The topic of the Christian prosperity gospel and the ways in which it is similar to witchcraft and magic is something my mind keeps coming back to. I have also discussed it with others, acknowledging how their experience with the prosperity gospel makes them worry about how witchcraft and magic are presented by some. In fact, one of those conversations inspired me to write another blog post a little over five years ago.

This time, i’d like to do a bit of a deep dive into the topic, comparing the prosperity gospel to a few different understandings of witchcraft and magic, and exploring both the similarities and what I consider some of ht key differences.

My Relevant Background

To begin with, I’d like to share or revisit my own background where it’s relevant to the topic at hand. Something that I would hope is obvious by this point from this blog, I am a witch and have been working magic for a couple of decades now. As such, I’ve learned quite a bit about witchcraft and magic as I understand and practice them.

What may be less known is my personal experience with the prosperity gospel movement, or at least the principles that tend to drive it. While I’ve mentioned multiple times that I’m a former evangelical Christian, I have not spent much time discussing the details of my experiences as a Christian. The relevant bit of history is that I attended a Full Gospel¹ church during the last half of my freshman year at college until I graduated in 1996. In that church, I learned the same kind of “name it and claim it” theology that is at the heart of the prosperity gospel. it was common for us, for example, to pray Psalm 91 over ourselves and others (inserting names into the passage) for protection from Satan and his demonic minions.²

Diverse Understandings of Witchcraft and Magic

I think the diversity of opinion when it comes understanding how witchcraft and magic works is another important thing to understand. After all, I think that some more simplistic understandings of magic — such as the popular manifestation movement³ of late — comes closer to the mentality — and therefore the same pitfalls — of the Christian prosperity gospel movement than others. So I think it’s important to tackle the topic by looking at those diverse understandings of magic rather than my own understanding of magical practice.⁴

Mechanical Similarities

Magic and witchcraft often involves using gestures and words to set an intention and focus power on that goal. Also, “spell components” such as herbs, candles, and oils are often used with the idea that their inclusion will include some sort of magical boost.

Prosperity gospel adherents may not call what they do magic or use the terms most witches and magicians do. However, there’s little denying the belief among prosperity gospel adherents to use phrases like “in the name of Jesus” and “by the blood of Jesus” as well as Bible verses to punctuate their prayers and give them a “boost” like words of power.⁵

Prosperity gospel adherents even have their own “spell components” of a sort. The most common one is anointing oil. A more unique example, would be the woman on TikTok who recently poured grape juice all around her property to protect her home with “the blood of Jesus.” Atheist YouTuber Taylor the Antibot covered this video recently as part of her own video about Christian witchcraft. I highly recommend you check out Taylor’s video.

Prosperity Gospel, Magic, and Unrealistic Explanations

One of the things I notice in the prosperity gospel movement is that there doesn’t seem to be any limits to what one can accomplish through such “name it and claim it” theology. If you can find a verse in the Bible that (maybe kinda sorta even) says you’re entitled to something, you have every right to claim it and the power of God will make it yours.

Some understandings of magic seem to think this as well. i’ve heard such aphorisms of “if you can imagine it, you can have it.” To be honest, I find that an awful big check to write. And this creates problems when you don’t actually get whatever you tried to visualize/magic/name and claim into existence.

Other understandings of magic — my own included — tends to put limits on magic. We understand that the world is a complex place and, as awesome as our personal power can be, it is not unlimited. Nor is it supreme. And this leads me to my next point.

Victim Blaming Becomes a Thing

As i said, when the prayer, spell, or Bible verse doesn’t cause the desired results, someone needs to come up with an explanation. And since “prayer/magic must be bullshit” isn’t one most people who believe in such things are typically willing to jump to very quickly, they look for other explanations. When prayers don’t work out, many Christians will decide that what they wanted was apparently not God’s will. It’s not an entirely satisfactory answer, but it’s one that allows for there to be some limiting factor on the efficacy of prayers.

That doesn’t seem to be a popular explanation among adherents of the prosperity gospel. I suspect that’s because the prosperity is founded upon the belief that you deserve things you want. So saying the things you want are outside God’s will flies in that face. So other explanations are sought. And typically, those explanations are rooted in victim blaming. “You must have some sin in your life preventing God from blessing you,” “you must not have had enough faith,” and “you just didn’t pray hard enough” are all common explanations I’ve seen. If the prosperity gospel way fails you, you must have done it wrong somehow.

