Commercialization of Crafte

In this eye-opening episode of Pagan Coffee Talk, Oswan and Lord Night dive deep into the commercialization of modern witchcraft and the pitfalls of labeling practices like "kitchen witchery" or "green magic." They unpack how many spiritual and magical traditions are being oversimplified, packaged, and sold in ways that misrepresent the craft. From herbalism and apothecary work to cooking and spellcraft, this episode explores what it really means to practice authentic witchcraft, the dangers of marketing magic, and why traditional skills and proper training matter more than trendy labels.

Listeners will learn about:

•  The truth behind kitchen witches, green witches, and herbalist practices 
•  How commercialization is impacting pagan and witchcraft communities 
•  The importance of proper training, mentorship, and understanding magical and herbal traditions 
•  Why magic is magic—regardless of the “style” you choose 
•  How to avoid overpriced specialty shops and recognize con artists in modern witchcraft 

Join us for a no-nonsense discussion about protecting the integrity of witchcraft, reclaiming traditional practices, and navigating the modern pagan landscape without falling for commercialization traps.

Visit www.lifetemple.org for links to all of our social media: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Welcome to Second Coffee Talk. I'm Oswan, and I have with me Lord Knight. There's been this thing that's been going around, and I'd like to talk about it today, where people are saying, you know, well, I'm a kitchen witch, or this is green magic. This is this is that and this is that, and it's it just seems like all they're doing is commercial everything and yeah, commercializing and putting everything into a box.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yes, it's exactly what in the world they're doing. Just because you're a witch and you cook doesn't make you a kitchen witch. Just because you do herbs does not make you a herbalist witch. It doesn't quite work like that. If you're an herbalist, we refer to you, I mean, especially in our tradition, we're gonna refer to you as an apothecary, not as a green witch. Right. All right. If you're a cook and you've gone to school and you have become a chef, we're gonna refer to you as a chef. You know, I mean, don't get me wrong, can we put aspects of our religion into this? But we can put aspects of our religion into every part of our life. So when somebody so when's somebody gonna come up with witchcraft accounting?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Well, you know, that's numerology.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

You know, well, I'm being serious though. When when are we gonna have witchcraft bookkeeping? When are we gonna start having uh witchcraft car fucking repair? Here's the question we got to ask ourselves as a community. How far are we willing to go on to watch people box up, produce, put into little categories so they could put this crap on a shelf and sell it? All right, Pat Robertson only wish he had half the markability that Kraft comes up with. True. All right. Now again, don't get me wrong. I understand people have occult stores and all this, but having those occult stores are also the ones that sit there and where I mean, I hate to be this way, big corporations like Walmart and Target and all those other places look at these stores and look how much money they're making. They're going, I want a piece of that. So now we're gonna start selling off this shit that we've gotten it, you know, from China that's dirt cheap from slave labor, and we're gonna sell it off and make people think they're witches. I mean, to me, this is the disgrace of our religion.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

If you're gonna sell herbs, take the classes, become an apothecary, and run an apothecary store. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Right. I mean, you can, you know, if a fellow witch comes in, you can't always incorporate something into that, but just just just make it an apothecary store.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Oh, because that's what it is. Oh, when a witch comes in and whatever, and they're like, Hey, look, here's the list of stuff I need. From that list, you might be able to figure out okay, top ingredients most witches use frankincense, myrrh, sandalwood.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

You know, if I see any combination of these three at the top, I'm gonna go, you have my attention.

unknown 4:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

What else you got on here? That's fine and dandy, but run a bookstore. Quit running the occult shops because the more we do this, the more specialized those stores become, the more expensive stuff gets too.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, that's that's very true. I mean, there's a local store and he kind of keeps his prices low, but he owns the building, so he really has no overhead.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Uh true. But would he have more customers if he would convert to an apothecary? Do you see what I'm saying? Oh, he might. I don't know. You know, you could still sell some of the crystals and stuff like that. Because I mean, an apothecary is nothing more than a fancy word for pharmacy.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

You know, it was well, the pharmacies before we had pharmacist.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Very true.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

