Witchy Business
My experiences at Witch School 2024 and other thoughts on community and capitalism
I went to Witch School 2024. It was a two day conference held in June at the Hawthorn Town Hall, put on by a company called High Priestess. Tickets were $297 for general admission and significantly more for a VIP ticket, which included priority class selection and registration, a VIP gift bag and lunch. Reports on the lunch were mixed. We could choose eight classes to attend (four on each day); each class ran for 1.5–2hrs. There was also a Witch Ball on the Saturday night, which I didn’t attend. It was ticketed separately at about $50.
I had a good time at the conference. I imagine cosplayers feel like this when they go to conventions: there’s a whole building full of weirdos like you. You can talk to anyone about your interests, life story, the goddess that came to you in a meditation. It was a weekend of ‘play’ in the free way of children – art and imagination. There was an aesthetic freedom too. It was the kind of place I’d feel confident to crack out black lipstick on an occasion that wasn’t Halloween. Most people weren’t wearing black lipstick. Contrary to popular opinion, most witches do not look like Morticia. The Fae are attracted to colours! Witches generally wear Renaissance-style dresses or, the classic, silk scarves and lots of rings. Favoured hair colours were pink and grey. Favoured clothing colours were black and pink. There were many notable woollen witches hats.
I thought it would be fun to go because I like witchy shit and it might be a way to make some witchy friends. I met some lovely and really interesting people. I chose classes that leant towards practical, elemental magic and academic subjects. I’d say there was lots of meditation, could have been more group spell-casting, but overall, good.
I really enjoyed a potion-making class with Yushah Klio. I made a self-love oil and a money-drawing bag. There’s something so enjoyable about gathering bits and pieces, herbs and such, assembling them like craft and chanting over them. If we take Starhawk’s definition of a spell – a symbolic act done in an altered state of consciousness, in order to achieve a desired change – it’s true that after this, there’s a higher chance I will remember to be nicer to myself every time I add a few drops of the oil to a bath.
I also enjoyed an automatic drawing and writing session, Meet Your Goddess. Goddess work was new to me as I’m not usually about anything that involves worship or religion. In the class’s meditation, I met Persephone, the Greek Goddess of the Underworld. Her face was at once a skull and the face of a beautiful woman. When I asked her what I needed to know, her mouth opened into a wide hole, like that of the Witch-king of Angmar, and she said “Courage”. Isn’t that cool? This is why you should read fantasy and myth.
My absolute favourite class of the weekend was The Sacred Cycles, taught by Zenith Flume. We mapped the cycle of the seasons onto the cycles of the moon, menstrual cycles (if you have one) and stages of life: Maiden, Mother, Maga, Crone. It was earth magic and recognisable knowledge – like, yes you should rest when you have your period and it’s a new moon because you are tired.
Noticing the moon phases is a mindfulness technique. I like that Zenith mentioned the moon phases in the Southern Hemisphere are not the same as the Northern. Ours looks like this (((O))), rather than )))O(((. Curiously, the High Priestess’ logo is the latter. I also appreciate it when teachers talk about the discipline they practise or were trained in, which Zenith did. It’s similar to a yoga teacher telling you they were trained in Iyengar, so you can expect props and more adjustments. It helps me categorise the learnings.
Other classes I took included a great history lesson about the burning times. It was academic and interactive, so engaging. I loved it. I also took a class about social change taught by Tiyana J. She put forward a witchcraft framework for activism and social change, drawing from alchemy and based on trinary thinking. I found this compelling – that we should always look for the third option as a solution to a problem rather than the binary of problem/solution. My classmate applied this to her present activism focus: wild brumbies in the Victorian alpine region. The choice should not be to cull them, nor let them roam free to destroy the ecosystem, but to trap, train and rehome them, as she had successfully done. Amazing. In light of this class, those memes about the ‘secret, third thing’ have new meaning.
Who called the Venture Capitalists into Witch School?
Hustle culture has always been a part of esoteric circles, whether it’s warding off poverty, drawing new clients, or attracting abundance. With this, the presence of money magic or talking about business wasn’t unwelcome at Witch School. But I was very surprised when venture capitalism was mentioned on both days. It felt like a big leap. It was first mentioned by Leela Cosgrove, High Priestess’ Founder/CEO, in a class I took with her on Occult Branding. This was a class with twenty-somethings nervous about starting to charge for psychic readings. I attended wondering if I would gain confidence for some upcoming career decisions. Venture capitalism also came up in a wand magic class taught by a participant of High Priestess’ mentorship program, the Priestess Program. I think these were the only two classes I took with High Priestess-adjacent teachers, I could be wrong.
Both messages were of girlboss feminism – with the current huge wealth transfer from boomers to their children, there is a generation of recently rich millennial investors coming up, some of which want to invest in women-owned businesses; only 2% of venture capital money in Australia goes to women and 0% goes to women-focused companies, such as researching endometriosis. Exactly how to reach these potential investors in crystal shops was not shared, because whomst can be a girlboss without a little gatekeep?
