Witchy apps: Digital witchcraft and technological multimodality

Introduction

This article aims to investigate the dynamics of witchcraft from the point of view of electronic communication and mediated technologies that have facilitated or contributed to its expansion in the context of modern and highly digitized societies. In the last decade, modern witchcraft in general and the figure of modern (female) witches in particular have already captured the attention of academic circles, especially when touching upon about the role played by technology in this new wave of magic. This article, however, focuses on one technology in particular, that of smartphone applications (hereafter Apps). It questions, on the basis of both digital and empirical data, the degree of affinity of witchcraft with modern technologies, and the ways the various technologies (Internet websites, digital platforms, and smartphone applications) are associated with each other in the practice of Witches. Witchy Apps, among the latest and fastest spreading digital technologies, supposedly partake on what the modernization of witchcraft with equal roles and impacts that of other digital technologies, such as Internet and Social Networks. To date, only few studies have been devoted to the exploration of this field, since most of the research has been conducted on Internet or electronic platforms – yet, smartphone anthropology is gaining visibility (Horst and Miller, 2006, 2012) whereas the study of ‘religious apps’ is also developing (Campbell et al., 2014).

The Witchcraft 2.0 movement is now much more than just factual evidence: the highly visible (connected) wave of Witchcraft online received a massive media coverage, between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. Witchcraft 2.0, labelled as such since it is spreading rapidly and effortlessly on the background of the recent digital revolution, have met favourable conditions for advertisement, and empowerment by giving a quick and extensive media visibility to a new generation of (self-claimed) witches. By using the codes and aesthetics of ancient traditions, mixed with modern spiritual ones, they contribute to renewing them, reinventing their forms (i.e. modalities of expression and materiality) and content (symbolic and practical elements). Historical evidences have shown that Modern witchcraft is spreading rapidly thanks to broader social and technological revolutions since the 19th century: gramophones, photography, cinematography, and now Information and Communication Technologies (hereafter ICT) did play a crucial (though not exclusively) role in the booming of a modern-styled magic. By way of consequence, a modern or modernized witchcraft has changed, at least on the surface, adopting strategies of visibility and rearranged the social position it has long been assigned: previously considered secret, nocturnal, anti-social, dominated, and persecuted, Witchcraft has become public, socially accepted and desired, culturally promoted; it has also become as a resource for the resistance of gendered, ethnic, or intellectual minorities. In this historical swap from persecution to pride, the figure of ‘the Witch’ ended up embodying a mainstream, harmless, and popular cultural model (Obadia, 2023). Witchcraft has become – at least in the Western world – hype and fashionable, accessible, and trendy. And this success is unsurprisingly linked to the massive developments of digital technologies in society, on the backgrounds of global social-economic changes (Ezzy, 2001).

As for media coverage, for the year 2024 alone, the Spanish journal El Mundo reported on the spread of witchcraft on social networks, ¹ as a ‘substitute’ for a Catholic faith no longer able to meet the expectations of its adherents, but also as a facet of ‘a new economy of the occult’. In Great Britain, the English edition of the newspaper Metro also investigates on how witchcraft turned digital, ² underlining once again the role of technology in the appeal to these new practices. Similar arguments mixing economy and technology as key factors can be found in a paper of the British journal Time Out specifically dedicated to TikTok witches. ³ In France, a TV report entitled ‘Sorcières: mauvais sorts et bonnes affaires’ (translated as: ‘Witches: evil spells but good business’) emphasized the rise of ‘Sorcery 2.0’ ⁴ on the grounds of the visibility gained by means of electronic communication networks (Internet, social networks, electronic platforms), but also the ‘appetite for clientelism’ and the ‘crave for business’, two attitudes that raised questions about the risk of a shift towards consumerist rather than ‘spiritual’ motivations in the movement (especially on the side of witches, of course). These few contextualized examples (that resonate in the mid 2020s, in the heart of what we can call a digital witchcraft boom) exemplify the fact that ‘Witchcraft 2.0’ has captured the attention of Mass media. Since then, hypertextual literature about digital witchcraft almost systematically points at the role of digital technologies as vector and mirror of this new wave of magic, against the backdrop of the massive extension of digital capitalism reframing societies and cultures of the modern world, as well as religions and belief systems alongside the logics of consumerism (Possamai, 2017).

In the same vein, academic research has in parallel documented the rise of modern witchcraft, similarly pointing at the role played by communication and information technologies in this process, being key to (1) the emergence of a new generation of witches who individually offer their ‘services’ online (Miller, 2022), (2) that of connected communities of witches or admirers of witchcraft online covens (Cowan, 2005), (3) the massive dissemination of symbols of witchcraft on electronic networks (Berger and Ezzy, 2009), and (4) the extension of witchcraft aesthetics into the virtual spaces of websites and online games (Servais, 2020). Each of these studies focuses on a particular technology: the magic of/in online games (Aupers, 2002), the virality and fashion of witchcraft on the Internet (Cornish, 2022; Sollee, 2022), witches operating as ‘spiritual counsellors’ on social networks, ⁵ the creation of digital communities sharing interest, and references on electronic platforms’ discussion forums (Miller, 2022). These examples suggest that witchcraft is undertaking an integration process into the dynamics and channels of technological and economic globalization, whereas the historical religions are challenged by the adaptation to technological mutations in their environment and subject to major ethical issues (Campbell, 2013) that seem to have little echo or impact on the new digital world of magic and witchcraft. The quite recent launching of smartphone applications labelled ‘witchy’, that is, referring more or less to ‘witchcraft’ content, use, or purpose, adds another layer of complexity to our understanding of the relationship between witchcraft and technology.

