HERE BE THAT OLD HOODOO

As Zimbabwe’s economy collapses, traditional healers are selling wealth advice on TikTok

Locally known as sangomas, spiritual guides are gaining fame online, but they face criticism from their peers.

Emily Scherer for Rest of World

By CHRIS MURONZI
20 JUNE 2024 • HARARE, ZIMBABWE

As Zimbabwe’s economy worsens, traditional healers have built a business out of promising people wealth and financial freedom.
Many have moved their services online, predominantly on TikTok.
Critics argue that they exploit spirituality for profit, raising ethical concerns.

Sitting on a couch and speaking into her phone camera, Gogo Shumba carefully outlined step-by-step instructions: Take a 10-rand note — “the green one” — and a handful of salt. Dip it in water for three days. Then, dry out the note and keep it in your wallet.

“Your money problems will be taken care of,” she concluded.

Shumba, 36, was addressing viewers who had joined her TikTok livestream to learn how to get rich. The Zimbabwean traditional healer, or sangoma in the local dialect, has been giving spiritual advice on TikTok for nearly two years, and has around 31,000 followers on the Chinese social media platform.

“Traditional healer from Zimbabwe makes people rich” has become a popular content category on TikTok, and Shumba is one of the many sangomas offering spiritual guidance and special prayers to their followers. While such services have been part of Zimbabwe’s culture for centuries, TikTok has helped traditional healers find a global audience. Some of their most active followers are from other African countries, as well as the U.S. and the U.K. As they advise people on TikTok about how to get rich, the platform has helped the sangomas improve their financial conditions. In their community, however, TikTok sangomas are often looked down upon and face opposition from more orthodox peers.

“We have seen that with Pentecostal church leaders and their use of radio and television. We have seen people flocking to those churches seeking fortune,” Oswelled Ureke, a senior lecturer of television studies and digital media production at the University of Johannesburg, told Rest of World. “There could be a connection between the difficulties that people face in life and their consultations of sangomas. But it might also be that it’s just for entertainment purposes.”
Traditional healer Shumba has been giving spiritual advice on TikTok for nearly two years. @sty2lis

The southern African country has been dealing with an economic crisis marked by hyperinflation, high unemployment, and rising poverty.

Lesley Chihera, a 29-year-old Harare-based hairdresser, started consulting sangomas on TikTok in 2020. She had lost her livelihood due to the pandemic lockdowns, and was unable to visit the prophets she had regularly consulted. Now, she follows a network of TikTok sangomas and is convinced that their counseling will help her overcome financial distress.

“Right now, I really need money and that is why I am on TikTok sessions,” Chihera told Rest of World. “God-willing and your vadzimu [family spirits] permitting, things can change for the better with help of TikTok sangomas.” Following the sangomas’ advice, she has dumped eggs and old currency notes in the middle of the road to ward off evil spirits, among other things.

For the healers, TikTok has been a financial boon. A sangoma charges anywhere between $80 and $300 for a consultation, depending on the service and the location of the client.

Tanya Chisu became a traditional healer in 2018. For the first few years, Chisu, now 21, struggled to find clients and relied almost exclusively on a few referrals. In October 2022, she joined TikTok to “learn more about spiritual things from other, more experienced healers,” she told Rest of World. Over time, Chisu developed a following of her own.

“Now I make more than $1,500 [in a month],” she said. “Sometimes $2,000 per month.” Money and fertility issues are the most popular topics for consultations. The income from TikTok has helped Chisu gain “financial freedom.” She is currently saving up to buy a car.

Sekuru Kanengo, a Harare-based sangoma, has nearly 1,900 followers on TikTok. He charges $200 per consultation from local clients, and $300 from international clients, according to an automated message from the WhatsApp number linked to his TikTok page.

“Spirituality and technology do not mix. They are like water and oil.”

Earlier this year, Sekuru Tasvu, a traditional healer who has around 430 followers on TikTok, was in the news for spending $30,000 on his lavish wedding. Tasvu charges between $80 and $300 per consultation, depending on the service, according to information on his WhatsApp profile.

But the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association does not recognize the work of sangomas who offer services through TikTok, spokesperson Prince Mutandi told Rest of World.

“Most of these TikTok and social media sangomas are thieves masquerading as traditional healers,” Mutandi said. “Spirituality and technology do not mix. They are like water and oil.”

Grace Mhofela, a Harare-based entrepreneur who has consulted a sangoma on TikTok in the past, told Rest of World she found her to be “bogus.”

“All they demand after approaching them is money,” Mhofela said. “In my case, I had lost money to thieves … I had no money and one sangoma asked me to pay $200 to consult with her.”

Chisu dismissed the allegations, saying she and many others are “genuine” sangomas who are simply “comfortable using technology.”

“[Social media] gives a platform for the expression of things that would normally occur offline, and because of its affordances, it helps people from different walks of life to access the services of sangomas,” Ureke said. “Whereas, in offline spaces, they would have had to travel long distances to go and consult sangomas face-to-face.”
Chris Muronzi is a business and tech journalist based in Harare, Zimbabwe.

LAND OV VOODOO-HOODOO

Brazilian police detain woman suspected of taking a dead man to withdraw bank loan
NOT YET LES ZOMBIE

Alessandra Castelli, CNN
Wed, 17 April 2024


Police in Brazil have detained a woman suspected of wheeling a dead man, who she said was her uncle, to a bank to withdraw a four-figure loan.

Footage of the woman’s encounter with the bank has sparked a nationwide discussion in Brazil after going viral on social media. It appears to show the woman at the counter of a Rio de Janeiro branch of Itau Bank, propping up the head of an elderly man in a wheelchair and trying to get his hand to clasp a pen.

According to police, she was attempting to take out a loan equivalent to $3,000, which had already been approved by the bank but still needed the elderly man’s sign-off.


But the elderly man in the video – filmed by a bank attendant – remains unresponsive. His arm is limp and his head keeps falling back as she talks to him.

