eased in many communities, with several store owners saying they get along well with nearby churches and their members.
The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a new generation to alternative spiritual practices and online communities such as #WitchTok at a time when gathering in person was difficult, Lanahan-Kalish says. “A lot of the kids who got into it then are now old enough to know what they want to do, and are maybe opening stores,” he says.
Those stores can bring new practitioners into the fold or help newcomers refine their interests. Lalania Simone, co-owner of The Enchanted Fox, which opened this spring in Colorado Springs’ historic Old Colorado City neighborhood, says she and her two business partners each bring their own spiritual interests to the store. They offer merchandise and classes tied to a range of traditions, with subjects including astrology and tincture making.
“What’s really important to us is really having a wealth of information from different traditions,” she says. “We want to make sure that people come into our space and no matter what their particular spiritual background is, they’re able to hopefully find something that is connected to them.”
That approach requires a varied supply chain. Simone says the store sources goods from local craftspeople, importers, and the online wholesale marketplace Faire. Simone is also a metalsmith, the designer behind several tarot decks, and the co-owner of Alchemy Ritual Goods in Denver. That store grew out of a successful spiritual subscription box (a regular delivery of mystic and wellness items) that she developed, she says.
For many shop owners, there is little separation between online and offline practice or commerce. There is also often less direct rivalry than outsiders might expect. Many store owners carry one another’s merchandise, sell their own goods at wholesale rates, and collaborate across a loose ecosystem of craftspeople, practitioners, teachers, and retailers.
The Crooked Path, a Burbank occult shop owned by the husband-and-wife team Salvatore Santoro and Popi Mavros, sells its own prepackaged spell kits to other retailers through Faire and to individual customers through its website and physical store. It even has a Planetary Magick smartphone app. But the store also hosts in-person classes and events, from “Rune Magic: Astral Travel” to goth yoga classes that Santoro, who has longtime ties to the goth music scene, notes were recently featured in the Los Angeles Times. The store also includes a ritual space.
“I house one of the only free-standing temples to Hekate [Greek goddess of magic, the night, and the moon] in the country,” he says. “So you can come in my store, bypass the shop, go upstairs, go in the temple, close the door, and worship her, and do spellcraft and ritual for six hours straight if you wanted to.”
As Lanahan-Kalish at Arizona State points out, the decentralized and nonhierarchical nature of the practices supported by occult and metaphysical stores makes it natural for ritual, teaching, and commerce to coexist. There is no central churchlike authority collecting donations or commissioning spiritual goods and services. But the work still has costs.
“It still requires religious specialists: people who write the books, people who create the things, people who run the rituals,” he says. “And those people need to live and be paid somehow.”