Witchy apps: Issues and perspectives: Ancient magic for modern technosystems?

What would be the contribution of a study of witchy apps in the above-mentioned wave of digital witchcraft? Anthropological studies on smartphones have pointed at the many and deep impacts of portable communication technologies: hyperconnectivity, new economies of attention, reshaping of identities and sociability models; massive consumption of online products, booming of supply and demands for ‘content’, among others (Horst and Miller, 2006). There again, of course, Apps epitomize the quintessence of digital capitalism and even surveillance capitalism when Nieborg (2020) depicted them as devices framing a new political and economic ‘Empire’ on mentalities and subjectivities. Rather than rediscussing the link between apps and economics, or religion and digital capitalism (this has been done brilliantly elsewhere), this article will focus on the practical issues of transversality and multimodality of witches’ practices in the digital (economically driven) ecosystem. In other words, do digital technologies intermingle (‘transversality’) and do they necessarily allocate the multiple skills required for such a navigation?

Indeed, the new digital ecosystems are witnessing the emergence of new multimodal digital navigation, according to the Science and Technology studies, that is, as: the concept of ‘multimodality’ embraces the different ways of using interoperable technological devices at the same time, and, consequently, it makes a bridge between screen technologies (websites) and particular platforms or social networks that are also deployed towards ambulatory devices – smartphones, by means of service technologies (Haythornthwaite, 2012), that is, Apps. For Pauline Cheong Hong (2014), these technologies illustrate, in the field of digitalized belief, a logic of continuity between different technologies extend ‘From Cyberchurch to Faith Apps’ all of them framing the complex texture of modern ‘digital religion’ (Cheong and Campbell, 2024).

The case of magic and witchcraft 2.0 is also complex and raises similar questions about the continuity of use between these different technologies: the presence of signs, messages, or actors of witchcraft on different digital platforms and smartphone apps cannot be considered only as a being part of ‘digital religion’, yet, they apparently partake on same logics, but do modern ‘digital’ Witches master all these technologies? And do Apps effectively contribute to connect and bridge the different networks and platforms through which Witchcraft is disseminated since the late 1990s and early 2000s? Therefore, this article is about the specific skills and practices required for witches 2.0 so as to navigate in the complex ecosystem of apps and platforms, on the background of global capitalism and digital revolution, both reframing ancient sacred traditions and emerging spiritual systems.

Let’s have a brief look back in time for the need of contextualization. The ideological context of modern Western societies has offered favourable conditions for the reinvention of Witchcraft, especially since the 19th century (Introvigne, 1992). The 21st century’s magical revival has been particularly vibrant in terms of cultural influence, in particular under the forms of ‘neo-paganism’ and ‘technopaganism’ (Dos Santos, 2023), both of them borrowing the aesthetics and symbolism of magic and sorcery, as well as from the lexicon and cultural of technosciences (Dos Santos, 2023). In the last two centuries, Witchcraft has been through significant changes in ideological horizons and cultural legacy in the West, being transformed into a reference model for Modern times associated with countercultural movements in the second half of the 20th century (White, 2024), it turned out to become mainstream from the 2000s onwards, as it aligned with the values of consumer culture (Obadia, 2023). The intersections between witchcraft and modern capitalism have already been documented in Africa, in a context where witchcraft is associated with violence engendered by the acceleration of economic transitions and social mutations (Geschiere, 1997). In Europe, Witchcraft unveils a much more peaceful facet while it blends into digitized expressions of culture, apparently following here again the implacable expansionist agenda of globalized capitalism (Miller, 2022). In the context of a developing networked society, digitalization of social life, consumer culture, and platform economy, the beliefs systems – that have historically demonstrated close bonds with economy and with technology - take obviously advantage of the rise of digital capitalism, which is the case for magic (Hornborg, 2022) and by way of consequence witchcraft.

Expanding in the ecosystem of online communications, thanks to cutting-edge technological devices developed for electronic connectivity, a great deal of digital content referring to witchcraft is propagated on platforms reconfiguring human communication, exchanges of messages, but also values and goods, and thus falls within under the umbrella of digital capitalism as described by Daniel Schiller (1999). While the study of witchcraft economy of platforms and networks has already been opened (Malita-Król, 2025), one of the most striking phenomena that has received little analysis in the scientific literature so far (to the best of the author’s knowledge) are smartphone applications referring to witchcraft in content or use. It is true that anthropological research paid attention to smartphones as ‘channels’ for rumours of witchcraft attacks (in Africa, Bondaz, 2012), but account for very few works on ‘apps’ in the new platform economy, although they exemplify the fastest-deploying technology in the 2010–2020s.

