Tradwife Learns She Can Buy Murder Spells on Etsy

My wife Simone discovered that there is a thriving marketplace on Etsy for buying customized spells. We explore love spells, money spells, curses, and even death spells being sold - often with rave reviews. While I am critical of the practice, Simone argues there may be some placebo value for people as well as lessons for building more intuitive cultures. We also touch on themes around magic & belief, the decline of religion, sympathetic magic, and compare to our experience seeing witch doctors in South Africa.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] one final thing to check. Do they allow for hits? So spell Spell for

Malcolm Collins: murder. Oh, that's a good one. Oh my God.

Simone Collins: Donkey spell. No, no, no. They had, they sell death. Death curses. I feel like Etsy should, I mean, it's one thing to like non consensually for someone to love you. This is, it's $16, right? Like at least price it higher. It's a death spell. Can I do this? I should do this. These are like, these are like Mexico level hit prices.

Cause also you can, you can buy a hit in Mexico for

that.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, that's cheap. I need to go like Death Note on these people. If it's 16 a hit I'm just gonna start and start writing names.

Simone Collins: I give five stars for good communication.

So That's, that is very interesting. This reminds me, actually, surprisingly, of OnlyFans.

In some cases, where like, you're paying for, like, you want to make sure that, like, the woman did it only for you. So you're like, I need you to, like, hold up this level of proof that, like, this thing was performed for me only. [00:01:00] So this is like the psychic magician version of OnlyFans, where it's like, okay, I'm going to give you three photos and you need to include them

Malcolm Collins: in the ritual.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: So Malcolm, as you know, I was shopping for our holiday future day on Etsy because I want some really cool like handmade stuff that's unique or vintage. And I discovered when searching for like time travel related things, Sellers sell spells on Etsy. I don't know how this works. I guess it's because they're technically handmade, but they're, they're, they're framed as digital downloads.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it looks like a lot of people buy these. Yeah,

Simone Collins: there's a, there's a lot of them. And that's the thing is like, how can there be. So many spells. So if you just search the word, I'm doing this right now. Spells

Malcolm Collins: branded spell sellers. So a lot of these will be from this group called the three witches, which appear to be three old, old women.

And I, I don't doubt that this is probably their real pictures. Like it probably is. I

Simone Collins: don't know. [00:02:00] Part of me thinks it's like, it looks to me like an AI generated. Image if we're being honest here and let's, so what are the spells called? And when one is called powerful protection, hex curse, removal, spell, premium divine favor, spell, eternal dark obsession, spell, powerful banishing spell, banish someone that you can

Malcolm Collins: look at the reviews.

So this one has 484 reviews.

Simone Collins: Okay. Which one are you? Okay. What are you looking

Malcolm Collins: at? I'm looking at unlock abundance money spell, three witches, 70 percent off today. I mean, it's probably not 70 percent off. Well,

Simone Collins: it's a deal. I mean, maybe that's how you get abundance is by getting things on sale.

Malcolm Collins: Right? So yes they make it look like it's really cheap, but this is clearly like their standard price and keep in mind like 106 and 67 cents, but it's an even 62.

Went on sale, which is clearly how they create abundance by and, and so, oh, you've got to get personalization. You've got to do your full name and birth date to get this. This actually seems like a good way to get people's like [00:03:00] billing information. Oh my

Simone Collins: gosh. That's the real moneymaker is like you then commit identity theft, right?

You

Malcolm Collins: commit identity. Right. It'd be very easy. I think. Birthday.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, you talked about hacking. This is what most of hacking really is, is it is manipulating people. So you would say, well, I need your mother's maiden name for the spell. I need to know your favorite color for the spell. Like that stuff I think would be pretty easy to get from this population.

Now let's talk about some of these reviews here. Okay. Okay. Mother Elizabeth, Mother Isabella responded to my spell request promptly, and I feel blessed to have received her attention. I am grateful for their support, waiting for manifestation. And then, in response Mother Isabella wrote, It warms my heart to know you felt the promptness and care in my response.

You are truly blessed, and I am honored to have been able to assist you. The universe listens, and your intentions are being woven into reality. [00:04:00] Patience and faith are your companions on this journey. I am here for you, supporting you and guidance as your spell manifests. Okay, here's another one. Um Uh, thank you, Mother Isabella.

I feel like your spell is working already. I won seven dollars. It's not much, but I'm grateful and I'm happy

Simone Collins: for this purchase. Wait, but this is like approximately two hundred dollars, so she's very much still in the red here.

Malcolm Collins: This is my third purchase from the Wonderful Trinity of Witches, and everyone, they are legit.

Each experience with them has been wonderful. Not only that. But this money spell is working. I refinanced on my debt unexpectedly. Wait, refinanced? They took out more debt. Yeah,

Simone Collins: but I mean, maybe the lower interest rate. So that's, that's, that could be, that could be

Malcolm Collins: meaningful. I refinanced on my debt unexpectedly, received money due to an error at the end of my job.

They still have to pay me because they messed up. So I'm able to keep it. So they got money that was due to [00:05:00] them, but they didn't know what they didn't get. I will be starting a new job that pays more. I don't know if I still will be receiving more money blessings, but these ladies helped me out during a tough financial situation I was in.

Thank you so much. I am so happy I found you guys based off a hunch. So this person was in a tough financial situation. And

Simone Collins: they paid for a spell and things

Malcolm Collins: got better. Etsy wishes which is, which is, and wishes, whatever. Right. And talk about selling your soul for a small price. A pittance, a pittance, but what I also love is their responses remind me of the IT crowd thing where he's talking about manifesting, and he goes, you guys should try it sometime.

Just yesterday, I was imagining having a helicopter, and today, I went out and bought a helicopter. Now I have a helicopter.

You're a sceptic, Jen. You should be more like these. They can't get enough of my space star ordering story. Yes, yes, I noticed you've been coming down here a lot more [00:06:00] often because of all the questions. So, Mr. Rennam, how did the cosmos grant you a helicopter? Well, I visualized the thing I wanted. In my case, it was a helicopter.

I drew a picture of the helicopter on a piece of paper. The