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. Then I stood with my back to space, threw the paper over my shoulder, and wished really hard. How exactly did you achieve that? I waited till night time. Of course. Couple of days later, bought myself a helicopter.

Explain that one if you can.

Malcolm Collins: And that's very much like, You know, for a lot of people, you know, they need this sort of thing to be motivated to go out there and do their job. And I also, actually, I think that this stuff can be very useful for people of more traditional faiths to

Simone Collins: investigate.

Yeah, or people who just have like more intuitive, like, spiritual leanings.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because I think it shows that when you see how comical and evil this looks when it is done by [00:07:00] somebody of a different faith background, When you see members of your own faith peddling similar things, they are of this ilk.

They are not different. When they are saying, I can take money in exchange for giving you financial blessings through no additional work of your own, that is always, whatever, however your particular faith thinks that sin or demons or whatever work I think that that is the very nature of sin. So when I look at something like the prosperity gospel, right?

So for people who aren't aware of prosperity gospel preaching, it is a form of protestant preaching in the United States. And it's something that we can be slightly susceptible to given our religious leanings that believes that God rewards people financially. For their piousness and ability to be good Christians.

And this is something that reminds me a lot of what we're seeing here [00:08:00] and it can manifest in different ways. You know, they pray on the elderly where they'll send them things and confuse them into sending money. And this is. And all churches have gone through phases like this. You know, right now we have the prosperity gospel in Protestants, but you know, you had your indulgences was Catholics.

Exactly. Right. Yeah. And where people would pay to have their sins removed basically and to lower their time in purgatory. So this stuff is always really evil. Like if you want to know how to spot an evil person, they're saying, give me money and I will offer you. Divine providence, basically.

I will manipulate fate towards your direction. Yes. Which is,

Simone Collins: yeah. But this is evil. On the flip side I, I've, I've seen it argued online that, you know, the placebo effect is It seems to be pretty well attested and for a lot of people, this is a meaningful way to [00:09:00] trigger a placebo effect.

Like, even people who know that they're receiving a placebo and they're just told, Oh, you know. Some people have found the placebo effect to be effective and we're going to give you a placebo now. And they're like, Oh, okay. And then they're like, wow, I feel better. And so maybe it's enough to have a figure of authority in this case, a carefully marketed Etsy seller cast a spell for you and give you a commemorative PDF download that is customized to you to, to feel.

Better. And I mean, I think this works better with some things and others, right? I think some of these spells that I could imagine the placebo effect working really well with and actually helping people with is like, there are some deep focus ones. There are some anxiety ones. There are some like reading well ones.

Okay. So that's like, I could see like really helping people because they're like, Oh, I cast a spell and therefore I feel well. And you see this with ego depletion, that this concept that Do you want to read

Malcolm Collins: the rules on the anxiety ones, the

Simone Collins: reviews? I can pull some up. I scrolled past it, but I can go back to it.

The, [00:10:00] the like ego, the concept of ego depletion is that like, oh, well, if I've done a lot of hard things throughout the day, now at the end of the day, I won't be able to like. Stop myself. Like I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll impulse buy something or I'll splurge on a bunch of ice cream. Whereas actually it seems that some studies have found that if you live in a culture that doesn't believe in ego depletion, but rather ego reinforcement, which is to say like, Oh, if you do a couple of hard things, then you're warmed up and you can do even more hard things that won't happen to you.

So again, it's about like how you frame and perceive things. So at the end of that person's day, they're like, okay, wow, no, I definitely won't be tempted to eat a pint of ice cream or to impulse buy something because I've been, I'm warmed up in my discipline. And so arguably these spells where they do involve personal internal processes may be very effective.

But then I also am looking at a spell here that's about getting rid

Malcolm Collins: of noisy neighbors. I'm going to, I'm going to disagree on this and say that I think that this builds really unhealthy mindsets, even if it makes people feel better in the [00:11:00] moment. Okay. It builds a precedent in the way that they process things like anxiety, that they need an external force to relieve it from themselves, instead of that they can do it themselves, instead of that they're responsible to do it for themselves, and anything else leads long term to more anxiety and is thus sinful and demonic.