You know, I mean, because again, most people don't realize most of the medicines that we take come from these herbs and stuff that witches are using. Oh, absolutely. All right. We're talking about real medicines, real compounds, even without magic, that can affect you. You know, there are certain drugs that you got to be careful of and look up for interactions between that and certain herbs.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's just like when you when you go to the doctor, they want to know any supplements you take. So if you're taking, you know, turmeric or garlic or whatever supplement you're taking, they need to know that because there could be potential interactions between medications.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Well, I know of one medication, you can't have large amounts of ginger. You know, I mean, you can probably go out to a Chinese restaurant, that's fine, but taking it every day will actually interfere with the medicine because certain chemicals build up in your body after a while. Exactly. What I see out there is these people treating this stuff flippantly and wanting to label it and just call it whatever to sell it or to get you, or this is the only place you can learn kitchen witchery. No, you could actually go to your local community college and take chef classes, cooking classes. You're going to get the same info. Right. And to make it even worse, probably at a cheaper cost, because you put the word witch on there, it becomes a specialty item, and specialty items cost more. Right. You know, you go to any specialty shop, a coffee cup in a specialty shop compared to a one that's not in a specialty shop, you're paying for the customization. Right. Do you really need to spend 70 bucks on a clay chalice just because it's got a pentagram on it versus one that don't? One that you can pick up for $25. Same thing, it just don't have somebody didn't take the time to paint a pentagram on there. Uh really. This is why I have a problem with this. The these people that do this kitchen witchery magic's magic. If you can do a love spell, if you can do a money spell, if you can do any of these, you can also do necromancy. It's the same fucking formula. You're just dealing with the dead. And I'm sorry if you've done your training right, you already know those rules. Very true.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

So what's the difference? I was gonna say, I know we've talked about this before, and that magic is magic. It doesn't matter what kind of magic it is, it's still magic, it's all coming from the same place. But I wanted to kind of address this for a specific reason to kind of put this to rest. Because we're still hearing it, and and you know, and it's like you've been saying, it's it's all coming from the same place. Yeah, quit trying to capitalize on whatever kitchen witchery, whatever you want to call it. I don't care. Just quit trying to capitalize on it, quit trying to put everything in a box. Right. Yes, there are different styles of magic that you can do. Like you said, there's necromancy, there's divination, there's any number of different types of magic that you can do. Right. But it's all magic, it's all coming from the same damn place.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Nothing has changed. It's still what it is. And I can understand, even in our tradition, when you study for your second degree, you we require you to have a specialty. All right, and that's just a subject that you have learnt. We would prefer you to do something that would be helpful to craft, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Right, like being an apothecary or something along those lines.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Well, I mean, I hate to be this way. If you got somebody in your temple young enough, become a lawyer, that can be your specialty. Right. Being a doctor, still a specialty. These things have nothing to do with craft per se.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Make sense, but you can definitely apply it to exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Just remember that specialty is is that you have learnt some type of skill skill or um well, I don't want to say skill, profession, and that's it. Because let's look back in time. Uh we've discussed this before. When you look at the druid class, all right, and I use them because uh it's a little bit easier to do this with them compared to some of the other ones. They were doctors, they were lawyers, but they were also druids, they were also farmers.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Right. So well, they had a profession, but they were also druids.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Right. They were they were blacksmiths and druids. These were their jobs. This is where we get this from, this is where this specialty comes from. Right. Are there specialties uh related just to the occult and craft? Yes, sure there are, yeah. You know, but I hate to be this way. And here's where uh they're probably gonna piss off a lot of people. We got enough herbalists, we got enough fucking kitchen witches, we need lawyers and doctors, we need therapists, we need people that understand our religion in these professions. Right, completely that we can go to. All right, how about this? Why don't we quit encouraging people because everybody knows herbalism like crazy? All right, there's 50,000 books out there, there's 50,000 classes out there. Why don't you quit doing that and try something else?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Right. Well, I mean, there are some people like Lady Keegan, I mean, she was drawn to herbalism, and we can't discourage people from doing that. But if you don't feel like you're absolutely drawn to something, then go then go with something else. It doesn't have to be directly related to craft.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

