Not a Coven: How Sorcery and Amulets Are Seen Outside America

This weekend someone asked me if El Salvador has a word like “coven.”
I said, “That’s an American concept.”
They didn’t believe me. Googled me in real time.
Then: “Oh… I guess you’re right.”
So a Salvadoran tells you, you doubt it; Google nods and now it’s gospel. Cute.

That little moment shows how normalized occult practices have become in the U.S.—treated as trendy, buyable, part of the everyday. Step outside America, though, and you’re in a whole different weather system.

The Invention of the Coven

When I told them it was an American concept, I didn’t get the chance to fully explain why. The word itself comes from Latin conventus via Old French/English “convent/covent,” meaning a meeting or assembly. The “gathering of witches” sense shows up later, with Scottish associations and a 19th-century revival-era boost. The tidy “thirteen members” idea? That’s a modern add-on.

What most people think of today as a “coven” comes straight out of modern witchcraft movements in Britain—particularly Wicca—which grew inside a Protestant cultural frame with nostalgia for “pagan ways.” That nostalgia doesn’t equal pre-Christian survival. Paganism and witchcraft aren’t the same thing. Religions of all kinds form communities—church groups, frats, business clubs, ladies’ circles. Witchcraft circles got framed the same way: as organized groups. But the idea that witches have always gathered in tidy, structured “covens” is closer to myth than map.

And that famous “thirteen”? It likely owes more to early-modern Scottish trial lore than to any ancient template—especially the 1662 confessions of Isobel Gowdie, whose vivid accounts helped seed the mythos that modern witchcraft later incorporated.

And in much of the Hispanic world, what outsiders might call a “coven” was never a thing. Practices run in families, not in social clubs. Knowledge and power move down bloodlines, not through weekend circles.

America’s Illusion

Here, witchcraft gets packaged and pushed: TikTok aesthetics, Etsy jars, influencer covens. Plenty of sincere workers exist, but the marketplace makes it look normalized—something you can subscribe to like a streaming service. That normalization gets exported as an assumption: If it’s open here, it must be open everywhere.

It isn’t.

I’m not above the marketplace; I work in it. The line for me is respect. I don’t rebrand other people’s traditions, I don’t sensationalize prai or Ngang, and I tell clients when a thing isn’t for them. If you want a souvenir, buy a magnet; if you want a spirit, be ready to feed it.

El Salvador: Fear, Stigma, Erasure

Back home, there’s no “coven” culture. People don’t gather openly for sorcery—it’s feared, stigmatized, and can bring real trouble.

For years there were whisper-only corridors—like the old Mercado Negro around Sagrado Corazón and Iglesia El Calvario—where you could find esoteric goods if you knew where to look. Then came the “reordering” of the Centro Histórico: stalls cleared, vendors displaced, whole zones sanitized. This reordering wasn’t random; it aligned with President Nayib Bukele’s broader push to reorganize public space and project a modernized capital. Under those rules, large swaths of informal commerce—including the esoteric stalls—were removed. What survived in whispers wasn’t brought into the light; it was erased from view.

And yes, El Salvador absolutely has living cultural traditions with Indigenous roots; but most pre-Hispanic practices were suppressed and pushed underground, so what survives today is often kept quietly within families or blended into Catholic life (cofradías, local fiestas, household devotions). In recent years you do see small revival efforts, but visibility is careful and context-bound.

The part Americans miss (my lived memory)

Growing up in El Salvador, rumor was a spell of its own. If whispers tagged someone with brujería, folks looked at you different. Parents warned kids, “Don’t talk to so-and-so, she’s a bruja—she can put evil on you.” The neighbor everyone whispered about would sour when the gossip reached her; she knew people talked. I always doubted—until one night I was standing in our patio and heard her calling the devil himself to curse someone. Her voice—hard, angry—and the sharp smell of herbs snapped the rumor into focus. I felt my blood drop and a cold shiver run through me: the witch wasn’t a story; I had just heard her. I also remember a case where an amulet was used to control someone romantically; breaking it was hard, but once it was destroyed, the pull lifted and the person walked free. Where I’m from, you don’t hear someone show up and say, “I practice brujería, let’s gather.” You keep it quiet—or you keep away. Those who practice either inherit it inside the family—kept low and handed down—or they carry in approaches from outside El Salvador. Influence drifts across borders and through migrants, so “foreign” ways take root, often in rural zones. And because anything underground shares space with other underground economies, it can, at times, brush up against gangs and similar worlds—not because magic is criminal by nature, but because secrecy is the currency. And in that secrecy, people sometimes turn to a sorcerer or practitioner with real ability when life corners them—seeking help in love, protection, luck, or survival.