But, I want you to, to go into these reviews.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. So let's do one for a well, okay. This one has 1. 6 K reviews at 4. 9 stars. And it's only starting at 24 and 66 cents. So extremely effective. So it's online spellcasting service only. And I think it involves maybe a reading the hours are 11 a.

m. to midnight after the spell, you have to You'll be sent three random photos of your [00:12:00] ritual with the photos you provided displayed somewhere, so you know for certain that it's your spell ritual I'm taking care of. Oh, interesting! 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. 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.

Like the parallels here and where a woman is doing something for quote unquote you yeah, like really they're obviously not like

Simone Collins: there they are. I mean, in this case, the ritual is performed. There is a video for it. Like you get a person, a, the, the seller, the Etsy seller is performing a ritual for you recording it for you so that you can see that it was done.

And thereby helping you and then let's see what the reviews say. There are even photos from [00:13:00] reviews of happy, happy people. You're going to have to experience her magic for yourself. Avangia was amazing. I was having some really difficult times with getting along with a family member that I love because of the anxiety she would generate with me.

I had a couple of anxiety spells done in a toxic relative one and boom, it completely changed my relationship with her. I know I will most likely need maintenance for this issue. Oh no. So we're creating that sort of psychologist dependence issue.

Malcolm Collins: Dependence, the thing with psychologists.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but yeah, let's see.

Wow. Still though, I mean it, so I, I, I, I, I don't know, like, I mean, I, I think that placebo effect things can be worth investing in because think about, you know, what you might otherwise spend, for example, on therapy, which is just as much of a scam in many cases, right? I

Malcolm Collins: mean, and more dangerous because it, it more acutely creates dependency therapy.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Therapy. So you're, you're saying then that the Etsy magician is the [00:14:00] lesser evil here now. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So the lesser evil than therapists, but therapists are like literally like one of the most dangerous cults in society today. You should see our video on has therapy become a cult. If you want to know more on our opinion on this.

I, I think that they do astronomical damage to society today and it can be really damaging. We'll do an episode as well. We're like, even to have a stable relationship, if your partner is regularly seeing a therapist and be regularly seeing a therapist, this is a, a third party who has motivations often a lot of motivation to disrupt this person's happy relationships.

Cause that creates more dependency on them and you know.

Simone Collins: I, I also want to push back. I, I, I'm not the type of, I'm not going to buy these things. Like, I'm not into this. I would think this is a total waste of money. This wouldn't work for me because this is not what I believe in. However here's another spell I found.

No, hold on. I

Malcolm Collins: gotta, I gotta give a spell here, right? Oh, no. You want to give it to me? One spell type that seems to be common [00:15:00] are Love Spells or like,

Simone Collins: Attachment Spells. That's harder, right? Because you can't make someone else love you. So I don't, you know, I feel like that's

Malcolm Collins: more of a scenario. I mean, they think you can.

They think that this is not an issue of personal

Simone Collins: choice. Right. But I, I question the ethics here more because this isn't helping people with a placebo effect. This is like promising something that cannot be promised.

Malcolm Collins: So these are like extra strong love spell with extra X strong, like XXX spells. Wow.

These can be too dangerous. Like you might not, oh, yeah. You might not want to touch it, right? Oh, I

Simone Collins: love it. I love it when people do that. Like, be careful with this magical book. Be careful with this

Malcolm Collins: word. Do you know how often people are buying this? Right now on Etsy, it's warning me. It's saying this is an in demand item.

Seven people have bought this in the last 24 hours. Oh my god.

Simone Collins: From a pronatalist standpoint, doesn't that kind of encourage you? That there are people out there who really

Malcolm Collins: There's so many dumb people. I hope these people don't find love. I hope they don't be. Look, I'm not for everyone breeding. The people who buy these, f**k them.