Smartphones, whose role in the boom of digital witchcraft will be examined here, are part of the significant increase in connectivity in a regime of ambulatory technology, have quickly and profoundly penetrated human’s lives, and are now deep-rooted in most of social practices and cultural expressions (Horst et al., 2017). In 2025, according to a census published on We are social, a website specialized in statistics relating to modern developing technologies, 98% of the world’s population owns a smartphone, and over 70% have an active subscription to smartphone services. Between 90% and 98% of the world’s population consume Internet content (a variation depending on the device), with a global connectivity (time/use in relation to the number of individuals) estimated at 107%. More than 35 million smartphone applications are downloaded each year, and the reasons for using Internet connections (on computers or smartphones) are mainly about online sociability (social networks), instantaneous or deferred communication (via messaging), information mining, business, and entertainment. ⁶

Several large-scale surveys conducted by the Pew Research Institute in the United States have demonstrated that, in the context of heavy digitalization and massive connectivity, religious inspired uses of these technologies (content search, ritual support, broadcasting and propaganda…) are parallelly increasing. ⁷ Similarly, studies conducted by the same Institute in comparative way tend to reveal that online faith sharing now assumes new forms, contrasting with traditional schemes of belief and practice. ⁸ Digital devices represent, in this respect, an opportunity for religions to capture technologies and use them for religious purposes, as illustrated by the trajectory of the secular smartphone that became ‘the Jesus phone’ and even the ‘divine phone’ as soon as it offered religious services (Campbell and La Pastina, 2010) as well as new designs like the ‘Buddha-shaped-phone’ (Davies, 2019). A recently launched field of academic studies on religious apps has however focused on theistic-inspired devices: some research is based on longitudinal surveys of users (Laird et al., 2024, in the United States), others approach the categories of apps already in use within major religions or designed by them, including Asian polytheisms (Campbell et al., 2014). Apps technologies also (recently) raised academic interest insofar as they provide information on the background and degree of digitalization of the environment of religions, considering the ability of the latter to expand on the Internet, to adapt to Social Networks’ communication, or to use virtual reality devices in religious-oriented practices… As for ‘Witchcraft’ apps, they surfaced as early as the mid-2000s on the digital platforms of the major technology consortiums (AppleStore, GoogleStore), explicitly displaying the term ‘witch’. Many of these Apps, or part of the services they offer, are not free, but the religious services of Witches on digital platforms also require a commercial relationship, and all partake on the new economy of digital devices and of symbolic services. Issues in commodification online have already been addressed by scholars interested in modern witchcraft (Ezzy, 2001; Foltz, 2011; Waldron, 2005), I will rather focus on the technological side of the modernization process undertaken by witchcraft. The Apps’ content has been adapted to the use of ambulatory technology: resources are easy to access (with just a few tactile clicks), easy to use when it comes to symbolic information and practical usability (on invoking supernatural forces and spirits, astrology, divination, filter making, rituality), and for integration into ordinary activities.

Apps assume quite diverse formats and functions. Some, like witchology (developed in the United Kingdom), are information tools for people interested in Witchcraft. Others have a more practical utility. They can be framed for community bonds among online witches (like Wicca and Pagan community developed in Spain for on GoogleStore) but many of them are offering symbolic (knowledge on gems, herbs, or lunar cycles) and practical (‘recipes’, rituals, spells) resources everyone interested can access and apply (like Planetary Magick developed in the United States for GoogleStore or the Wicca guide developed in Cyprus for AppleStore). Most of them have been designed and developed in the 2020s. As such, they conform to two sides of advanced and globalized modernity: nurturing a sense of individualism and creating bonds by means of electronic networks.

Witchy apps are not interesting topics r pese but as analytical and empirical point of entry to understanding the key issue to multimodality, that is, the articulation of skills and practices relating to technological devices among modern witches. By and large, apps also shed light on the digital literacy of Witches and, to a certain extent, their adaptation to the contemporary digitalized world. In this study, we rely upon the methods developed under the label of ‘digital anthropology’, which is aiming at studying the impacts of digital technologies on social and cultural frameworks, on beliefs and practices, especially connected ones (Horst and Miller, 2012), including smartphones (Horst and Miller, 2006) and the computer programmes they are stuffed with (Apps). This work has also been inspired by the proposition of Collins et al. (2017) to develop a multimodal anthropology adjusted to the complex intermingle of different dimensions involved in the use of apps, as they put it:

Mobile apps can also be conceived as a platform for different multimodal expressions in anthropological research. Multimodal anthropology is a recently conceived category of anthropological work that attempts to encompass research that is disseminated in multiple sensory capacities such as sight, sound and even touch. (2017: 104)

Witchcraft symbols and discourses are indeed disseminated on different platforms with different architectures and operational capacities: not only TikTok and Facebook (as communication platforms) and YouTube (as video platforms) but also Instagram and Pinterest (as image-based platforms). Given the hybrid (social and digital) arrangements of such fieldwork, the emphasis has mainly been put on digital devices touching upon the promotion and use of “witchy apps” – especially on YouTube, TikTok or one of the other above-mentioned platforms (Reddit, Discord, Instagram) for the reason that WitchyApps.

