The smell of incense, burning palo santo and dried sage practically emanates through my laptop screen. I am trawling through Etsy, the online marketplace known for handmade kitsch ornaments and unofficial Taylor Swift merch — to find a witch.

Not just any witch: I am looking for one who can provide me with a spell to mend my broken heart after a two-year relationship ... and tell me how to navigate the cesspit that is modern dating.

Self-styled Etsy witches — people who offer witchcraft services online — are selling spells, manifestations and tarot readings on Etsy and TikTok, promising everything from good weather on your wedding day to a new job or even a small fortune.

On my journey to find one, I scroll past oddly specific spell offerings like: “Get him to text you back,” "Make him obsessed" and “Get your ex back” (this one does catch my eye, but I resist). Then I hit the jackpot: a witch with 4,000+ sales, a 4.9-star rating, and a tagline that reads, “Tell me nothing and I’ll tell you everything.”

Just take my money already.

For the humble sum of $4.08, I select the spell and “detailed reading” option before dropping my somewhat desperate yet burning question: When will I find love again? As I hit purchase, I glance at the performative healing crystals gathering dust on my desk (they were a gift, OK?), and decide now is as good a time as any to start believing in them.

Heartbreak has become big business for online witches. Some of them offer services to “enter the mind” of your former lover to find out what they’re thinking; others will promise to banish them from your life or even make them regret dumping you. These services have become so popular that Etsy banned the sale of spells, enchantments, and any supernatural service in 2015. However, they are still being sold on the platform under “entertainment services” (The Independent has contacted Etsy for comment).

Etsy witches are being enlisted as armchair relationship gurus because modern dating is truly in the gutter right now. In a recent article published in The Atlantic titled “The Great Romance Slump,” a journalist argues that there is a “bounty of possibility” in the modern dating world – you can meet people on apps, at singles events and in socially vibrant cities – but fewer people, especially the young, are actually finding love, due to a product of broader trends that include souring gender relations, the unevenness of social progress and technology that can both connect and isolate us.

The statistics are staggering. The proportion of 25- to 34-year-olds in marriages or cohabiting partnerships dropped steeply from 1980 to 2022 — by almost 10 percent for college graduates and more than 20 percent for people without a degree, according to an analysis by the Financial Times*. *

Modern dating has made even basic communication feel fraught. Even if you meet someone organically, there's no guarantee you'll escape ghosting — the now-familiar practice of disappearing without explanation. Getting a simple text back can feel like an achievement in itself. Things have become so bleak that women are even being ghosted by their long-term partners, according to a recent Vogue article.

With so much uncertainty around dating, can my Etsy witch give me a glimmer of hope? A few hours after I hit purchase, her response arrives in my inbox. At first glance, I wonder whether it has been crafted by ChatGPT because her 3,200-word reading (!) is split up by subheadings that have emojis next to them, but the further I read, I’m blown away by how quickly my witch understands my current predicament.

She tells me that I am not closed to love, but “no longer want a connection that begins beautifully and then leaves you questioning their emotional availability.” Granted, this could apply to almost anyone who is newly single, but what my witch said next changed my outlook on dating forever…

The most startling insight came when she identified my “biggest blind spot”: that I see potential in a relationship before the other person proves to me there is any. I couldn’t have agreed more; I admit I have a tendency to get carried away and assume things about an imaginary future before really getting to know someone.

“You can sense the softer side of someone, understand why they are guarded, and imagine the relationship they could create if they healed or became more emotionally available,” my witch tells me. “This can make you loyal to a future version of the person.”

I send this paragraph to my equally impressed friend. Then I wonder whether my Etsy witch ever considered a career as a licensed therapist. It might be too soon to say, but maybe she’s healed me?

“You need to ask who they are now. Are they communicating now? Are they consistent now? Are they ready to participate now?” she writes to me. “Growth is possible, but you should not be required to remain uncertain while someone slowly decides whether they want to become capable of love.” I want to get that last sentence tattooed on my arm.

She also tells me that my strongest romantic window will appear within approximately four to eight months, so there is hope yet. Apparently, my future beau will “feel calmer, grounded, emotionally observant, and more consistent than someone connected to your past.” Ideal.

For centuries, people have turned to the occult for cosmic intervention during difficult times (love spells have been traced all the way back to 2,200 BCE). Today, though, it is no longer taboo to hire a witch for some spellwork. Although it's unclear which tradition my Etsy witch follows, modern witchcraft encompasses a wide range of practices. Some identify with Wicca, a modern, Earth-focused pagan religion, while others describe themselves as eclectic witches, drawing from different spiritual traditions; green witches, who work with elements of nature; or solitary witches, who practise alone.

For most clients, however, the finer points of a witch’s practice are beside the point. They’re not shopping for a particular tradition — they’re looking for reassurance, guidance, or simply the feeling that something ethereal is on their side.

And in my case, my witch has provided me with some hope when I definitely needed it. Alongside my reading, we also cast a spell for abundance in my future. I’m still waiting for that one to kick in, but I’m expecting good things.

For $4.08, this was money well spent, even if the legitimacy of my witch is a little hazy. In a dating culture where people treat each other as increasingly disposable, turning to a stranger on the internet for answers may feel absurd, but it turned out to be the reality check I needed. I do feel a little lighter.

Whoever it is behind the screen — a genuine witch, an exceptionally perceptive stranger or someone armed with ChatGPT — she’s found a satisfied customer in me. In my Etsy DMs, I thank her for her spell and reading, and ask if we can make this a regular thing. Call it a quarterly check-in. “I would be so grateful,” she replies. “With love and light.”