Tentastronics in action. These are the people [00:16:00] who the abortion advocates are targeting, right? Like, I a lot of people are like, Oh, don't you think that the government should have regulations on this stuff? And I'm like, they're killing their own kids. Like, I don't know if I care. Like, I don't, I don't like that people are killing babies, like, bad.

But also, are they going to cause more pain in society in the long run? So so we know that people are buying this, they're buying it for 26. 60. And the second review on this to

Simone Collins: that 200, I mean, this is very affordable.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that was, that was 200, but then on sale for like, cheap. But okay, so the second review on this, to be clear, it's a one star review, so people can get an idea of what's actually going on here.

So this is really interesting. So they and a friend of Bo's bought it. And they go, is this a scam? My friend and I received the exact same email from you. Mind you, you is spelled, that's the letter U. No. Was it just our names changed and the spell doesn't work? Was the spell even casted? Updating my rev my updating my review is still no results from the love spell.

Simone Collins: No, I no, I'm seeing

Malcolm Collins: there's variation. In fact, my situation is going exactly in the [00:17:00] direction I didn't want. But but there's some most of the reviews are positive. This is just a highly upvoted negative review. But this no, no, no, I think this

Simone Collins: shows that there's variation in the ethics of practitioners here.

And this, I think, even among People in a very corrupt industry, you're going to see variation. You're going to see people who are genuinely acting in good faith and genuinely showing that they are doing the thing, right? Like they are, they are doing it with fidelity. They're actually performing the ritual for you.

They're actually recording it. It's only for you. They're not using templates, et cetera, et cetera. You know, there's like video and photo

Malcolm Collins: proof. You don't have to do anything. Look, this one's great. I, by the way, I is spelled with a lowercase i. I woke up from a deep sleep and had a dream about the person I'm manifesting.

It felt super realistic, like a lucid dream too. And I, lowercase i again was really happy. I'm, how did they do this over and over again? I'm looking forward to the results. Other ones woke up to an email saying the spell was cast, then received a long text message from my ex [00:18:00] saying he loves me and misses me and doesn't want to see anyone else.

10, 10 would definitely continue buying. What was, what was the spell that you wanted to read about? And

Simone Collins: again, I think that this is an example, I guess, you know, you're the. The Contra and I'm the pro. Here's a double or sorry, ultimate double attract new friends spells. You know, you won't be alone anymore.

Two witches for you casting in less than 12 hours. What a turnaround. I mean, two

Malcolm Collins: witches, how many spells are they casting a day?

Simone Collins: It would be, you know, the more witches, the merrier, especially if you're trying to get,

Malcolm Collins: I admire these women's entrepreneurial spirit.

Simone Collins: I mean, and witches have been around for a long time, haven't

they?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, they're not working much. They're sitting at home dancing around a fire. I think that there

Simone Collins: are some people who actually take this seriously and have their weird candles and do the thing, and then there are other total, like Messed up people who aren't. But again, with friendship, I think that, you know, if, if I believe this, if I pay for this spell, if I do the thing, I [00:19:00] get, you know, I really, really believe that these, these witches are out there casting for me.

And that like, one of the biggest things in dating and friendship is confidence in someone is that self confidence and self assuredness. And if someone believes that, that witchcraft has literally made them a more attractive friend. They are going to be more attractive friend prospects. And also they're going to just, you know, how like people who think that they're lucky are, are luckier, not because they're luckier, but because they actually see an opportunity when it passes them, whereas people who are more pessimistic don't recognize a good opportunity if it even slapped them across the face.

Right. So like. These people are now recognizing interest in them. They're returning eye contact. They're sparking conversations. They're recognizing when they should ask people to hang out later or do something with them. Like, well, I mean, you know, you can't,

Malcolm Collins: can't knock it. Okay. Okay. Sorry. I gotta, this is from the three witches group again.

This spell right here [00:20:00] is. Make them pay. Revenge spell. Revenge spell curse. Spell black magic. Bad luck. Curse your enemy. Destruction. Spell return to sender.