“Uncle, are you listening?” she asks him. “You need to sign. If you don’t sign, there’s no way. I can’t sign for you, it has to be you. What I can do, I do.”

“Sign it so you don’t give me any more headaches, having to go to the registry office. I can’t take it anymore,” the woman continues.

At that point, one of the bank attendants says, “I think he isn’t feeling well,” and a second attendant agrees.

Footage of the incident has sparked a nationwide discussion in Brazil. This image has been blurred by CNN. - Provided to police by Itau

Rio de Janeiro Civil police chief Fabio Luis Souza said the bank attendants then decided to call an ambulance. When paramedics arrived, they concluded that the man had been dead for a couple of hours and must have been dead when he arrived at the bank.

Police say they are still trying to establish the relationship between the woman and the dead man.

CNN affiliate CNN Brasil reported that the family’s lawyer disputed the account offered by police, saying “the facts did not happen as stated; that the man has arrived at the bank alive; and that the woman is completely shaken and medicated.”

Authorities say they are investigating the case, but have not brought charges.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Greenpeace releases animated video in campaign against fossil fuel sponsorship of Rugby World Cup

The logo of TotalEnergies is seen at the company’s headquarters skyscraper in the La Defense business district in Courbevoie near Paris, France, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Environmental group Greenpeace released a video Wednesday Aug. 30, 2023 ahead of the rugby World Cup showing a massive amount of oil flooding the Stade de France in a campaign against fossil fuel sponsorship of big sporting events.

 (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

People walk by the Stade de France stadium Monday, July 10, 2023 in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Environmental group Greenpeace released a video Wednesday Aug. 30, 2023 ahead of the rugby World Cup showing a massive amount of oil flooding the Stade de France in a campaign against fossil fuel sponsorship of big sporting events.

 (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

BY SAMUEL PETREQUIN
August 30, 2023

Environmental group Greenpeace released an animated video Wednesday showing a massive amount of oil flooding the field for the upcoming opening game of the Rugby World Cup in a campaign against fossil fuel sponsorship of big sporting events.

The video takes aim at energy giant TotalEnergies, a sponsor of the event in France.

The film shows the Stade de France seconds before the start of the first match of the tournament between France and New Zealand on Sept. 8. Oil spills out of TotalEnergies advertising boards hanging in the stadium.

“The global fossil fuel industry extracts enough oil to fill a rugby stadium every 3 hours and 37 minutes,” Greenpeace said.




History of Ireland’s failure to get past Rugby World Cup quarterfinals

Ireland as ready as it ever has been to crack Rugby World Cup hoodoo

The environmental group said Rugby World Cup Limited tried to block the release of the video on Tuesday on the eve of its release.

“But we won’t be silenced,” said Edina Ifticene, a campaigner at Greenpeace France. “Fossil fuel companies like TotalEnergies sponsor events like the Rugby World Cup to distract everyone from their climate destruction.”

TotalEnergies said in a statement to the The Associated Press that “it’s wrong to claim that TotalEnergies is greenwashing by sponsoring the Rugby World Cup 2023.”

The company added that the World Cup is a chance for TotalEnergies, which employs nearly 35,000 people in France, to “raise awareness of the multi-energy dimension of our activities and our ambition to be a major player in the energy transition, committed to carbon neutrality by 2050, together with society.”

When it became a sponsor of the tournament, TotalEnergies said it would work with organizers “to create an environmentally responsible event, notably through the deployment of a decarbonized mobility plan and the supply of green energy.”

Earlier this week, local organizers and TotalEnergies announced the launch of a car-sharing service for fans. The company said it also installed temporary electric charging stations near World Cup stadiums, and offered free electric recharging on match days.

“As a reminder, TotalEnergies will invest nearly 5 billion euros in renewable and low-carbon energies by 2023, and will therefore, for the first time, devote more investments to low-carbon energies than to new hydrocarbon projects,” the company said. “By 2030, TotalEnergies will be one of the world’s largest low-carbon power producers.”

According to a Greenpeace report last week that analyzed the 2022 annual reports of several oil companies in Europe, “99% of TotalEnergies’ energy production last year came from fossil fuels, meaning only 1% came from genuinely renewable sources.”

Buried deep in a time capsule for a century, a 1919 ‘Black Sox’ World Series baseball sees the light

2022/09/10

Developer Lee Golub stands on the 25th floor of Tribune Tower Residences on Aug. 24, 2022, while holding a baseball from the 1919 World Series featuring the Chicago White Sox. - Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/TNS

CHICAGO — For nearly a century, millions of words poured from the confines of the Tribune Tower in stories about crooked politicians, murderous lovers, civic giants, sports heroes, regular folks and big shots, charting all the joys and tragedies of the human condition. No longer home to a newspaper but to luxurious condominiums, the building now delivers a new and fascinating tale, of a baseball long buried, a baseball that some believe is worth $1 million or more.

The ball is a homely and bruised and beaten thing. It was discovered earlier this year when three time capsules were found during the remaking of the building.

The Tribune Tower was sold for $240 million in June 2016 to the CIM Group in partnership with Chicago-based Golub & Co. Its transformation began after all former tenants — including some 750 Chicago Tribune employees, WGN-AM 720 staff and equipment, a barbershop, restaurant, candy store and other businesses — were relocated and scattered across the city in June 2018.

“I love this building and this has been the most interesting and complicated project I have ever worked on,” says Lee Golub, the executive vice president at Golub & Co. “But there has been great joy in that, because I think this is the greatest building in the world.”

