On Friday at midnight, left-wing witches and warlocks are joining together to use black-magic to place a hex on President Trump and his supporters.
The witches refer to themselves as the #MagicResistance and their first effort to hex the president came just one month after he was sworn in. A small group gathered outside Trump Tower in Manhattan in February 2017 but many more joined in on social media. The “binding spell” was posted online for people to participate. The spell was also aimed at the supporters of the new president, calling for the binding of “their malicious tongues”. Casting the spell required an orange candle, a photo of President Trump, a white candle, a pin, a feather, water, salt, sand, and a Tarot card.
Hey, guess what’s happening four days from now?
Get your stubby orange candles now and beat the rush!#BindTrump#MagicResistance#Oct25 https://t.co/reaQpPd4EF
— Michael M. Bind Trump Hughes (@michaelmhughes) October 21, 2019
“I’m willing to go on record and say it’s working,” Michael Hughes, the spell’s inventor, told the Washington Examiner. “Knowing thousands of people are gathering together at the same time from all over the world to do this ritual and to put our beliefs and our desires into sharp focus, and to do that ritualistically, I think that has a really powerful effect.”
The new trend is no joke. Studies show that paganism in the U.S. has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years, accompanied by an increasing mainstream interest in occult-related activities like astrology, tarot, and spellcasting. An article in Quartz cited a study performed by Trinity College in Connecticut. From 1990 to 2008, the college ran three large, detailed religion surveys showing that Wicca, a contemporary Pagan new religious movement incorporating witchcraft, grew tremendously over this period. From an estimated 8,000 Wiccans in 1990, they found there were about 340,000 practitioners in 2008. In addition to the Wiccans, the study showed another 340,000 people self-identified as Pagans in 2008.
A later study by the Pew Research Center in 2014 found that 0.4 percent of Americans, or around 1-1.5 million people, self-identify as Wiccan or Pagan. To put this in perspective, a report in the Christian Post on this study compares this to other religions.
“There may now be more Americans who identify as practicing witches, 1.5 million, than there are members of mainline Presbyterianism (PCUSA),1.4 million,” the article wrote.
This newfound interest in ancient evil has a political bias. In October 2018, an occult bookstore in Brooklyn organized a gathering to hex newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the National Rifle Association.