Considering the nature of the research, an open and agile method needed to be framed and implemented, consisting departing from technology, by first analysing the types of apps that platforms supply and, in a second step, gathering information from sites, platforms and online forums on which discourses on apps and their uses are produced, and finally comparing the data collected digitally with interviews conducted face to face with Witches. The first approach thus consisted in listing witchy apps in the electronic distribution platforms (AppleStore/GoogleStore) and collecting information on the date of creation/number of downloads/category to which they belong and therefore the audience for which they are intended. A dozen of them have been downloaded in order to experience services offered in auto-ethnographic approach, that is, just like any other user. A netnographic investigation has been applied to electronic platforms containing textual or videographic content and was dedicated to an analysis of the apps’ promotion across video platforms (here mainly YouTube) and social networks (TikTok) and was extended to discourse analysis of forums about witchcraft in which discussions about witchy apps were engaged by internauts (mainly Reddit and Discord). Of course, social media and platforms have already been considered as technological resources for ‘spiritual growth’ and ‘alternative’ spiritualities inspired by old mysticism and new magic benefits from the digital ecosystem properties (Davies, 2005) and of digital platform sociability ⁹ to spread. An agile methodology was applied for this study, borrowing from both traditional ethnography and netnography. Considering that modern witches have developed their activities in a complex media and digital ecosystem, the methodology is not focusing on a single platform. The data have been collected on different sources: direct interviews, content analysis of platforms ‘fluxes’, ‘chains’, or ‘communities’. The cohort is made of one hundred witches with an online activity. Considering that they use different platforms, it was necessary to adapt the methodology consequently.

As for the qualitative side of this study, in-depth interviews have been conducted face to face with Witches. The sample includes the quite large cohort of witches performing their activity in the digital ecosystem, that is, as creators of Internet content publishing messages, images, and videos online, and who gain media visibility (and money) from their activity. One hundred witches active on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest have been identified as potential interlocutors (in line with the prerequisite of the study). Among them, a selection of 20 profiles with an active YouTube channel, where relevant content regarding witchy apps has been recorded, were examined in detail and were requested for qualitative interviews. Among the hundred profiles identified – all of them women – 20 were examined in depth, for the reason that they had a particular interest in witchy apps, and mainly operate on the platforms, where witches have been actively committed to, such as YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.

Among them, three respondents were selected for interviews on the grounds of their diversity of their profiles differing in age and, to a certain extent, in their relationship with technology: one in her thirties (‘Anaïs de Lugdunum’) publishing online material mainly, one in her forties (‘AdAstra’) publishing both online and printed materials, one in her fifties (Judith Vieille as ‘Mun’) active online and offline, all of whom enjoy high media visibility. They also vary in digital and media literacy. Even if the majority of online profiles were English-speaking European and American witches, the empirical survey was carried out in France, so qualitative data reflects upon French-styled witches, who officiate in their own language and in a country marked by a high degree of secularization, and by the strong impact of new waves of so-called ‘spiritualities’ (Obadia, 2023), slightly contrasting with the cultural and religious countries like in Slavic context (Jabłońska, 2024) where other studies have been conducted. Yet, online witchcraft is a global movement extending far beyond frontiers and recent studies using online methodology have recruited participants in different countries, but sharing a sense of belonging to the witches’ community as a whole (Frampton and Grandison, 2023; Miller, 2022).

Notwithstanding these differences, the profiles of these witches, reconstituted on the above-mentioned material, have in common some key elements and sequences: their curricula disclose an early inclination for ‘spiritual’ experiences, before delving into magical and occult traditions, and later on embarking on ‘a quest for knowledge’ mainly nourished by documentary sources (more intermittently for some of them, by joining a social or virtual spiritual community). Technology only surfaces as late topic in their trajectories, and more explicitly as a tool rather than a purpose for itself. In their views, devices are first and foremost material resources in support of the desire to disseminate their knowledge on witchcraft and supply ‘recipes’, ‘advices’, or ‘rituals’, the use of electronic media, since they bet on going viral, have now become vital. Hence, in this regard, it seems that modern witchcraft steps towards technology, rather than technology towards witchcraft. As such digital platforms are furthermore well identified as the main ‘virtual spaces’ to welcome modern witchcraft (Cowan, 2005; Ezzy, 2001; Miller, 2022). To what extent however are smartphones apps part of the panoply of technical devices and tools that witches 2.0 have mastered and what role do they play in their ‘witchy’ activity?

Witchy or spiritual? What in the name of an app?

Magic and sorcery have become ingredients of smartphone applications, with a range of services and benefits that bourgeoned in the very short lapse of time between the birth of smartphone technology in the late 1990s and the smartphone boom a decade later. In 1997, the game untitled snake first became the very first cell phone application, before their exponential multiplication in the so-called ‘tactile revolution’ (phone controlled by finger pressure) and the ever increasing amelioration of ambulatory technologies that made the smartphone a leading cultural object with multiple uses (Nova, 2020). Interestingly, by virtue of the categorizations of sales platforms (Appstore/GooglePlay), witchy apps fall variously under the category of ‘lifestyle’ as it is the case for religious apps, also disadvantaged by a blurred categorization (Campbell et al., 2014). Witchy apps are associated with a wide range of apps, from games to coaching services.