He is happy that two-thirds of the building’s 162 condominiums have been sold, for prices ranging from $700,000 to more than $8 million. He was happy and proud as he walked around the building with Tribune photographer Chris Sweda and myself, neither of us having visited since we left four years ago. Not to play architecture critic, but I was impressed by the transformation, a remake that was jarring but impressive. We saw some apartments with terraces, soaring ceilings and dramatic arch windows. We saw a space with all sorts of amenities, including a gym and swimming pool. We saw a landscaped exterior courtyard, meeting rooms, sundecks, outdoor terraces and grill stations. We saw much more and listened to Golub say, “It was important that we keep the history of the building intact,” and walked through a landmarked lobby cleaner than we had ever seen it. It sparkled.

But back to baseball.

The three battered and worn metal box time capsules — placed inside the cornerstones of the former printing press building, which rose in 1920; Tribune Tower, completed in 1925; and the WGN Radio building, completed in 1950 — contained more than 100 items.

Most of these were predictable time capsule knickknacks. There were yellowed copies of the Tribune newspaper, a 1907 political cartoon from Pulitzer Prize winner John T. McCutcheon, war cartoons from 1942 and motion pictures set to recordings of speeches from owner/publisher Robert McCormick, as well as all of the 263 submissions for the 1922 design competition that offered a $50,000 first-place prize, won by New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood, and a penny from 1847, the year the Tribune was founded.

It was noted as well that there was also a baseball, one reporter speculating that it was “possibly from the 1919 ‘Black Sox’ World Series.’ ”

The minute Golub saw the ball, he called his friend Grant DePorter. The pair have known one another for years. “I just knew he’d want to see this,” Golub says.

“I ran over the minute he called,” DePorter says.

DePorter is the CEO of Harry Caray’s Restaurant Group, overseeing the operation of seven restaurants. He co-authored a 2008 book with Elliott Harris and Mark Vancil, “Hoodoo: Unraveling the 100-Year Mystery of the Chicago Cubs” (Rare Air Limited). Late in 2003, he paid $113,824.16 for what was known as the “Bartman Ball,” which was exploded early in 2004 in a nationally televised event from the restaurant, with money raised going to charity.

DePorter is also a passionate historian and the mere sight of the baseball compelled him to start digging. He was able to determine, with the help of FBI Special Agent and expert on memorabilia Brian Brusokas, that the ball was used in the 1919 World Series between the White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds.

“And it was a record-setting baseball,” DePorter says. “It is a baseball that struck out more batters in a row in a World Series than any baseball in history.”

The Cincinnati pitcher, his name long faded into history, was Horace “Hod” Eller. He pitched well, striking out nine batters, including a then-World Series record of six in a row during the fifth game, which was played in Comiskey Park in front of 34,379 fans.

“Eller was known for a shine pitch, a pitch that involved putting paraffin wax on one part of the ball and also in the stitches of the ball,” DePorter says, handing me a pile of his research. “Chemicals found in paraffin are used in solvents and also can burn. The ball has a mark where the paraffin shine was placed and the ball’s dark coloring would be attributed to the fact that it was placed in a time capsule for 100 years with paraffin present.”

That 1919 World Series resulted in what DePorter and many others consider the biggest scandal in the history of sports, known as the Black Sox Scandal. It has been the subject of many books, the best of which is Eliot Asinof’s 1963 “Eight Men Out,” which gave birth to the 1988 film of the same name.

In short, the scandal involved eight members of the Sox being accused of throwing the series against the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for money from a group of gamblers. The players’ names were: Arnold “Chick” Gandil, George “Buck” Weaver, Oscar “Happy” Felsch, Charles “Swede” Risberg, Fred McMullin, Eddie Cicotte, Claude “Lefty” Williams and, most famously, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.

A Chicago grand jury indicted the players in late September 1920 and, though all were acquitted in a public trial on Aug. 2, 1921, baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis the next day permanently banned all eight for life from professional baseball.

Along with the baseball, DePorter found a letter.

“It was hidden in a pile of moldy documents,” he says. “It was written by Tribune sports editor Harvey Woodruff and the letter does not mention anything about any controversy tied to the series even though it was written and placed in the time capsule in May of 1920, seven months after the series.”

DePorter kept digging.

“When Woodruff wrote this letter he was the top choice to be the chairman of the National Baseball Commission and as such would have been the one to decide whether to investigate the rumors that the World Series was fixed,” DePorter says. “He had not written any negative story that would hint that gamblers might have fixed the games. He even told one of his reporters that he did not believe the series had been fixed.”

DePorter believes that had Woodruff been appointed chairman, it would have changed baseball history. He says, “It is also highly likely that “Shoeless” Joe Jackson would have been inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame.”

The letter confirmed the ball’s vintage. “This baseball was used by Pitcher Horace (Hod) Eller of the Cincinnati Reds in the fifth game of the World’s Series baseball contests of 1919 against the Chicago White Sox,” Woodruff wrote.

Many of the items found in the time capsules are slated to have a new home in the Chicago History Museum but not that baseball. It will formally meet the public later this month at the Green Tie Ball, an annual event to benefit the nonprofit, public-private partnership that is Chicago Gateway Green, which is dedicated to the greening and beautification of the city. Golub and DePorter, whose father, Donald DePorter. started the organization in 1986, are co-chairs of the event. Golub will perform there, playing drums, with his band, Dr. Bombay.

The event takes place Sept. 17 at the Chicago Sports Museum. DePorter is the founder of the museum and that is where the old World Series baseball will be on display.

“We have a lot of great memorabilia there,” DePorter says. “But this baseball. … No piece of memorabilia has made me more insane, combing through archives, old newspapers, websites. It is hard to put a price on it, but a Mickey Mantle 1952 baseball card, not even in pristine shape, sold last week for $12.6 million. I think of this baseball as a treasure and it tells a great story.”

© Chicago Tribune

Curiosity Has Found Some Truly Weird-Looking, Twisty Rock Towers on Mars


Rock formations on Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS)

CARLY CASSELLA
7 JUNE 2022

The Curiosity rover has found an outstanding rock formation piercing the alien landscape of Mars. Amongst the shallow sands and boulders of the Gale Crater rise several twisting towers of rock – the spikes of sediment look almost like frozen streams of water poured from an invisible jug in the sky.

