Seattle's got hex appeal. How local witches are cultivating the city's magic

On a recent October day, Seattle-based witch Meagan Angus took a moment to invite some divine guidance before asking Seattle Now host Patricia Murphy to split the tarot deck.

“I have pulled the devil card, the knight of pentacles, and the Wheel of Fortune,” said Angus, a skilled card reader.

Angus told Murphy this combination suggests she could be more grounded and needs to set more boundaries. “There is a long standing tradition of folks working with tarot to brainstorm, to conceptualize as well as to divine either the future or stuff that they couldn't otherwise find out with their five senses,” she said.

Angus identifies as a witch and a Pagan, and readings like this are part of her witchcraft practice. She defines witchcraft as a “crossroads between cultural practices, spiritual traditions, and a philosophical viewpoint on life,” and Paganism as a faith practice. While witchcraft and Paganism often go hand-in-hand, it’s common to practice one and not the other.

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Angus is part of Seattle’s relatively large witch community. While there isn’t an official count of witches or Pagans in Seattle, there are myriad of signs their practices resonate here.

There’s a local Meetup group with over 2,000 members, five active witch-related groups on the website Mandragora Magika, and various occult businesses too, including the Edge of the Circle in the U District and Gem Heaven Spiritual Store in Pike Place Market. There are also several local yoga studios in the area with offerings like a Samhain (a Pagan holiday) Sound Bath or classes that include a celebration of Samhain.

Earlier this year, Angus participated in the Bumbershoot Music Festival where she gave tarot readings. She uses a deck from the early 1960s and says it’s been used for thousands of conversations exploring divinity.

“I tend to also think of tarot cards as really powerful flash cards that are packed with magical symbolism, religious symbolism — all sorts of esoteric goodies in here.”

Late October is prime time for the witch community. It’s the start of the ‘Big Dark,’ the time of year when the days are shorter, plants are going dormant, and insects are hibernating. And it’s when Angus feels most at ease.

“This is the one time of year where we don't have to wear our costumes,” she said.

Witchcraft made headlines this year locally as the Mariners sought to make the 2025 playoffs. The team had been struggling for weeks, consistently losing on the road. But then on Sept. 5, a Lake Stevens man named Steven Blackburn tweeted that he bought a spell from an “Etsy witch" to ‘unfuck’ the Mariners, who had a 10-game winning streak thereafter. Mariners fans and broadcasters alike embraced the so-called Etsy witch.

“The Etsy witch is real!” exclaimed sportscaster Aaron Goldsmith after infielder Leo Rivas hit a walk-off home run on Sept. 10.

Angus said it’s quite common for people to buy spells on the internet and that it's part of a deeper tradition among witches.

“Throughout time, there have always been some witches, or will workers, or whatever the term was in that era or in that place, who were willing to make the love spells or cast the curse or try to get you the winning lottery ticket or what have you.”

The 1998 film “Practical Magic,” filmed on Whidbey Island, also adds to the Pacific Northwest’s witchy reputation. But pop culture depictions of witches and witchcraft is a bit of a fraught topic for some witches.

Lawrence Lerner, who goes by Silent, is the President of Pagan Pride in Washington. He said some depictions of witches in popular culture can overshadow an accurate understanding of witches. He holds events with Pagan Pride in part to counter these depictions.

“It's like, ‘Oh, well I saw it on TV [so] it must be true,’” Lerner said. “Or, ‘I've seen it 67 times in a commercial and that's going to inform what I believe.’ So it's problematic.”

Some witches, however, adopt some practices that are portrayed in popular culture. Angus has seen this at gatherings, when suddenly there’s a spellform that seemingly pops out of nowhere, “and you're like, 'Where did this come from? What is this?' And it's from a movie or it's from a TV show,” she explained.

As a purist, she chafes at this tendency, but also accepts different styles of magic work for different people.

“If it works, it works, baby — use it.”

For his part, Lerner sees parallels between his witchcraft practice and his career in tech.

“I find it fascinating that we can do transactions over networks and wires. And those connections, they happen in nature as well — coral reefs, trees, and forests. They all communicate.”

While Seattle is a place where people who are curious about Paganism or witchcraft have ample opportunity to get involved, Angus said just being in Seattle is a magical experience in itself.

When she first moved here, “I genuinely was really surprised, shocked, blown away by how palpably magical it felt to be here,” she said. “And it's difficult to explain. It's a feeling, it's goosebumps…you have these physical sensations, but there is a gut sensation [that] feels like the city is sentient. It feels like the city is an entity in and of itself.”