The mentorship offering, the Priestess Program was introduced on day two of the conference. I forgot to attend the lunchtime briefing but the launch on Instagram outlines it as a selective program to build your own luxury witch business. A $150 refundable deposit gets you an interview, the total cost seems to be $7000, paid as a lump sum or in weekly installments. The website listing also offers ‘further finance for as little as $50/week.’ Selection criteria wasn’t specifically detailed but it could be based on yearly turnover if it’s a B2B program. If selected, you get access to a range of coaching and online resources to grow your business. You will also be first in line for High Priestess’ opportunities, such as being stallholders at markets and events, teaching at next year’s conference, doing corporate tarot readings and more. To me, this seems a little ‘pay for access to the inner circle’, but I’m sure there would be many benefits to the program. High Priestess also offers more introductory witch education courses via online platforms.
Witch School was underpinned by notions of women stepping into their power, but the side-serving of start-ups and VCs was unexpected. Start-up language isn’t exactly a structural critique or a message of collective action for change. It’s kind of just about personal wealth growth, which may trickle down to communities? And on the broader level, does entrepreneurship even deliver on its emancipatory claims for women and other excluded groups in the absence of change to ‘persistent structural discrimination, lack of welfare benefits and contrived aspirational role models,’ as one academic paper put it? (Not in Sweden or the UK, it concludes.) Also, not to be a doubter, but are VCs really interested in witchy businesses?
High Priestess was spun out of the sales/marketing and business coaching space in 2021, so I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Leela Cosgrove, High Priestess’ founder, is described on David Koch’s Kochie’s Business Builders website as the:
CEO of Strategic Anarchy, media company The 8 Percent, sales tech company Iron Cage and Australia’s largest witchcraft business, High Priestess. To help lift up more women entrepreneurs, Leela recently became the first-ever Australian Chapter Leader for the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) and joined its Global Advisory Council.
The High Priestess staff are Strategic Anarchy’s CRM manager plus a previous subscriber to High Priestess’ educational programs. The team was so personable and lovely in all my interactions with them. They were a joy to deal with and clearly happy to be there. Witches contain multitudes!
I’m sure there are many positives to pivoting from sales and business coaching to a witch space. For one, you have the expertise and experience to pull off a two-hundred-person event and advertise it. You have the marketing know-how to reach people like me – twice! I didn’t go to Witch School 2023 because I thought it was expensive and the promotional video looked like the credits of Outlander, which put me off. Promotional videos in 2024 were testimonials from past students.
Leela Cosgrove definitely has that TED talk/start-up energy (I write confidently with only a small experience of start-up people). She’s a compelling speaker and skilled at bringing the attention back to her personal pitch – the key points of which are the personal struggles of being raised in a housing commission flat and fighting against misogyny; the messages of hope that women are entitled to abundance and women share their wealth with their community; and her experience, usually her twenty years in business. She chalks up her good energy up to the many goddesses she is channelling at any given minute, but it’s also charisma and honed skill.
Maybe people don’t mind that High Priestess seems to be offering the same expertise in sales and business coaching, seasoned with witchy education. After all, it’s not like they could just launch as a witch-start-up incubator. This audience is growing; people are only now joining the craft. Beginner content and instructional products make up a huge part of this industry. Even in this blog, where I endeavour to write about witch-adjacent things I’m interested in, I wonder if I should be more instructional. (Let me know!) My current position is that not everything has to be a ‘How-to’. If you want to write the essay before the recipe, readers will be more interested if they’re not actually looking for the recipe.
I, for sure, mind that the largest witchcraft offering in Australia has a core of entrepeneurship culture and business coaching. But that’s the kind of person I am. I react to all coaching products with suspicion – never forget the dropshippers saying the most money was to be made in teaching people how to dropship, not the practice itself. I’m bookish and academic. I am not a six-figure witch. I like to learn for the sake of learning. I believe monetising your hobbies makes them less relaxing and productivity culture is a capitalist scam. Picking up rubbish along the Merri Creek is praxis. Community care and collective action are everything. I’m not into crystals and if you are, you must read Tess McClure’s piece in The Guardian about the industry’s unregulated, unsafe mining practices in Madagascar.
But I don’t have a problem with teaching witches wealth growth unless you’re preaching Prosperity Gospel and this isn’t. At the end of the day, I would happily pay a lot of money for training and community if I thought it was worth it. High Priestess’ ongoing programs simply aren’t for me.
I’ll share one more thought on this: I find it sad that I am hyper-aware that I was not only a starry-eyed student among my community at Witch School, but a consumer. I’m one of many eyeballs that are an incentive for the Priestess Program, probably also for marketers, maybe for those investors. Who knows? The connection I feel to this gorgeous community is a hook for me spending more money. And I have to be okay with that if I want to keep engaging. Even if this is normal business practice, I find it cynical. Community can come free.