In reality, experts say the columns were probably created from cement-like substances that once filled ancient cracks of bedrock. As the softer rock gradually eroded away, the snaking streams of compact material remained standing.

Rock formations found on Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS)

The rock formations were snapped by a camera on board the Curiosity rover on May 17, but the image was only shared last week by NASA and experts at the SETI institute (which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), as part of SETI's planetary picture of the day initiative.

As alien as the structures might look, they aren't without precedent.

In Earthly geology, a 'hoodoo' is a tall and thin spire of rock formed by erosion. It can also be called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid.

Hoodoos are usually found in dry environments, like the canyons of Utah or southern Serbia, and the columns can sometimes tower as high as ten-story buildings.

A hoodoo in Bryce Canyon, Utah. (Don Graham/Flickr/CC BY SA 2.0)

The natural structures are formed by hard rock layers that build up within softer sedimentary rock. As the rest of the rock erodes away from rain, wind or frost, you're left with a magnificent mould of an ancient fracture in the bedrock.

Hoodoos East Coulee, Alberta, Canada. (Darren Kirby/CC BY SA 2.0)

The two towers of rock on Mars look like they are about to topple over compared to the ones we see on Earth, but clearly they are solid enough to withstand the lighter surface gravity experienced on the red planet.

Another strange rock formation found by Curiosity earlier this year might have been created in a similar way, albeit with very different results.

This other, smaller rock looks sort of like a piece of coral or a flower with numerous little petals stretching up towards the sun.

"One theory that has emerged is that the rock is a type of concretion created by minerals deposited by water in cracks or divisions in existing rock," a press release from NASA explained at the time.

"These concretions can be compacted together, can be harder and denser than surrounding rock, and can remain even after the surrounding rock erodes away."

A flower-shaped rock found on Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS)

The Gale crater isn't wholly flat, but the alien spires discovered by Curiosity stand out from the rest of their environment, although no height measurements accompany the image.

The towering tombstones of rock might look lifeless now, but their formation speaks volumes about ancient conditions on Mars and whether life could have once thrived there billions of years ago.

The Gale crater itself is thought to be a dried-up lake bed, though possibly shallower and more transitory than experts once assumed.

Rock formations in and around the ancient lake are helping to reveal the region's true history.

A LITTLE BIT OF HOODOO

Shell’s Brazil Wells Come Up Dry

By Irina Slav - May 17, 2022

Three exploration wells that Shell has drilled in Brazil in hopes of making the next big discovery have come up dry, Bloomberg has reported, citing an analyst with Wood Mackenzie.

This latest turn of events adds to bad news for Brazil and supermajors’ plans to turn it into the next hot spot in oil.

Shell and several partners paid $1 billion for drilling rights for three offshore blocks in Brazil and spent three years drilling exploratory wells. None of them turned up commercially viable volumes of oil, Marcelo de Assis, chief of Latin America upstream research at Wood Mackenzie, told Bloomberg.

Exxon previously suffered even greater losses, of about $1.6 billion, when its own exploratory wells drilled in Brazilian waters over the past three years turned out unviable.

These developments are casting a thick shadow over the expected boom of crude oil production in Brazil thanks to its prolific presalt offshore zone. However, some believe all the big discoveries have already been made.

“In Santos and Campos, the big discoveries have already been made,” Adriano Pires, who was one of the candidates for new chief executive of Petrobras, told Bloomberg. “In the Equatorial Margin, we could still have surprising discoveries.”

Meanwhile, Petrobras is also drilling. Earlier this month, BNAmericas reported the Brazilian state-owned oil major planned to drill three offshore wells this year in two offshore blocks.

According to the Bloomberg report, however, since the discovery of fields such as Mero and Buzios in the Santos Basin, all of Petrobras’s finds have been relatively minor. The almost 100-percent success rate in discoveries that the Brazilian company boasted a decade ago is now long gone. Now, the success rates have fallen to what appears to be the average for the industry, at a little over a quarter of all wells drilled.

VOODOO HOODOO 

As pandemic crisis bites, young Cubans find solace in sect with African origins





As pandemic crisis bites, young Cubans find solace in sect with African originsA group of initiates of the Cuban religion Abakua take part in the oath ceremony at the Efi Barondi Cama temple, known as a 'power' (AFP/Yamil LAGE)

Yamil Lage
Wed, December 29, 2021, 11:04 PM·2 min read


Five blindfolded young men kneel before a priest who is uttering blessings in the West African language Yoruba, while they vow to be brave, respectful and good to their community.

But this scene is not taking place in West Africa: this is Cuba, and the five young men here are converting to Abakua, a uniquely Cuban spiritual practice.

Faced with economic hardships and the Covid-19 pandemic, many young Cubans have sought refuge in religion, including Abakua, a belief system that originated as a brotherhood of protection for enslaved Africans in Havana nearly 200 years ago.

"With this problem of the pandemic, it has grown a lot, we've had a lot of" new devotees, Juan Ruiz Ona, a religious leader, told AFP.

The religion shares attributes with Santeria and Palomonte, other popular Latin American sects with African origins and influences from various belief systems.

But while the other two are practiced across the region, Abakua is exclusive to Cuba.

At the Efi Barondi Cama temple in Matanzas, 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Havana, Ona is the Yamba -- the second-highest ranking official.

The private initiation ceremony for the young men taking place here is open only to the Abakuas and their guests.

The person taking on the role of the Ireme -- or little devil -- rubs a chicken over the new disciples' bodies as part of a purifying ritual, before allowing them into the sacred space where the secret ritual takes place.

Dancing to a rhythmic drumbeat, the Ireme represents the presence of the ancestors.

- 'Support our brothers' -

Becoming an Abakua has traditionally been difficult, and the secret rules imposed on devotees were notoriously harsh.

There are about 130 Abakua fraternities in Cuba, made up entirely of heterosexual men.