But not that I'm trying to pick on Lady Keegan or anything. She did her classes great and all that, but she also has my understanding, she also has a bachelor's degree in education.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Right. And well, so I know she's using that to teach homeschool her kids.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Right. And I I know I discussed with her doing, you know, maybe doing uh classes for those who want to homeschool but follow a pagan tradition.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, like creating a course, a homeschool course.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Right. This I don't have a problem with, but again, she's using a degree that didn't that most people wouldn't think have anything to do with craft.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

This I like. Again, there's nothing wrong with this. We we we need teachers, we need people that are educated as teachers and lawyers and doctors and nurses and and oh my and bears and I mean I hate to be this way. I I would love to see a um some forest rangers who were pagan to where they could, you know, gather up some of the kids or maybe some of the more younger adults and take them outside, especially the guys, and show them how to track animals down in the wild so they can go hunting.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Right, that would be really cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

You know, which plants to get, which plants won't. I there's actually a YouTuber I've actually seen, which I actually like, and she does gardening, but it's all the herbs and stuff like that. She goes over on how to take care of them.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

And why the herbs are stuff that we use in craft and stuff like that, but she's showing you how to grow them. This is a phenomenal channel, but this to me is a whole lot more useful than hey, yet another person going out talking about green witchery. There's no such thing, it does not exist, it's not real. Every witch should be trained to some degree of herbalism so that way they understand what they don't know.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

You know, all of us should be trained to some cooking because again, you're gonna have to cook for yourself at some point or another. So sitting there calling the kitchen witch when it's something everybody can do is not what you think. You know, the stuff that they put into this stuff that I see, this is not nothing we don't already know just in regular craft.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

You know, and if all you're doing is like herbalism and making up incense, why? If you got to go out and buy incense from somebody and you haven't learned how to mix up enough to do a full moon or just your regular, you know, what you need to, where's your teachers? Where's your elders? Oh, that's right. We can't use elders anymore. God forbid we actually have authorities.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Well, you know, and and heaven forbid anybody seek out a teacher. Everybody wants to do it on their own, and then they complain, well, you know, I don't have access to this and I don't have access to that. So I'm gonna turn to social media and I'm gonna turn to Reddit, you know, I'm gonna turn to all these different places and I'm gonna ask questions. Okay, well, if you had a teacher, you would already have somebody to answer your questions. Just saying. Well, at least guide you along, you know. You know, I mean, I just I just I don't understand people don't want teachers, but they turn to Discord and Reddit and TikTok and YouTube, and they ask questions there.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And yeah, and then you go through the answer, but you don't want a teacher, right? And then when you go through the answer, you got like 50,000 people telling you 50,000 different ways, and you know, half of them contradict one another.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Right, and you still have to go through muddle through all that crap to find something that works for you, exactly. Wouldn't it be easier just to have one or two people you could turn to?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Well, it would be better if, and I know a lot of people are gonna hate this, but if the pagan community was a hell of a lot more fucking organized than it is right now, true. We had that council way back in the day, and I can't remember what it was called, and they sort of cemented some ideas. You know, you hear Ray Bucklin and and all of them talk about this, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