Simone Collins: Wait, wait. Return to

Malcolm Collins: sender? I don't know. That's the name of the spell. I think it's return to sender. It's like return their bad deeds to them. And I'm trying to find out I, so, so, okay, here's one.

I'm not gonna lie, when I got the reading, I didn't have much confidence in it. As much as I love getting readings done, I take them with a grain of salt. But I was playing around with a dating app, which I don't like to do, and have no hopes in anything happening. Just scrolling through people. No one really catching my eye, but there was only two people that made me laugh.

And one was because of the pictures he took of himself. And even this minimalistic bio made me laugh. His name was Riley and he put down as his gender identity, male, age, gender, no gender, the name sounded familiar. [00:21:00] So I popped back on here and reread. The reading these girls did for me, realizing that this person you were describing with the exact same name, I'm honestly stunned, what, did they cast a spell on a random person?

Was it, what?

Simone Collins: I, I'm assuming they were like, oh, O'Reilly is in your future, and Then O'Reilly came up, but I mean, like, you know, whatever.

Malcolm Collins: I want to hear about why these women are having other people punished. You know, this is really old human history. They would do stuff like this though. So, so it is worth noting that this is

Simone Collins: Remember when we were, when we toured the townships in South Africa,

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no.

Think about Bath. Bath in the UK. What did they do there? Remember in Bath, they found all of these Oh,

Simone Collins: the curse, the folded up curse is written on metal. And they were like, I curse this. Whoever stole my

Malcolm Collins: sandal. Yes. I hope that you're cursed for forever. Yeah. Talk about what we [00:22:00] sell in South Africa.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

That like, even now there are these. traditional markets where people are selling sympathetic medicine. Like, you know, if you, and the general idea of sympathetic medicine is something that I first discovered in preschool, where in my preschool class, you could have a cake made of any, anything you wanted because we had an amazing preschool.

And so I always asked for a swan because I believed that if I ate a swan shaped cake, I would turn into a swan and I wanted to be elegant and graceful. And I sadly never turned into a swan and I'm still incredibly clumsy. But that, that kind of sympathetic magic, like, Oh, this thing is like this. So taking it will cure the thing, you know?

But I think that that's the thing is, is that most, most people have this tendency. To kind of go for like, Oh, well, there's this magic. Or if this person waves their hands and does the thing, then like we're there. And I, I mean, I don't even, like, I don't think this is like, I, at first when I, when I found these spells on Etsy, I was like, Oh, this is the [00:23:00] fall of civilization.

We've lost our culture. We've lost our tradition. What I'm realizing now is in, in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion, you describe what happens when you go from a hard culture, you know, like really strong adherence to. to Orthodox Judaism or to Catholicism or whatever it is, like really sticking to the rules.

And then you become a softer culture. And then, oh, everyone goes to heaven, but I still go to church. And then even softer and softer, and then you lose everything.

Malcolm Collins: Secularism is not the pond completely drained. This is the pond completely drained.

Simone Collins: This is the, yes. And, and this is like, We're, we're turning to a, a highly intuitive, like literally instinctual, like zero

Malcolm Collins: cultural sound understanding of the world.

You know, speaking of here's another one that came up in a bestseller and I love how like racist this is. Oh no. So it's Chinese magic spelled wrong. Oh

Simone Collins: wait, how is it

Malcolm Collins: spelled then? M A G I C K?

Simone Collins: Oh, no, that's just, I think that's the English, the UK spelling for magic. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: okay. But it's called the Dumb Donkey Curse.[00:24:00]

Okay. But I love how, like, and it looks all, like, Chinese y and, like, a really, like, Racist looking way. I

Simone Collins: actually remember a, a woman in Chinatown who was like clearly a Chinese immigrant calling. Oh no, no, no. She called one of my classmates, a stupid monkey. Nevermind. Not a stupid donkey. Maybe it was like 20

Malcolm Collins: people's carts, 20 plus people's carts in

Simone Collins: 20 carts.