The fraternities are known as "powers," "games" or "plants."

Over time, the groups have lost their cloak of secrecy, but not their rigid principles, such as the support for brothers in faith.

"During this pandemic... we've tried to support our brothers, even though some have died, others were ill, and others we visited and helped," said Ruiz.

Like many Cubans, some of the faithful have emigrated and send money home to help their fraternity.

"We're a constructive institution, we contribute with our revolution and our young," added Ruiz, a firm supporter of the island nation's communist regime.

Following the 1959 socialist revolution, the government declared itself atheist, but after the fall of the Soviet Union -- the regime's major backer -- Cuba in 1990 became an officially secular state, albeit with a Catholic majority.

Sociologists estimate that 85 percent of the population of 11.2 million consider themselves believers --though not necessarily practicing ones -- of a religion, often in sects that combine Catholicism with animist African beliefs.

Yl/Cb/lp/dga/bc/caw

What's the deal with WitchTok? We spoke to creators bringing magic to TikTok.
Sara M Moniuszko
USA TODAY



Kiley Mann was 10 when she was gifted her first set of runes, a Nordic divination tool, which sparked a lifelong journey into witchcraft.

"I've been studying spirituality and religion for about a decade now," she says, explaining witchcraft for her is the duality of both.

Now 19, Mann shares what she's learned with her 883,000 TikTok followers, from divination forms like tea leaves to working with tarot cards, runes and bone throwing.

Known by the username @oracleofthemoon, she is one of many TikTok users part of WitchTok, a niche section of the video-sharing app that revolves around magic and witchcraft. The hashtag #witchtok alone has amassed more than 19.8 billion views.

Why has it become so popular? We spoke to some of the personalities behind WitchTok to find out.

How WitchTok creators got started

Adam Wethington, 33, has been doing tarot since he was 15, but after losing his job at the start of the pandemic, he turned to readings as a form of income. He joined TikTok in December as a way to share his skills and is now known as Madam Adam to his 1.5 million followers, a reclamation of the "bully name that I got as a kid."


Wethington, whose pronouns are he/they, says their content, which has now become their full-time job, comes "from a level of truth that I think is resonant with a lot of people."

"I come at it in a way that some people call brutal honesty. I call it tough love," they add.

Mann, a full-time fine arts student whose pronouns are she/they, first started a TikTok account as a way to share their Etsy business, where they sell magical tools from crystals to herbs and homemade protection salts. The more their account grew, "the more comfortable I felt in solidarity to share more about my own practice, and it just kind of took off from there."

Honey Rose, 23, first got into tarot three years ago and has been studying magic ever since. Rose began their TikTok account under the username @thathoneywitch about six months before COVID-19 hit, reaching around 40,000 followers by February 2021. Now more than 124,000 people follow Rose's account, which they manage while also pursuing a Masters degree in forensic science full time.

While they sell tarot readings and ceramic cauldrons on the side, they've mostly found joy in the community by making friends they're "going to keep for a really long time."
Why WitchTok is so popular

WitchTok is a thriving community of creators who share a common link of magic and witchcraft.

Wethington describes it as a "fabulous TikTok community of spiritualists... from all different walks of life." He believes part of its popularity comes from the sense of control it can provide people during uncertain times brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

"WitchTok content is so relevant right now because we learned last year we can't control (things). All you can control is what you do, all you can control is what you think is truth in the world," Wethington explains. "We're in this great spiritual renaissance of enlightenment... Many of us are looking inward."

In addition to control, turning to spiritual practices during unprecedented times can also provide a sense of purpose, says Gabriela Herstik, author of "Inner Witch: A Modern Guide to the Ancient Craft."

"We live in this very intense, dark age... People want purpose, and they want connection," she says. "But beyond that, they want something that helps them connect to something larger than themselves. Something that helps them feel like there's a purpose, and magic does that. Magic is a way to align with your purpose, your power."

People who have been historically ostracized by religious institutions, such as those who identify as LGBTQ+, may also find community in this form of spirituality.

"I definitely think that if there's any queer people that are seeking spirituality, you don't have to call it 'witchcraft,' that's fine... But there are definitely spiritual things for you," says Wethington, who grew up Catholic before turning to witchcraft. "It's really a great opportunity for you to feel like you're connected to something real and grounded."

Rose echoes the refuge that marginalized groups can find in this community, sharing their own intersection of identities.

"I am a lot of marginalized groups. I am non-binary, I'm queer and I'm half Black... but magic has been the voice of people that are voiceless for a very long time," they explain. "Some people have a problem with traditional religions and traditional spirituality, as sometimes they go towards a more abstract form of spirituality, which can be witchcraft."

Herstik believes WitchTok's growth is also due to the accessibility it brings to these topics.

"I've been writing about witchcraft for seven or eight years at this point and I've seen it come up as a super powerful force in the in the Zeitgeist," she says, remembering when "being witchy" and "looking witchy" started to become trendy years ago, from tarot decks being sold in Urban Outfitters to "American Horror Story: Coven."

"Seeing it on TikTok was not very shocking. It just feels like a natural progression of what people have been really yearning for, which is accessible information around these esoteric topics that at any other point in history, before the internet, were super guarded and super hard to access."

Mann agrees while it's always been popular within certain communities, TikTok brings a "certain visibility," making people more "curious about what it's all about and how it can apply to their own lives.

"What makes people so curious about it is that this information was once regarded as kind of taboo, but now it's become more open to the general public," they add.

More: Witchy fashion is 2017's most exciting, subversive trend

Witchcraft's cultural roots

While WitchTok is rising in popularity, witchcraft itself is not a trend. Instead, it's been around for centuries and practiced by different groups around the world.

From hoodoo spiritually rooted in traditional African religions and Latin American and Afro-Caribbean practices known in Spanish as brujería to religions like Voodoo and Wicca, having endless things to learn about is part of what kept Mann intrigued at the beginning of her journey with magic.