Lonely witches make for eager customers
Witch School is filling a gap in Melbourne for witchy events. We are starting to see a local witch wave, a swelling of interest in witchy shit. Whether it’s winter solstice parties or herbalist markets in Thornbury, there is more witchy stuff on. But there’s not yet a focal point for community in Melbourne. A tried-and-true way to feel part of a community is to consume. The urge to buy tools, candles, crystals, books for beginner witches is very strong. (Go to the $2 store and raid the kitchen herbs instead.)
Although I like working alone, I’ve often wondered if I have a community. In 2022 I noted in my journal that I wanted to make a single witch friend in 2023. It didn’t happen, folks. I tried to follow the good advice of podcaster, curator and New York witch, Pam Grossman, to visit one’s local metaphysical shop for a class. Thus I went to some workshops at Muses of Mystery, which I describe as the metal witch shop of Melbourne (black lipstick as opposed to the scarves and rings). The feeling in the workshop room was great. There was some candle carving, tea, meditation and discussion of limiting beliefs, all culminating in a group spell. The classes were $80 for three hours, which seemed cheaper per minute than a reformer Pilates class.
I went to the first one about love magic and had a good time. I went to a second about money magic and also had a good time. I didn’t go to a third class.
After the second class, I stayed back to buy a book. I left via the elevator opposite the shop door. As I waited for the doors to close, I noticed one of the participants lurking around the herbs, looking over his shoulder. When he saw me leaving, he scurried – this is the right word – into the lift to join me on the ride down and accost me with some chat. I don’t really know how to describe him but judging by the advancement of his male-pattern baldness and choice to style his hair in a comb over, he was in his mid-thirties. I am being mean because I am mean to people who scurry into enclosed spaces with me to talk about how they like to shop at Chadstone. It’s a personal choice.
Usually, if I don’t want to be talking to someone, I tell them straightaway I don’t feel like chatting with a stranger. Be direct before my conditioning to be polite kicks in. But this was after three hours of meditation and tea; I was beautifully buzzing in an altered state. It took the walk from Flinders Lane to Bourke Street to manoeuvre the chat to a close, but not before he’d quoted the Bible and asked for my Instagram. I departed quickly to a beer festival to meet my partner. I’m truncating the story and pulling punches but you get the picture.
Regardless of what he intended, it was a transgression because he was trying to connect with me about something I’d brought up in class, the aphorism that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and he’d misunderstood what I said. Workshop talk stays within workshops! It is not fodder for PUAs. The interaction put me off going to further classes for a while, but I’ll be back soon enough.
I much prefer connecting with people naturally, and this is what Witch School offered. It was so nice to meet people. If we were working in a smaller group and had a good discussion, maybe we’d exchange details. There wasn’t any presumption. It was simply: I’d like to follow your work, maybe I’ll see you at an event in the future.
At the end of the day, I’m so glad I went to Witch School. I’m really grateful for the event, and in 2024, no-one but digital marketing pros could bring together so many witches. There were many good parts and these were things I did and learnt, and people I met, both teachers and the attendees.
High Priestess clearly isn’t the witch program for me and that’s totally okay. The scene in Melbourne is just starting to diversify as more people become interested. I welcome the raft of new businesses and practitioners who will form new communities and events.
For my own practice growth, maybe I want to go small. I have been on a solo journey, which is common. Lots of people start out as solitary witches and then may join a coven. There may be up to thirteen participants, which is the number established in Wiccan texts of mid-twentieth century, and echoed by 1970s writers such as Starhawk.
I refer to Starhawk’s 1979 book The Spiral Dance often as a handbook for a modern interpretation of witchcraft. She writes from a position of Wicca – take from that what you will – and is a permaculturalist, activist, community organiser and ecofeminist. To speak to how she’s modernised in the past forty years, she’s someone who updates rituals to, for example, remove gender binaries and advocates for vaccinations in online herbalist communities that can be against them. Starhawk did a great interview with Pam Grossman for The Witch Wave, which you can listen to here.
Coming from an activist background, Starhawk describes covens as small, cellular structures of committed members, similar to the feminist conscious-raising groups of the 1960s and ’70s, which is a comparison she draws herself. She writes,
In such a small group, each person’s presence or absence affects the rest. The group is coloured by every individual’s likes, dislikes, beliefs, and tastes.
Much more intense, but much more collaborative. Much more like a friendship group. Starhawk’s conceptualisation of the coven is more than the sum of its parts and a product of every person in the group.
I think about the comparison to how witches gather today: fragmented on social media, talking to devices; or in large, online courses; or connecting in digital covens and message boards; or sometimes at hundred-person events.
I think about how massive gatherings are good for a feeling of wider community, something that is so special and can’t be consistently sustained. But this scale can also make the individual into an audience, a monetary proposition, quantitatively understood. A group of thirteen, though, who share your values – maybe that’s better qualitatively. Maybe that’s better for casting spells and dancing around the forest. And if there’s nothing available in between the massive and individual, maybe we need to create that space ourselves.