But unfortunately that didn't last.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Well, no, it didn't last, but the stuff that they put there, they put out by putting out what the the um 13 goals of a witch was you know, certain things that we needed to do. They put out the wick and read so we have a little bit of wisdom there. They put out the laws and stuff like that. Then people came in, it was just like, oh well, I don't like that, so I'm not gonna use that. I'm not even gonna study it because that to me just seems stupidity. And you never learnt what it was about to begin with just on a whim because you didn't like a color or something. I what?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Right. I mean, come on, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not like the biggest on the whole tarot card things and like all these unboxing shit. I just think this is like crap. You know, the the the people that do these videos, these are the most unoriginal people whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Well, and again, it goes back to the whole commercialization of you know, trying to put everything into categories and and then market that if you would just stop and get back to craft. Well, again, things would be a whole lot better.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Well, it's starting to make me wonder, you know, the more you see this stuff and these people like, oh, here's spend this money on this classes, and we're about to have them kind of start up again and you know, even a couple of hundred are are you more worried about your pocketbook than teaching me? Are you more worried about making money than you are making sure I have the right herbs?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Right. I have to say that's one reason we never charged for classes, is that's not what we're here for. We're not here to make money. Would it be nice to have some money to support our actions? Yes, but you know, pretty much we've got our support, and you know, we're not there to charge for that knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Well, I mean, it's it's the same concept that we used to have about why, no, it's not unethical for us to sell spells and do spells for other people. There's nothing ethically wrong with that. Morally, though, I kind of go, uh, you know, because again, I can see how easy it would be to go down this rabbit hole. Well, here, we'll do this five dollar spell. Oh, that didn't work for you. Well, here, let's do this $20 spell then. Because then my question becomes are the spells failing that you're doing because you want them to get a $20 spell or a $40 spell? When does greed come in there? When does the con start?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Oh, that's another subject altogether.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Well, I mean, but that's my there's my argument there on this, is where does it actually start? I don't know too many witches that start off doing this stuff like this, going, well, you know, hey, it's just a spell for a neighbor, blah, blah, blah. Next thing you know, you're doing a spell every other weekend or lighting a candle for somebody. What point do you start going, well, hey, this is my leaving. This is what I got to do. I know there was one gentleman I said this to, and his automatic response was, Well, I'm disabled. Well, so were a lot of other people, and they don't sell their goddamn souls to make money.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Right. Well, I mean, if you want to go down this rabbit hole weekend, because then you're also looking at what is the cost of doing that? What's it costing you? Is it costing you your soul? Is it costing you your physical health?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Is it costing you your reputation? Right. I mean, the way Lord Minn explained this to me, and the way we used to do it in the old days, was if you're taking money for a spell or a reading, it's a con. That's how we separated ourselves from the con artist. If you're taking money, it's a con. If by chance you happen to stop by the grocery store and pick up a few items that you know somebody might need, go by their house and drop them off and then pull out some tea. Oh, look, here, I got you some tea. Let's try some of this Earl Gray. Oh, and now we're done. Here, read my here, why don't you read my tea leaves right quick? Did this person pay for their reading? No. What did they do? They brought the person some food, they took care of the person.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

That does that make sense when we uh Lord Man always told us when we do spells, you know, hey, we we're putting a spell together for you, right? And we need these herbs, right? And I don't have them in stock, so I give you a list. Hey, go to this place right here, buy these herbs in these amounts. I'm gonna double that order. That's my cost.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

That's how I get paid. Because I'm not gonna use all that for their spell, but I might use the other half to make some teas and just sell them off as tea, not as ooh, this tea will help your meditation. This no, it's just tea.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah, this this one's good for relaxing, that's good for this and whatever, but nothing substantial, nothing that you wouldn't be. Able to sell grandma from the Little Baptist Church up the road.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

She's gonna be sitting back going, Oh, yeah, I like that Russian black tea, yeah, that you make. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

You know, that was so good.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

I had some of that tea, and I just, oh, I felt so relaxed. And you're you know, your double blended, you know, mint tea with the with the both the mint and the you know, what is that, the farce mint. Yeah. Oh, tea was great. Which I know as soon as you put mint in something, hey, that's a little bit more associated with wealth and prosperity. Right. You know, I can rip open that tea bag and turn it into an incense real fast. Uh yeah. Or I can drink the tea. Absolutely. And do my and still do my own spell. I don't have a problem with this, but this is how this is how this industry used to work. And this is how we separated ourselves from the con artist. Because it was easier to sit there and go, okay, if they're charging you money, they're probably a con artist. If you want to buy all the damn crystals and stuff, buy them. You're gonna pay the price for them. And I'm sorry, if you're getting them from a specialty shop, they're gonna be twice as much as what you could from a regular retailer. Oh, you better believe it. Because here's your problem these witch shops only collect, only have a few people coming to them.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

So they have to raise the prices higher. Unlike going to somewhere like Target or Walmart, where they're gonna have thousands of people there so they can lower their prices because we sell more, we're making we're we're gonna make the same amount of money as that person over here on the um on their specialty store are gonna have to double, you know, only sell one for our ten.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