Okay. What does it do? Does it curse donkey

Malcolm Collins: to ruin his life? His life. Make them pay curse, ritual to get revenge spell to return to cinder fast, ruin career and make him stupid spell. And the capitalization is all over the place with this.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, I'm sure that like, maybe the spell rubs off, you know, this is a costly spell for her to perform because every time that she makes someone a little bit dumber, some of the, you know, it's kind of like a hat and a millionaire.

The dumb

Malcolm Collins: juice hits you? You're

Simone Collins: like exposed to the lead and it also poisons you, right?

Malcolm Collins: I was drawn to the Chinese magic shop and picked up a couple spells for my situation. I spoke [00:25:00] to Ling Zicane about my, I don't know how to pronounce this, about my situation and he was very supportive and understanding.

I have full trust in his work and have great expect explanations, certificates of the work he completed. Now to continue to work on myself and stay positive. Thank you. And he says, thank you for the very kind words, my dear. Chinese magic is truly something and I am sure we will see great results with it.

Simone Collins: well maybe no. So maybe also from a branding standpoint, if you're trying to be like a, a non English speaking magician, you have to like, Play up the stereotype. Just how like we, we discovered by interviewing many fine artists that they had to act crazier than they actually were because otherwise people wouldn't buy money from them.

So like,

Malcolm Collins: I just felt a ting of real sadness. I saw a two star review and the person said that they had great customer service and loved the person, but the spell had a manifest. And I'm like, that's no reason you're buying a fake thing. You can't give a bad review for the spell, not manifesting you jerk.

Simone Collins: [00:26:00] Oh, I know. That's. It's too bad this, cause this, this seems like one of the legit guys who like actually, at least my whole thing is they perform the ritual,

Malcolm Collins: they do the work. I think we should start a company doing this. Just have an AI respond to people.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm, will we have AI magicians though in the future that like, cause I mean already a lot of, a lot of the images here look AI generated like clearly.

So, I mean, in the end, it's like we're, we're progressing toward our AI gods, but I, let's go back, just like, I just want to emphasize this sort of like to put a bow on all this, but this is not, this is, this is the really, really good example, which you hadn't illustrated a ton in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion of that instinctual Complete baseline of, of humans devoid of culture.

And that's what it looks like. And that's what it looks like in our society. It's, it's Etsy magicians, which is

Malcolm Collins: super cool. I really love your positive [00:27:00] spin on all of this and your positive view of our fall. I am. It brings stuff like this to my attention, it's just wild that this is something that people are doing.

It's,

Simone Collins: it's really, it's cool. I hope we find more of it. I hope, you know, like this is, this is insane. Just like our minds were blown when we, you know, went to that, like, you know, witch doctor sympathetic magic market in, in the townships of Cape of South Africa, Cape Town. Like we were like, this is. No, sorry.

It wasn't Cape Town. It was Johannesburg. Yeah, that's

Malcolm Collins: right. It was, it was in the the really dangerous districts outside of Johannesburg. We did a tour of one of the I don't know what you call them, like The townships. And we met with their local witch doctor and we were learning about the way that she interacted with the community.

I think she also took in orphans?

Simone Collins: You know, then, then we also visited a different settlement in the township and we visited an orphanage. Before that, we visited the, the like witch doctor market where they had all the, all the things. You could buy

Malcolm Collins: baubles made from, [00:28:00] you

Simone Collins: know. All sorts of things, all sorts of things that I wouldn't want to touch, but that's my culture and my problem.

And again, we were, the whole reason we learned about this was because we're about to celebrate future day, our weird cultural holiday. So. This is all just cultural differences, but anyway, I'm delighted that we live in such a weird world with lots of different solutions for things. And I wonder how many women have paid people for spells, love spells for you, Malcolm.

I actually, it's not a non zero number. It's not a non zero number.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it's definitely not a non zero number, I can say that, and that is a weird thing to think about, and I am sorry that those spells weren't effective. I know you must have paid for an awfully strong one, Sinon, because I am supernaturally indebted to you.