"It's a community that's filled with knowledge, and there's just always new things you can learn about yourself, about others, about different cultures and religions is infinite."

Mann adds witchcraft is also much more diverse than you may see on TikTok. "Witchcraft by some name exists in virtually every culture, and everybody practices it differently, and most of the time what you see on the internet or on WitchTok is just the tip of the iceberg."

As a half-Black, half-Italian WitchTok creator, Rose has found comfort in connecting with their ancestors through magic.

They also agree in doing research to show appreciation and not appropriation towards certain practices.

"There's often the issue of cultural appropriation, and I've had to deal with that. Some people don't want to listen to people from those cultures, with their knowledge, they just don't want to listen, because they want to keep doing what they're doing." they add, pointing to issues surrounding white sage and dreamcatchers being used when the origins are rooted in indigenous cultures and practices.


It also helps to listen to witches and practitioners of color who speak to these topics. For example, in one of Rose's early videos, they explained the harm in using the term "black magic" to describe dark or evil magic.

Mann hopes WitchTok empowers people of different communities to share their stories.

"I think it's bringing more visibility to people of color, people of different religions, indigenous people, I think it's definitely allowing more worldly views to be shared and observed and respected," they say.

Monsters by Barry Windsor-Smith – a great, grim slab of postwar angst

This long-awaited epic makes superhuman strength an unsettling backdrop to family drama

‘Windsor-Smith does give us shootouts, stakeouts and chases, but Monsters

 is more interested in turning back the clock.’ Photograph: Barry Windsor-Smith

James Smart

Thu 6 May 2021

There are epic waits, and there’s the wait for Barry Windsor-Smith’s new epic. This great, grim 366-page slab of postwar angst began its life as a Hulk story that Windsor-Smith planned for Marvel in 1984. Now, 37 years later, it finally emerges, its striking cover bearing the ruined face of a man, a Stars and Stripes thrust in one ear, his torn lip exposing a cavernous jaw, a tear trickling from one half-open eye. This is Bobby Bailey, the young man at the centre of this forcefully told and thoroughly affecting drama.

Windsor-Smith’s return is big news. The Londoner got his break after sending sketches to Marvel in the late 60s. He drew staples such as the Avengers and Daredevil, and brought romanticism and style to the award-winning Conan series. But Windsor-Smith has always had his own vision, and his relationship with an industry that has historically kept creatives on a tight leash has rarely been easy. “The business,” he declared in a 2013 interview, “stinks.” In the 70s and beyond, Windsor-Smith spent spells within the industry – writing and drawing the Wolverine origin story Weapon X for Marvel, working on several series for Valiant and creating the Storyteller anthology for Dark Horse – and long stretches out of it. He has published virtually no new work for 15 years; his website’s news section stops in 2011.

 Illustration: Barry Windsor-Smith

Fittingly, the ambitious Monsters uses time lapses to great effect. It opens in 1949 with brutal violence, as Bobby’s mother, Janet, defends her young son against his raging father, Tom. Fifteen years later, Bobby follows in his veteran father’s footsteps, and walks into an army recruitment office. His claim that he has no family or qualifications sees him chosen for an ominous trial. A few months later, he is dotted with wires and suspended in a stinking pool, his skin swollen with muscles and gouged with scars. His chemically enhanced body is now an army investment, but Bailey has an unexpected ally with an escape plan.

It feels a well trodden set-up, part Captain America, part Frankenstein’s monster. The secret project begins with a Nazi scientist who adjusts his glasses with a claw-hand, while Bailey’s noble saviour is an African American man with “hoodoo” powers. A lesser writer might crank up the cliches another notch, and focus on the violence and drama of a super-soldier on the loose in 60s America. Windsor-Smith does give us shootouts, stakeouts and chases, but Monsters is more interested in turning back the clock. It’s a book about how we got here; a story about a lost boy, his put-upon mother and his brutal, traumatised father, about fraught dinners and PTSD, and about how it takes a monster to make one. And its telling is often brilliant.

 Illustration: Barry Windsor-Smith

Windsor-Smith’s brooding, dramatic panels later show a young Tom and Janet, happy before the war. The new father sends tender notes back from the front, his eye for a scene such that he “could describe the French countryside and the sounds of war in the same sentence”. But after a shock discovery in the chaos of the German retreat, he returns a changed man. The hands that once penned love letters instead reach for the whiskey bottle, and lash out at his wife and son.

Monsters hums with suppressed violence and regret, and Windsor-Smith renders both with real power. His command of pose and gesture – Tom’s thick arms bunching with tension, Janet’s shoulders slumping in resignation – brings his cast to life. Some images stay with you: a bike with buckled wheels in long grass, smoke oozing over a dinner table in an officer’s mess, cross-hatched shadow stretching across a face like a cowl. Alongside the naturalism sits stranger stuff: sausages turn into severed fingers and memories swirl into the present, their echoes turning simple conversations into a deafening hubbub. At the heart of the book, the adult Barry relives his childhood traumas, his great, twisted face and freakish frame balled up on the stairs as arguments burst out around him.

From Maus to Tamara Drewe: the 10 graphic novels everyone should read

Read more

Perhaps inevitably, given its long gestation period and ambitious scope, Monsters can feel disjointed. Its mix of sci-fi, body horror, fateful coincidences, psychic powers and family drama isn’t always coherent; at times the dialogue falls flat. Windsor-Smith’s grotesque visions of butchered cadavers and dark experiments seem distant and almost comedic when set against the real menace and claustrophobia of domestic violence.

Yet that dissonance helps illuminate the book. Pulp fiction has asked again and again what might happen if you could create someone who was more than human. Windsor-Smith’s answer is that such a birth would be a trauma, not the spark for quips and pyrotechnics, but the heart of a very American tragedy. Fittingly for a writer who’s never felt comfortable spending too long in the comics mainstream, he has created a tale in which wild moments of excess and scenes of superhuman strength form an unsettling backdrop rather than the main event. Instead, a family drama of kindness, cruelty and redemption takes centre stage, offering the chance for a broken man to shed his skin, and begin again.