Witchy apps’ downloads are less impressive than others, yet, some of them rank high in AppleStore and GooglePlay (in late 2024). Actually, it is not just the availability of apps on the user market that makes them successful and widely used, on the premise that the strong marketing they are subjected to results in a significant extension of the number of users. Their campaign led by economic and social actors entails, however, a constant rise of visibility on social networks and video platforms (Lupton, 2022). The same applies to witchy apps as to apps in general, and this section proposes some elements for the study of their promotion on ‘channels’ of witches or content creators, on the YouTube video platform. Dozens of videos have been identified using the keyword ‘witchy app’, they have then been examined and compared to identify recurring elements and variations in the unfolding of formalized sequences, or sequences that are often identical in form. This features the modern commodification of witchcraft, whose items or services are largely (but not only) regulated by commercial logics of Nieborg’s (2017) ‘Empire of apps’.

In their video productions about witchy apps, witches portray themselves and promote their skills and services in a comparatively recurrent scenario: the videos begin with an introduction often setting up the context of symbolism (first images displaying witchcraft symbols, colours, and the aesthetical features that distinguish them from one another). Then, after a personal introduction by the speaker, she introduces the description of technology, including sequences of device main characteristics, and then basic guidelines for manipulation, and ends up with a discussion on the reasons behind the choice of the proposed technology. Apps are barely supported by a sponsorship, they are rather presented as tools for personal usage or consumption. Yet, the ‘recommendation’ is the unequivocal aim of these videos, via a platform that accounts for millions of channels and billions of views. By means of a netnography carried out over the course of a full year (from January 2024 to February 2025), a number of cases presented here serve as significant illustrations of this scripted shaping of the recommendation of witchy apps.

First, some witches evaluate apps according to their practical functionality in the domain of divination, astrology or rituality, as in the case of ‘Activist Witch’, a lady in her middle age who wears a costume and a hat, and offers to discuss the topic of ‘witchy apps for beginners’ that ‘helps in witchraft practice’ and undertakes a presentation of their possible uses, app after app (Tarot, plants, astrology). ¹⁰ A younger content creator named QoFGreyGhost promotes a list of apps essentially intended for active witches or people interested in exploring the possibilities of applications that we can qualify in this context as ‘community-based’ (in the sense that they are based on the value of exchange with other enthusiasts or practitioners), to draw on them for resources for knowledge and action, to build profiles (on Pagans Amino or Witches Amino), and thus to situate themselves as individuals in a digital social ensemble. ¹¹ Others, such as the young adult Luna Serenova, similarly refer to the same staging and evaluation (against a background of a lighter witchy symbolism, but still replete with feminine items): she introduces her presentation (of other types of apps, such as ‘The pattern’ or ‘plant me’, which has to do with herbalism) by pointing out that, in addition to their functionalities and usefulness, the reasons why they are interesting, that is, because they ‘vibe with the witchy agenda’. ¹² A first remark: apps are at this point assessed according to two scales: an official one, based on their usefulness, and a more allusive one, based on their correspondence with less technological and more symbolic references. Promoting witchcraft by means of digital devices and online can also echo with more symbolic than economic intentions. As Audrey Lundahl puts it in a 2017 online article, ‘Online is only one point of connection for witches, though, who see the world, including the digital, as full of connection between bodies, spirits, and the earth’. ¹³

The performance of another content creator, Rhiannon Reign, who presents herself online as ‘pagan and witch’ ¹⁴ offers a fresh and equally interesting facet of witchy apps. In addition to the usual features of apps expressly dedicated to witchy activity, she also mentions programmes such as Scribd (a widely used document-sharing platform) as a site for knowledge resources, and Discord (an exchange platform for communities of interest) or another app ‘Rock identifier’ to facilitate her divinatory gemology-based practice… Though discursive and broadcasted, this technological interconnection between devices is a first credit to the issue of multimodality. A fourth example is that of Ella Harrison, an assertive witch, who introduces one of her videos with ‘it’s a kind of way to incorporate a more modern approach to witchcraft considering we live in a more modern time’ and then starts a discussion on the ‘Moon app’ useful for lunar cycles, a ‘picture this’ app (plant identifier) and a few others all equally useful for a witch. ¹⁵

Witchy apps are promoted worldwie, on both YouTube (where rather long video products can be published online) and TikTok, the Chinese network that has globalized since its creation in 2016 to the point of exceeding 1.2 billion users by 2025, is also a particularly dense space of electronic traffic through which witchy ideas circulate. A number of studies have already pointed at the central role of this specific platform (Miller, 2022; Renser and Tiidenberg, 2020), and online witches are now conceptually as well as empirically referred to as ‘witchtoks’ accordingly (Frampton and Grandison, 2023). If the formats are shorter, ¹⁶ the mediatization processes are rather similar, so as are the online interactions through ‘comments’ on videos and quantification of ‘like’ functions that makes possible the assessment of the resonance of these cultural products on users in the global digital capitalistic context of a ‘quantification of the Self’ (Gerlitz and Helmond, 2013).

