[0:1:10] Who is Erica and what is Hauswitch?

HausWitch Home and Healing is a brick and mortar shop in Salem, Massachusetts and we also have an online store and a very cool website that has a community page with tons of free articles and posts about spells, magic, tarot spreads and everything that somebody might get if they came into the store. She also has her own line of magical ritual cleaning products called Counter Magic and she wrote a book that came out in 2019 called House magic- Transform Your Home with Witchcraft.

[0:2:50] How did you first become interested in magic?

Erica was always into magic as a kid. She was “raised on tv” and her favorite shows and movies were always witchy. Witchcraft was not taboo in her family, and her maternal Grandfather would call himself a witch. As Erica became older, she started checking out occult books from the library, learning about runes, and practiced Wicca in her bedroom with a friend (but wicca itself didn’t quite resonate with her). Witchcraft was not taboo in her family, and her maternal Grandfather would call himself a witch. As Erica became older, she started checking out occult books from the library, learning about runes, and practiced Wicca in her bedroom with a friend (but wicca itself didn’t quite resonate with her). She later started practicing again as an adult when she was looking at the ways in how feminism and witchcraft intersected.

[0:9:00] What does your personal practice look like these days?

Her personal magical practices are woven into her everyday life pretty seamlessly. Like intention, adornment, divination practices like bibliomancy (opening up a page in a book with intention to see what it says), tarot, and gardening. Plus feminism and witchcraft are so intwined - general adovocacy and activism.

[0:24:40] How did HausWitch start?

Erica started HausWitch as a blog about decorating on the cheap. She wanted to share how she was making her space aesthetically pleasing, grounded etc, without much money (as a person who had been broke most of her life). This dawned on her that there were all of these witchy technologies like queering spaces, grounding and communicating psychically with your space or your plants or your pets or whatever and that could be a form of witchcraft. But ultimately without the resources to just keep redecorating homes and the desire to not take on sponsors (because she didn’t want to be told what to do) the blog came to a halt. In 2014, she had the idea to make little spell kits (that they still make today). They were Little House boxes and the product was received very well. They got orders from Urban Outfitters, Anthropology, and Nasty Gal. It wasn’t super financially successful and not sustainable, but it was proof of concept that she could curate items that resonated with people.

Her father passed in 2012 and she inherited some life insurance money that she was sitting on. She met Jessie Susannah who helped her look over her finances and encouraged her to open a store. She signed the lease May 1st of 2015 and opened it June 3.

[0:29:40] How is the store different than the rest of the stores here in Salem?

Many of the stores here are focused on different sorts of spirituality and tend to have a dark aesthetic that caters to tourism. HausWitch has roots in Interior Design, works with independent makers to stock the shelves, and ultimately challenges the idea of a souvenir.

[0:40:33] What advice do you have for small business owners?

Erica says, “your business probably won’t be what you think it will be. If you open a brick and mortar, you must make sure your online presence is strong as well. You can also set the pace of your work, you don’t need to reply to your emails every day. You must have a marketing plan. No one’s going to come save you, you must keep showing up.”