Amy Wilson spills on her spells
In a third-floor window overlooking the KuBe Art Center’s north parking lot, a pentangle beckons the flock.
Ascending the stairs brings visitors closer to the faint odor of burning spell candles at Other Worldly Waxes, where a sign with a broom-riding enchantress is bolted above the door of the Beacon shop.
Proprietor Amy Wilson says she is proud to be a witch. “I’m out of the broom closet,” she says. “Others in the craft try to stay on the down-low, but the weird stigma isn’t like it used to be. We don’t all eat babies on the weekends.”
Witches who are Wiccans typically practice in covens; Wilson is a freelancer. All mix and match from thousands of years of belief systems that explore the spiritual and fantastical. Wilson says she specializes in “harnessing planetary energies.”
Practitioners draw from Pagan, Goth, Victorian, astrology, voodoo, hoodoo, the occult, major religions and minor ones such as ancient Nordic, Greek and Roman mythology.
To the cynical and skeptical, magical practices are superstitions with good luck charms. Wilson considers her beliefs an “alternative religion” but says, “whatever speaks to your soul” is fair game.
For witches, every object is symbolic, and candles are de rigueur. “The client tells me what’s going on and I create a remedy that casts spells and burns away the negativity,” Wilson explains. They’re often created to help land a job, enhance a relationship or set something straight.
Working at a station in a corner of the store, which she calls her “fortress of solitude,” Wilson covers each colorful votive in oil and creates patterns like onyxes, hamsa hands (a popular emblem) and an all-seeing eye floating over a pyramid — the image on the back of dollar bills — in glitter.
She carves the client’s name and zodiac sign into the wax and places offerings at the base of the glass enclosure. One recent creation included pennies (evoking a wishing well) and honey, an offering to the gods, “like, I sweetened the pot, now grant my wish,” says Wilson, who also owns the night market Moon, Serpent & Bone.
At the heart of the mystical trek for most dabblers and practitioners is the desire to achieve a state of peace and balance, says Wilson, who is working toward a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling and is a protégé of Catherine Riggs-Bergesen, a psychiatrist who founded Other Worldly Waxes.
“I teach people Witchcraft 101 and there’s always folks seeking someone to trust and confide in,” Wilson says. “It can bring up stuff that leads to trigger warnings, strobe lights, drama.”
Wilson has played the game since age 18, working at stores, casting mostly non-baneful spells and seeking side hustles. In 2009, she inherited the candle business from Riggs-Bergesen, who relocated from Manhattan to Middletown. Wilson moved to Beacon in 2010 after visiting friends.
The store resembles a jam-packed, old-time apothecary. “There’s a lot of eye candy in here,” she says, referring in part to rows of powdered incense and essential oils in squat bottles, along with other witchcraft ingredients and formularies passed down from The Magikal Childe, a longstanding shop in the East Village owned by Herman Slater, who died in 1992.
The blended incense is burned in tiny cauldrons. Devotees play with the spelling of the word magic. She prefers “magick.”
“Obviously if I light a money candle, bags of cash aren’t dropping out of the sky,” Wilson says. “You have to go out and get that job. But there have been coincidences, such as a client who got an offer right before her candle burned out.
“It’s about being realistic. I know spells work — I’ve seen them come to fruition. But it’s about the placebo effect and holding that intention as you go about your life and do the work to get what you want.”
Other Worldly Waxes, located at 211 Fishkill Ave. in Beacon, is open by appointment and on the third Saturday of each month. See otherworldlywaxes.com to shop online. The next Moon, Serpent & Bone oddities and curiosities night markets are scheduled for tonight (Oct. 25) and Nov. 1 at City Winery Hudson Valley in Montgomery. See moonserpentandbone.com.