What is common to these videos, beyond the differences in technological features of the platform? They are fashioned by ‘content creators’ who proceed by a first-person recommendation, as witches whose legitimacy relies their ‘knowledge’ (acquired in most cases by self-training, more rarely by transmission within a dedicated body) and ‘practice’ (ability to manipulate collective resources). As individuals not affiliated to a specific branch of a movement (occasionally referring to modern Wicca movement), they express personal choices in the first person, denoting subjective inclinations. From these elements, witchy apps can be assigned two statuses empirical and conceptual statuses: they are witchy by design, as are, for example, programmes expressly devoted to symbolic and practical resources, or respecting the semantics, symbolism, and aesthetics of witchcraft (such as apps referring to Wicca, and other ‘natural’ traditions). They are designed for activities of communication, networking, trading, or the creation of community links. Sometimes, witchy apps based on already existing devices can become witchy by derivation, as in the case of gemology and herbalism apps whose content (descriptive) is used for witchy purpose (rituals or recipes). This is, of course, also the case for online forums such as Reddit or Discord.

These five examples, among the many videos available in different languages on the platform YouTube, likewise unveil the different categories of motivation (intellectual, practical) and use (daily or exceptional, personal or for socialization purposes…) that the supply range of smartphone applications is plethoric, and that their dissemination is dependent on communication platforms and online exchanges. However, the deployment of witchcraft across several technologies is not that in line with the values of ‘witches 2.0’, who are also expressing choices and have personal orientations in technological multimodality that led them to prioritize a technology over another. Anais de Lugdunum (30 years old) justifies she prefers YouTube platform over other networks or platforms:

I was interested in magic and witchcraft even before I had a computer and I’m a bit overwhelmed by this craze on Tiktok, I’ve even had reactions that were a bit old-fashioned sometimes at first I used Tiktok to tell funny anecdotes from my job as a bookseller but not at all to make witch content! Now I post my pagan/sorcery memes through this medium… but I don’t even look at the witchtok content… My Instagram account is just a showcase for my YouTube channel and a place where people who discover me on YouTube can write to me, I don’t really create serious content there. It’s YouTube that’s important to me, because I feel I’m being useful and I like sharing knowledge.

For Ad Astra (40 years old), things are even more explicit in the comparison between TikTok and YouTube, and explain the third role Instagram is playing:

I understand the criticisms that are levelled, particularly concerning Tiktok, where short formats and instantaneity mode to the detriment of deeper meaning. Witchcraft is often reduced to superstitious acts, which contributes to a very wacky image of our practices. That’s why I prefer longer formats on YouTube, which allow for more contextualization. (…) On YouTube, I propose long-format content that is also aesthetically pleasing. Instagram is more about connecting with my community through everyday sharing (readings, reviews, express card prints, collaboration, sharing anecdotes, everyday things etc.). Podia is the site I use to sell my rituals online.

A nuance must be made about the logics of technological multimodality in the context of witchcraft 2.0, relating to the preferences expressed about the suitability of technologies for the messages that content creators want to convey. Furthermore, video platforms are not the only digital sites permeated by modern witches, and it is worth pursuing the analysis of app mediation on forums and discussion sites – Reddit, Discord, and Tumblr, in particular. Indeed, these sites are also complex interactive and connected environments where (hypertextual and video) content is spilled out, opinions expressed, and reactions shared. They resonate with the echoes of magic and sorcery and, given their properties as social platforms/community-oriented, they bring together in forums and fluxes cybernauts interested in specific topics, publishing material online – digital archives wide opened and a window for the study of witchcraft online.

Forums and platforms for exchange and multimodality

References to witchy apps expand on other platforms, such as Reddit, which have received scarce attention from social sciences and at the moment, almost none from religious studies – with the exception of special case-studies that occasionally allude to their utility as a source for empirical material shared on thematic sites by social actors, or from time to time refer to their structuring role for users’ communities (Cohen and Soukup, 2023). In the many subthemes (subreddit or r/) of the witchcraft domains (r/witchcraft), matters are mainly about sharing of advices, best practices, and ideas that ‘relate’ Internet users to each other, by means of electronic technologies. In the r/witchy apps subreddit community, promoters express their opinions about different kinds of apps, ¹⁷ and ordinary internauts look for advices for apps intended for witchcraft use. ¹⁸ Another example is Tumblr, a website for subthemes grouped by ‘communities’ (of interest) propitious to encounters between supply and demand for witchy apps ¹⁹ on the similar mode of shared videographic and hypertextual content, allowing the expression of comments and recommendations on smartphone application functionalities. The site also provides digital walls dedicated to witchcraft and, more specifically, to witchy apps as it is also the case on Pinterest, ²⁰ aligned on the same selective evaluation and recommendation process as other websites. Empirically speaking, they are sharing spaces that form the basis of an online sociability on the principle of ‘digital commons’ that is fleeting, discontinuous (on the difference between community and network online, see Garton et al., 2006), made up of ‘posts’, ‘hashtags’, ‘R/’, ‘like’, and other ‘comments’, as many modalities of action and reaction of users of technological environments configured for the brevity of exchanges which then become ‘digital traces’.