• Monsters by Barry Windsor-Smith is published by Jonathan Cape (£25)

How Tarot & Astrology Became Black & Brown Women’s North Star

Stephanie Long 

© Provided by Refinery29

Amber Finney, known as Amber The Alchemist, is steeping a cup of tea when we connect over Google Hangouts. The soft smoke of what is likely sage, incense or palo santo languidly billows from the bottom of her screen. Behind her hangs a tapestry of planets and constellations, as well as a poster illustrating various crystals. Below that sits a table of bottles and oils. Even through a screen, it’s exactly the backdrop you’d expect from someone whose life’s work includes ancestral healing through rituals and magic.

“I am from Hackensack, New Jersey,” Finney, a tarot reader and spiritual practitioner, says. “My grandparents are from Georgia and South Carolina, so I’m a product of the Great Migration.” Her great-great-grandfather was likely born into slavery, she shares, and was a root worker and healer in the 1800s; her mother, Jeannell, has been practicing divination for decades. Together, Finney and her mother run Brown Girl Alchemy, an online community dedicated to the ascension and healing of Black womanhood. “[My spirituality has] always been within me,” she states with a smile. “The work that I’m doing and the work that my mom is doing is a continuation [of my great-great-grandfather’s work]. We’re bridging the gap and bringing that spiritualism back to our ancestral.”

Finney and her mother aren’t the only ones. In the last 10 years, and especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic when many have turned to divination as a means of solace and self-healing, Black and brown women have pivoted from Christianity and reconnected with spiritual practices rooted in African, Indigenous, and Latinx ancestry. Many of those practices — like tarot, astrology, and crystal healing — have become increasingly popular on social media, making conversation surrounding non-Christian Black and brown spirituality less taboo. In pop culture, superstars like Beyoncé have paid homage to figures like the Yoruba Orisha Oshun, goddess of female sensuality and fertility. Songs like Princess Nokia’s “Brujas” have become anthems for Black and brown witches everywhere. But before the age of Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram, it was rare that you’d find Black and brown women speaking publicly of sacred practices. Until recently, much of the spiritual community represented online featured a more Eurocentric version of divination — “Black and Silver witchcraft,” a term The Hood Witch’s Bri Luna uses to describe the whitewashed “American Horror Story aesthetic” popular on Tumblr years ago — leaving little room for Black and brown women to feel seen or safe in an already stigmatized space. It’s why the spiritual resurgence happening amongst Black and brown women is more than a revival — it’s a reclamation.

“My grandmother practiced hoodoo. She’s from Louisiana and she lived in Texas,” Luna says. “I feel like most American Black families with Southern roots, there’s magic there, regardless of if they wanna call it that or not.” When she first launched The Hood Witch around 2014, the Los Angeles native — who is of Black and Mexican descent — was one of the only brujas representing Black and brown women in the online world of mysticism. “I was sharing metaphysical information; I was sharing tarot; I was sharing things that were already in my family, doing this visual storytelling [in my way]. I really think that opened doors for other women of color to connect back to their roots. This is something that was long overdue and very necessary.”

In order to understand where spirituality stands today, we look back at where Black spirituality was born, and how our relationship with it has evolved across generations.

The Roots Of Black Diasporic Religion

Provided by Refinery29

According to the Pew Research Center, Black Americans are more religious than the American public at-large. Because of this, many — particularly those of older generations — shy away from sharing their non-Christian spiritual practices, lest they risk condemnation from the community. Malorine Mathurin, for example, is a Brooklyn-based intuitive and hellenistic astrologer of Haitian descent, and says she kept her work “under wraps” during her early years as a diviner after being shunned by friends. “I had one friend who actually went and told everyone in junior high school that I was a witch,” she says. “It was very disturbing and very upsetting. People wouldn’t talk to me and would be very wary of me.”

This type of fear-driven response toward non-Christian spirituality is unfortunately typical from those who adhere to institutional Christianity. But, it didn’t have to be like this. As historical texts show, the word “religion” itself is fraught with a colonialist history. “In fact, the term gained popularity in the sixteenth century and was also imposed on native peoples and their practices during conquest and colonizing regimes,” says Khytie Brown, ethnographer and scholar of African diaspora religions and African American studies, and a research fellow at Princeton University. “‘Knowledge of God’ was often the Euro-Christian deployment of the term in which non-European peoples and their humanity were judged against,” she says. “That is, to ‘have religion’ meant that these cultures and peoples conformed to European notions of a belief in a higher power, usually a monotheistic one, with accompanying practices that they could approximate and compare with Christianity.”

Although Eurocentric Christianity has often been used as a tool of oppression, Black diasporic religion has long been a beacon in the Black community. Religion is both a spiritual and cultural anchor, as Brown describes, and its many forms offer identity and belonging. “In some sense, these practices predate the rupture caused by the TransAtlantic slave trade,” says Kijan Bloomfield, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College. “Black religions also developed as a response to the violence of white supremacy. We often describe Black religion in the West as traditions that emerged in the ‘hush harbors’ or spaces that enslaved Blacks gathered in secret to worship and commune beyond the gaze of their white enslavers. However, Black religion also includes Islam and Judaism — both of which are part of a diverse tapestry of Black religious traditions.”

Bloomfield explains that when enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas, they came with their own set of indigenous spiritual and religious practices — including Christianity. As early as 1491, for example, the Kongo Kingdom in Central Africa had adopted Catholicism as its official religion. As a result, some of the people who were enslaved in places like Jamaica and Haiti — where large portions of the enslaved population came from Central Africa, and Kongo specifically — brought with them an African Christian background outside of the Christianity encountered in the new colonies. Conjure and hoodoo (U.S.), vodou (Haiti), and obeah (Jamaica) are all African diasporic religious practices that provided protection and healing. Back in the days of slavery, Black people looked to divination as a salve amid the terror and violence — both physical and psychological — inflicted upon them by entrapment and colonialism.