You know, the difference of why these specialty shops cost so much because yeah, they got a smaller, smaller clientele.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Because I think it's only what in in probably uh certain parts of the country where you might get people, little old ladies from the church stopping by certain occult shops to pick up certain things.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

And paying for spouse. Oh no, I don't do witchcraft. That's what she's for. She does it. I just tell her who to do it on and pay her for it. Right. I mean, this does happen in certain parts of the countries and some smaller areas, but again, these are like some of the more probably the more old-time witches, like I'm used to. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

But nice.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

The commercialization of our religion bothers me, and it bothers me because again, I see it as people are selling off my religion. And I'm sorry, how many people want to walk into Walmart and see their religions wrapped up in plastic on a shelf going, hey, for only $9.95, you too can become a witch?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Well, Walmart's a little more uh subtle about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Well, I again, and how many Christians are going to get upset when they walk into Walmart and say, see a package? Oh, here, start your own church, become a Southern Baptist. All you need is this little box. True. Do you think the Muslim community community would put up with that? Do you think the Christian community would put up with this?

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

You know, I mean, they have the whole I because I've seen their what their little uh bookstores and stuff. I remember back in the day when those were all over the place and those stores were sky high.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And used to go into some of those stores, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

And and notice how fast they went out of business, and all of a sudden these big box stores started to carry that stuff instead.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Well, I still don't I don't see a lot of the uh specialty items that they used to carry in the big box stores. The big box stores are just they're carrying things like Bibles and Right, you know, I mean Bible study books and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Now you can go on Amazon and find any of that stuff, whatever you want, for a whole lot cheaper. Oh, yeah. All right, so I mean, here's my thing to our pagan community. How much longer until y'all can't open your store because it costs too much? Right. Because you could buy this stuff on Amazon cheaper. We talk about the commercialization of stuff, but I don't ever see anybody going, no, we're done with this, we're not doing it, we're not spending our money.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Right. I mean, they'd still rather go to a specialty store and pick up their stuff.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Well, see, I can sit here and argue like Lord Men did, and I understand why I got upset. Y'all can spend all this money on the all this crap, is what it is. All this the green witch books and the 50,000 billion that are out there that ain't nothing but the same regurgitated stuff over and over again. There's nothing new out there, nobody's doing anything new. You know, that's like going at that's like going to all these channels. Oh my god, there are so many channels for newbies, but nothing else. Nothing advanced, nothing more.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Well, and I'm sorry, all the newbie stuff is the same thing over and over again. It's just like the books, it's all regurgitated information. You know, and there's nothing new.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Well, until as a community we start demanding more and we start investing in our religions, in our temples, these people that that study and swear their lives to this. Where's our temple? Where's our cathedrals?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

You know, uh I I see nothing. I can go out, and we live in the south, and I can go outside right now and think in less than five minutes away. And I live pretty far, we live pretty far out in the country. I can think of like one, two, three, four, five churches within 15 within less than 15 minutes of us.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Go out, try to find an actual temple to ISIS, find a temple to anywhere, to the druids, to anything. You don't find jack ship because what are communities spending money on crap that they don't need instead of investing actually in our temples?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Right. Well, now some people are gonna say, well, we don't need all that. Well, if you don't need all that, then why are you spending your money on junk? On junk.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

How does it help you to have 50,000 tiger eyes? Seriously, how does that help?

SPEAKER_01 29:29

How does that help anybody or a house full of crystals or house full of um you know little knick-knacks and stuff just floating all over them? You don't need a house full of stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand rock collection. All right, but that's rock collecting. You're collecting up small pieces of what you find out in nature. You're not going to rock collectors I know.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

They don't buy, they go out and they get. They do. Funny, they do. You know, they do the physical work to get those rocks, to get those crystals. Lady Alba, she's a rock collector, but she she goes out and gets her stuff. She does the physical work.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Well, I think that's all I got to say about that. All right. I guess we'll see y'all all next week.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at life templeseminary.org to learn more. You can also find links to all our social media Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a steel blazing fires. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning break. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breakfast.