These digital traces provide information about the degree of interest for apps expressed by content creators and consumers. Since they benefit from equal visibility on the different platforms mentioned above, is the idea of technological multimodality of witchcraft 2.0 corroborated? The distribution of witchcraft on several platforms participates in an addition of technological uses – apps being affixed to forums and video platforms in the panoply of resources mobilized by witches 2.0. Yet the massive media coverage of modern forms of witchcraft cannot be taken as granted as evidence of an equally massive appropriation of the technologies through which they are disseminated. The case of witchy apps is particularly instructive in this respect. Some of the witches interviewed for the survey simply reject them, for which reason the author of these lines has been several times (and politely) refused an interview on the argument of unfamiliarity (‘I don’t use apps’). Others, who were more inclined to respond to the survey, were only a moderately attracted to witchy apps, justifying their use as ‘personal’ and ‘spiritual’ but not ‘witchy’. When asked about the role of technology in the development of witchcraft, one acknowledged that ‘technology has obviously helped to set witchcraft world alight’ (French-British witch, aged 40) but not all technologies, and not in the same way, obviously. For even video capsules evoke witchy apps, these latter are not consequently used in practice, quite simply because they also remain attached to traditional formats, which are adorned with greater virtues in terms of knowledge acquisition and dissemination, as this extract from an interview confirms her preference books, rather than videos, and videos rather than apps.

Beyond the critics addressed to apps as too simplified assets for Witchcraft 2.0, it is even a resistance to technology that is expressed, in a rather ambivalent way. Judith Vieille, a French witch of a third generation, in her fifties, claiming to be both modern and traditional, owns a profile coach and affirmative witch, uses digital broadcast technologies (Instagram, YouTube) but also traditional book publishing. In an interview with her in 2023, she expressed a frank circumspection towards witchtoks and the ‘technological race’… while herself using them. When asked about her preferences for technology use, another 30-year-old French witch describes her usage strategies, and their complexity, which depends not only on her intentions but also on the habits of Internet users and their loyalty to the content she broadcasts:

I use YouTube for the most part. Instagram is where I keep a link with ‘my community’, Tiktok is only for memes [simple cultural elements that can be reproduced and disseminated on a large scale by digital contagion]. Facebook? I keep for those [of my followers] who are only connected there and not on Instagram, but Instagram posts can be shared even though I’m not very active on this platform… I feel guilty when I go there and see the heaps of unanswered messages…

What role do apps finally play in a digital ecosystem already and mostly populated by forums and platforms? According to our sample, they represent mainly an added technological value in the arsenal of the supernatural tools of modern witches: apps do not have a primary and self-sufficient function for practicing magic but adds to the skills already acquired through other channels (meetings, books, frequenting websites…). In fact, ordinary smartphone applications can have a witchy function, as one witch on her forties suggests:

I use my smartphone mainly for the Instagram application on which I’ll be doing some sharing that’s quite different from my YouTube channel. In fact, Instagram is mainly used to see the effect of what’s uploaded on YouTube: when I’ve published a new video, the Instagram notification will allow people to go and see it on YouTube. It’s going to give a ping-pong effect between the two. Some people don’t have Instagram, and know me just thanks to YouTube and others just thanks to Instagram.

If there is such a thing as the modernization of witchcraft, technology plays a crucial role in this process: it fosters the dissemination of contents on a vast scale, now distributed mostly free from initiatory transmission – and this could be seen as an aporia derived from their mediatization through connected technologies (platforms) and ambulatory ones (apps). The exploration of websites, the analysis of apps’ uses, the textual and hypertextual sources used and produced by these modern witches, the analysis of videos, and the interviews conducted for this research suggest that while ‘witchy’ content is made available to a wide audience via apps, the extension of sharing and appropriation of these devices remains limited to rather smaller cohorts. This is for instance evidenced by the number of app downloads (by thousands or hundreds whereas non witchy amount for millions according to https://datareportal.com/social-media-users), views on YouTube or TikTok videos, subscribers to RSS feeds, R/ communities, and so on. The figures, when available, abide for a singular cultural and economic niche that has democratized access to the resources of magic and witchcraft in this digital ecosystem: as such, they facilitate the appropriation of witchcraft resources, and in this sense technology is employed to identify a plant and its virtues, a stone and its powers, implement a ritual, calculate lunar cycles, resort to divination, in spaces dedicated to digital sharing and socialization in ‘circles’, ‘communities’ of self-proclaimed or self-trained witches. But each technology seems to play a particular role: platforms mediatize and appropriate these resources, apps instrumentalize them.