Simone Collins: Oh no, have I, has my secret come out? That like, actually, you don't really

Malcolm Collins: love me? You Etsy.

Simone Collins: It's that I, I have a

Malcolm Collins: But that's literally what these people are doing, they're buying Etsy. [00:29:00] S**t. Yeah, that's it. I want to go to one of these sellers and just be like as amoral as possible, be like, I don't love this woman.

I don't want to love this woman. I just want her to f**k me. Well, I wonder

Simone Collins: like, but I mean, and are there, hold on, one final thing to check. Do they allow for hits? So spell Spell for

Malcolm Collins: murder. Oh, that's a good one. No, I wanna, I wanna go and just be mean. I, I wanna combine two of your spells. I want one that's a lust spell and then one that's like a, 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 [00:30:00] writing names.

Simone Collins: I give five stars for good communication. It is too early to judge the results of spell. If the magic doesn't work, I want a refund.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. Well, I'd love to ask for a refund for a

Simone Collins: murder spell. They're not dead. Give me my money back. Spell was done fast and was certainly powerful. I could feel it bring done. I could feel it bring done. Thank you, Freya, for all your help. And I love everything you do. Ah! I, I don't see any deaths though.

This is the, well, my God, there are 23 pages of

Malcolm Collins: reviews on us as, as people leading the proteanalyst. That's something else. Another

Simone Collins: five star review under death spell, fast delivery and was very nice. Smiley face.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I love this. That, this is fun that you found the death

Simone Collins: bell. I just, I feel like this is, it's, it's one, I'm like, okay, okay, fine, Etsy. This is [00:31:00] handmade. These are like custom experiences. I remember I

Malcolm Collins: showed you this movie, The Craft, by the way, we may have Gen Z followers who Seeing the

Simone Collins: movie The Craft.

Yeah, go watch it. You wanna

Malcolm Collins: seen it? If you wanna see like peak nineties, nineties, if you wanna see like my friend group in high school, go f*****g watch the craft. It is hilarious. Yeah. Because it's so accurate and it so captures the vibe. Of that moment in, in, in our history.

Yeah. Yeah. And I shouldn't say my friend group.

I always thought this stuff was stupid and I told them that they were stupid. But

Simone Collins: Not unless they These girls were really I'm sure if you were hitting on them and you thought that that would get you what you wanted. Oh

Malcolm Collins: no, I, I, I mean, I slept with a lot of these people, you know, these people are not difficult.

They, they do not have a full mental capacity.

Earth, air, fire,

Malcolm Collins: But I don't think

Simone Collins: you poo pooed the idea in front of them when you wanted. Something. Oh, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I did. I

Simone Collins: was a strict atheist. Oh, you nagged them. Okay. Well, then yeah, you're probably just nagging them or whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. Okay. Anyway [00:32:00] dear audience death spells are unethical.

I do not care if you, you know what, you know what I think actually, but there's a lot of magicians on Etsy who offer death spells, but then like ultimately just try to help their clients mentally. And don't actually cast death spells, even if, like, especially if they believe in the magic. I hope so.

This is what I'm hoping. I'm gonna

Malcolm Collins: offer death spells and try to talk people into killing someone. They reach out to me and I'm like, okay, but you have to play a hand yourself. So one, I'll do the spell and then you go out and stuff. I'll do, yeah, I'll

Simone Collins: do the spell. So yeah, that's, that's the power of wishy thinking.

I wanted a helicopter and I wished for it and then I bought one.

Malcolm Collins: So. No, no, no. But have you seen in Africa remember they were talking about this was a major problem they had where people would go to black magicians and they would cast spells that would prevent bullets from hurting them. Oh yeah.

And then they'd like go out and try to like attack people or rob stores and stuff. Because they thought they were

Simone Collins: genuinely unstoppable.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Love you to death. We gotta go get the

Simone Collins: kids. Love you too. Yes. Bye gorgeous. Please don't kill me.

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