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Over the past year the social-media platform known as TikTok has become a newfound place to explore the real-life world of witchcraft.
It has received the name of “WitchTok” and according to an article on USA Today, “The hashtag #witchtok alone has amassed more than 19.8 billion views.”
The purpose of WitchTok is to connect a community of people searching for information on modern-day witchcraft. Videos on TikTok explore various spiritual practices of witches and provide a platform for anyone interested in delving in the “dark arts.”
It’s popularity has soared over the past year, and author Gabriela Herstik, interviewed by USA Today, explained her thoughts on the trend.
We live in this very intense, dark age … People want purpose, and they want connection …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.
Others interviewed expressed the desire for power, a power that witchcraft and magic claim to possess.
The dangers of witchcraft
The Catholic Church has been extremely clear that Catholics cannot dabble in the spells or enchantments of witches, warlocks and wizards:
“All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others – even if this were for the sake of restoring their health – are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity” (CCC 2117).
Magic seeks to take matters into the wizard’s or witch’s own hands and denies God’s providential care over all creation. It is harmful to the soul and plunges a person into a great darkness that is hard to overcome.
Witchcraft is a particularly strong avenue for the entrance of Satan and other demonic forces to enter into a person’s life. Sometimes it takes an exorcism by a priest to fully deliver a person immersed into the lifestyle of a witch.
WitchTok might seem harmless Halloween fun, but it has a dark side to it that can lead a soul away from God and into the hands of Satan.
And today we celebrate...