Remarks on pps technology and digital capitalism

In the background to these reflections on technology and its uses is the question of the technologization of witchcraft, and hence its inclusion in an open economy of cultural and spiritual goods. The slogan ‘There’s an app for that’ launched by Apple in 2009 for the Iphone 3 launch campaign signalled that smartphone app technology would colonize all sectors of psychological, emotional, social, economic, and cultural life… and by extension the market for ‘religious’ apps (Campbell et al., 2014). The work of Jacqueline Fewkes (2019) has revealed that many historical religious traditions have already appropriated the ‘faith in the pocket’ technologies of religious apps. But other areas of the sacred and supernatural are also ingredients of this new ‘app economy’, and what applies to religion does not necessarily apply to witchcraft and magic.

This is where another fundamental ambivalence characterizing modern attitudes to high-tech comes into play in the field of online and app witchcraft: it’s desirable, but also a source of criticism. What worth on a large scale seems to apply to witchcraft: a polarization between two dimensions, that of alignment with the structures of digital capitalism, in terms of network use, circulation of symbolic goods and services in a system of financial economy, since services are sold, and of symbolic economy, which is calculated in ‘likes’ or followers (Gerlitz and Helmond, 2013), while, on the other hand, the actors of witchcraft 2.0 can in return assume and justify a stance of resistance to the economic and political forces of digital capitalism and alienation (Magliocco, 2020). Witchcraft 2.0 is therefore both a source of empowerment for minorities and visibility for the dominated, but, on the other hand, it is suspected of complicity with digital capitalism since witchy apps are part of the domination system described by Nieborg (2020), who points out that the development of apps is taking place against a backdrop of a new economy of a digitized self, and the globalization of the models of consumer culture.

The ‘supply and demand’ of witchcraft by means of app technology is not just an allusive reference to an open economy of symbols relating to magic or witchcraft, as illustrated as what unfolds in the field of religion (Obadia, 2013): online witchcraft activity is also lucrative, not only because witchy apps are paid for or downloadable free of charge with the possibility of accessing certain paid services, but all platforms are also monetized – and therefore a source of financial gain. If the digital environment obviously partakes on a commodification of witchcraft (Ezzy, 2001), it can be alternatively seen as a concession to the market logics of modernity (Foltz, 2011) or as continuity mutatis mutandis of the propinquity between magic/witchcraft and economy (Obadia, 2013). An ambiguity nevertheless remains: how can witchcraft be a resource for resistance to the market economy while aligning in parallel on the logics of digital capitalism (Waldron, 2005)? According to Alf Hornborg (2016), global magic stems from an alliance between magical and economic powers, in the long term reproduced in the modern world, which has been enabled by virtue of the ties operated, since time immemorial, by techniques late – digital technologies being no exception to this rule. The witches interviewed for the survey make no secret of their desire to participate in the digitalization and, by extension, modernization of witchcraft. They unequivocally assume the role of the economy in their activity through the services or objects and books they market.

Conclusion

In his fieldwork-based approach to smartphones, the late anthropologist Nicolas Nova noted that mobile telephony infuses modern societies in two anthropological ways: on the one hand, the smartphone epitomizes (metaphorically) as a ‘magic wand’ capable of enhancing human abilities by facilitating and multiplying them, and on the other hand, the applications with which they are stuffed resulted in an ‘extension of the repertoire of action’ previously existing among users (Nova, 2020). The case of witchy apps precisely falls under those genuine modern technologies, operating on any smartphone device, but whose range of purpose (and related meanings) are, however, inspired by particular inclinations and intentions, specific to those who recognize themselves under the rather broad label of ‘witchcraft’. In this sense, witchy apps are indicators of several levels of intelligibility in the processes of digitalization and modernization of witchcraft. First, this applies to the skills and status of the witch. Being a witch 2.0 is not only to relocate one’s activity to the Internet to sell one’s services, but also to partially change one’s habitus, that is, to become a ‘content creator’ and acquire technological or media skills. It also means bringing technologies into a framework of evaluation of their operational and practical relevance, in a system of recommendation of witch resources that is identical to the logic of other ‘content’ broadcast on YouTube or TikTok, or discussed on Reddit, Discord, or Tumblr. The case of the YouTube/TikTok distribution of witchy apps illustrates the dual process of mediatization and commodification that observers of modern witchcraft, led by Ezzy, demonstrated over 20 years ago, and the palpable impact of these new conditions of existence on magic and witchcraft, even if the instrumentalization of supernatural resources and their inclusion in an economy have long characterized this field of the supernatural and the sacred.

Witchy apps, moreover, reside in a special location in the digital ecosystem in which modern witchcraft unfolds, both highly mediatized by witchcraft 2.0 promoters. They are familiar to but paradoxically little used by witches themselves, by virtue of the low added value to their practice. The concept of multimodality, borrowed from science and technology, and operated here for analysing the links between digital platforms and smartphone applications in the practice of digitalized witchcraft, attests both its relevance (there is an intermodality of witchcraft 20 that unfolds on several platforms/forums/apps) and its limits (the co-presence of these technologies does not mechanically engage associations of uses, but just as much choice and preference). It is here, no doubt, that the reflexion must consider the complexity not only of the technological environment in which spaces dedicated to witches 2.0 navigate and settle, but also of the concrete practices they implement.