Thailand Through Joonner’s Eyes

I asked my friend Joonner in Chiang Mai how things land there. Their answer felt familiar: there are basically two publics. Some folks are fine with magical practice; others treat it as taboo, bad, even disgusting to mention. Magic is old and rooted, but not widely accepted. Families split over it. People practice quietly. Ajarns still have students and followers, but it happens offstage, not under bright lights. For Joonner, it’s personal—they’ve had to keep their practice quiet in their own family to avoid pressure and pain.

They later shared a source from Thailand’s own Fine Arts Department that underlines this. Some groups still hold strong to traditions and spirit beliefs—never offending or disrespecting the spirits, always observing the old customs. Even though younger generations may not always believe, the grandparents do, and that continuity prevents the traditions from ever fully disappearing.

Magic is alive in Thailand. It’s just not Instagram-friendly.

Thailand Through Ivy Senna’s Eyes

There’s no “coven” concept, not in the western, Wiccan sense. In rural communities you might know one person who can “do things,” but it isn’t usually organized or necessarily publicly advertised. In recent years the slang and concept of mutelu has made occult topics trendier online and more normalized in real life, but prai work (working with spirits of the restless dead) and “black magic” (mon daam) still makes people cautious. Many laypeople are afraid of being cursed or bewitched, and will sometimes genuinely believe they or their loved ones have had witchcraft performed on them—so they seek other practitioners to undo it.

Ivy herself grew up being taught by her mother to be wary of suspicious gifts (they could be secretly cursed), and learned folk ways to break curses—while being forbidden to touch “black magic.” In the eyes of many, there are acceptable forms of magic and forms that are feared (like those involving blood sacrifice). Because of this, magic is still feared among the older generation. Likewise, traditional skills and occult knowledge are often passed by bloodline or apprenticeship, not by joining a weekend circle. Outsiders fixate on the objects (amulets, dolls) and miss the closed, family-based realities behind them.

What it looks like from where I stand

In the U.S., the occult reads as normalized and market-friendly. In El Salvador, it’s feared, stigmatized, and often swept from public space. In Thailand, it’s old and alive but socially sensitive—practiced quietly; a public “trend” doesn’t equal permission for real sorcery.

One more thing worth saying out loud: there are books and vendor copy that polish Thai magic for export—especially for U.S. readers—making it look turnkey and friendly. My conversations with Thai friends, and my own life in El Salvador (plus work across Central America and Mexico), say otherwise. When you’ve lived it, coming to the U.S. can feel like walking into a theme-park version of the occult: bright, tidy, and wildly confident. That gap breeds culture shock and a steady leak of misinformation—terms stripped of context, spirits renamed, dangerous currents sold as souvenirs. It isn’t gatekeeping to say so; it’s respect.

These are my experiences and my friends’—not a total map of two countries.

Respect Over Reinvention

I love and respect these cultures. The people I’ve met are generous and powerful in ways you won’t see on a hashtag. My aim isn’t to reinvent the wheel or sell someone else’s shrine back to them with a new label. It’s to stay true, to honor what’s not mine, and to say out loud what gets flattened by tourism and trend cycles.

Yes, I sell my own work and collaborations. That’s survival, not spectacle. I don’t reinvent the wheel, rename spirits for clicks, or sell “tourist” versions of dangerous things. My pieces are made, fed, and explained—who it is, what it wants, how to keep it. Sometimes the answer is no. Commerce isn’t the problem; costume is.

Thank you to Joonner for lending their voice and to Ivy Senna for allowing her words to be shared here. And to my people in El Salvador, who know exactly what I mean when I say: not everything sacred wants the spotlight—and sometimes the spotlight is a bulldozer.

Next time someone asks me about “covens in El Salvador,” I’ll keep it simple:

That’s the American movie version. Reality elsewhere is older, quieter, and a lot less monetizable.

Personal Note on My Own Work

The way I’ve come into contact with Thai sorcery isn’t by browsing bookshelves or vendors’ tables. It’s through years of friendship that became a teacher–student bond with an ajarn. Any “fusion” work I do is never done in isolation or invention—it’s always alongside my teacher’s guidance and opinions. That’s the only way I know how to approach this respectfully: not as a tourist, but as a student.

That’s it for this time, catch you again soon!