“Divination is part of this method of accessing knowledge and insight,” Bloomfield adds. “Living in an anti-Black world that continues to denigrate Black existence and ways of knowing, divination provides a powerful tool to ‘see’ and discern the answers to individual and communal problems that are personal and systemic.”

As for tarot and particularly astrology, which is perhaps the most mainstream and widely understood form of divination, Black women have used the stars as their guide for generations. Bloomfield points out that the old spiritual “Follow the Drinking Gourd” is a nod to Harriet Tubman, who used the North Star (the most prominent star in the Big Dipper constellation) to chart the path of the Underground Railroad. And in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Bloomfield adds, the protagonist, a Black teenager named Lauren Olamina, develops a belief system called Earthseed. “The ultimate destination, Lauren argues, is for humans to ‘take root amongst the stars’ — to develop a more liberating framework for community and care. Contemporary astrology, I believe, continues a tradition in which Black people have looked to the universe and it’s wonders to circumvent the kind of Enlightenment logic whose ultimate end led to our enslavement and denigration.”

The Seeding Of Stigma Surrounding Non-Christian Spirituality© Provided by Refinery29

The term occult — which is from the French word occulte and directly from the Latin occultus meaning “hidden, concealed, secret” — often carries with it a negative connotation. In the Black Christian community in particular, the word is typically used to describe something that is evil or “of the devil.” It’s synonymous with the terms “pagan” and “magic,” both of which were and still are looked down upon in Black religious spaces.

“I believe this is a common impulse and, in many ways, it is misguided,” says Bloomfield. “Religion practiced by Black people throughout the diaspora is syncretic — it draws on African worldviews about power, the spirit world, and the divine that is always in conversation with Christianity. After all, Christianity was a tool of colonialism which enslaved Africans interpolated with their traditional beliefs.”

In Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition, as Bloomfield notes, author Yvonne Chireau argues that alternative forms of Black religion such as conjure and hoodoo are a complement to African-American Christianity. Bloomfield believes that the suspicion and fear that often shroud divination and occult practices stems from the prominence Christianity achieved within Black diasporic communities, particularly in the U.S. and the Caribbean. “Aligning oneself with Christian values was a strategy to cope with the terror of enslavement and the precarity of Black life, and was also a cloak for more traditional African-derived practices that continued in the New World,” she says. “However, at the apex of the movement for civil rights, Christianity became the primary language to call out the hypocrisy of enslavers and demand justice.”

Finney describes herself and her mother as the “black sheep” of their family, sharing that it wasn’t until this past year when Finney began to receive public attention that she felt comfortable sharing her profession with her family, who are members of the church. “They were like, ‘Okay, somehow you’re accredited, so you must be doing something right,’” she says. “But even still, we don’t talk about it because it’s not for them.”

Afro-Puerto Rican Tarot reader, espiritista, and Ifa Orisha priestess Tatianna Morales — known as Tatianna Tarot — shares a similar story. Born to a Puerto Rican father and a Black mother, Morales says she was raised predominantly by the Puerto Rican side of her family, which is mostly religious with the exception of her father, who is a spiritual medium. “He has studied so many occult and metaphysical topics and is big on personal development, so he and I are like two peas in a pod. This is where I get my juju from.” Her mother’s side of the family, however, is composed of devout Christians, and is “very, very religious.”

“Unfortunately [my mother and I] don’t have a close relationship, but if I were to mention any of this she’d faint and die,” she continues with a laugh. “The irony is that a lot of my gifts come from my Black side of the family. My grandma and my great-great-grandma were practitioners and priestesses in their time in Brooklyn. They did a lot of work for the community [as hairdressers]. So they would essentially mask spiritual workings, spellcasting, and ceremonies that they would do under the guise of them being hairdressers.”

© Provided by Refinery29

Pandemic Revival & The Future Of Black Mysticism

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and many people spend more time indoors, the stigma associated with non-Christian, Black religious practices and belief systems is beginning to fade as Black diasporic traditions become more mainstream online. For some, it’s a homecoming. For others, dispelling the negative stereotypes of divination has become a tool of self-healing during a time of loss and trauma.

“The more widespread embrace of Black diasporic traditions I believe is an effort to reclaim ancestral ways of knowing and to assert Black personhood, particularly in the midst of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and anti-Black racism,” says Bloomfield. Bloomfield’s latest project, Lived Africana Religion in the Time of COVID-19, documents the many ways in which Black communities have sustained their religious practices during this turbulent time in history. “I have learned that communities marginalized by the mainstream Black church — namely Black queer people of faith and practitioners of African traditional religions — have creatively used social media and virtual meeting spaces to reach new audiences and provide opportunities for connection and healing,” Bloomfield says.

“I think, outside the pandemic, there was always a search for spirituality and wanting to connect spiritually, but there had to be a medium because that’s what we’re taught in religion,” says Finney. “The medium is to connect to Jesus or to go to church to connect to the divine, but I think because we are physically not able to step outside of ourselves, we literally had to step within ourselves and initiate our own healing.”

As accessibility to learning resources increases and the online spiritual community continues to grow, Finney says Black and brown women are realizing they never needed a medium. “We’re getting our spiritual swag back because we’re able to recognize that this is what we do. It’s within us. It’s not something that we ever had to seek.”

R29Unbothered continues its look at Black culture’s tangled history of Black identity, beauty, and contributions to the culture. In 2021, we’re giving wings to our roots, learning and unlearning our stories, and celebrating where Black past, present and future meet.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

How Black Women Can Win in 2021, Per Astrology

Black & Brown Women Reclaim Roller Skating Culture

A Letter From Unbothered On Black History Month