I’ve seen similar ideas come from various magical practitioners. Insufficient belief, negative thoughts, and insufficiently clear/vivid visualizations of the goal are often reasons I’ve seen given. Again, the message is clear: You must be doing it wrong.

Personally, I prefer a more complex and more realistic (in my opinion) view of magic that acknowledges that the world is a complex place and a lot of factors — many of which are beyond our control — go into determining what happens. I covered some examples of this in a video I produced in 2021 when I explored the limits of magic and reasons it sometimes doesn’t work.

I think that an understanding of magic or prayer that allows us to see a failure to get the results we were hoping for as something more/other than a result of a personal failing is important.

(Lack of) Ethical Consideration

One of the things that I notice about many adherents of the prosperity gospel is that they don’t seem to put a lot of ethical consideration into what they’re “naming and claiming.” If they can find a verse that they can interpret as saying God has promised them whatever it is that they want, then they typically invoke the power of the Holy Ghost in an attempt to seize it without further thought. They don’t think about how getting what they want might impact their lives or the lives of others.

And while I’m sure there are witches and other magical practitioners that similarly put little ethical thought into what they want or the impact of getting it,⁶ that’s not been how those I have encountered tend to act. Instead, they seem to show a deep concern for how their magic impacts others. For example, I remember one witch asking about the ethics of doing a spell to get a particular job. “What if someone else needed that job more than I did?” And while there are a number of reasons I think such magic can be perfectly ethical, I appreciate that many of my fellow witches are doing that level of soul searching.

Also, many witches perform divination when contemplating doing spellwork. Often, this divination includes questions about the potential impact and consequences of the spell. The results of such spellwork might change one’s approach to accomplishing one’s goal, modify the goal, or even scrap the endeavor altogether. I think that such thoughtful reflection is essential to responsible magic.

Closing Thoughts

I think that the parallels between witchcraft/magic and the Christian prosperity gospel is interesting. However, I also think it’s important to note the parallels that suggest problematic elements are important so that those of us who wish to be more ethical and introspective about our witchcraft and magical practices can work to avoid or overcome them. After all, while a wise person learns from their mistakes, an even wiser person also learns from the mistakes of others around them.

Footnotes

1. This was a church that proclaimed that “sign gifts” like prophecies and speaking in tongues are still active in the world today. They preferred the term “Full Gospel” to “Pentecostal” or “charismatic,” arguing that by teaching that believers can and should be “baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.” They believed that those churches that stopped after getting people to commit their lives to Jesus and baptizing them with water were only offering a partial gospel. Sure, they’d argue, such Christians were “saved,” but they weren’t walking in the full blessings of God. ↩︎
2. Surely, I’m not the only one who has noticed the amount of overlap between the prosperity gospel and spiritual warfare movements. And both of them seem to have this “speak it into existence by quoting Scripture and/or calling on the name of Jesus” theology. ↩︎
3. I should note that I’m saying “the popular manifestation movement” intentionally here. I understand that manifestation is a concept that has been around in Hinduism for a long time. And like most popular ideas that share a name with practices from a much older tradition/culture, there are a lot of differences there as well. It would be a gross error to apply anything I say about the popular manifestation movement to the concept of manifestation that exists in a more traditional Hindu context. ↩︎
4. Someone might read this post and accuse me of saying that I consider my own understanding of witchcraft and magic is superior to other understandings in it. And in the case of providing ways to avoid falling into the pitfalls that plague the prosperity gospel, I can only say that I’m guilty as charged. ↩︎
5. An interesting trend I’ve noticed lately is that many of them are using a transliteration of Jesus’s Hebrew name “Yeshua” as if that’s even more powerful than the Greek version “Jesus.” ↩︎
6. I also worry this mentality could become more common as time goes by. This is especially due to the fact that so much is spoken of in the witchcraft and magical communities about self-empowerment and individualism while so little is said about interdependence and our communal responsibilities. Both are equally important and I strive to promote an equliibrium between them. ↩︎