PREVIEW

WORDS BYLINE: Seamus Duff

When a Tarot reader told Emma Griffin she would never have children with her partner, she was devastated. Refusing to accept this bleak prediction, the former fashion photographer from Cornwall took an unexpected step – she turned to witchcraft.

“I went to a psychic fair in London, and I was about 19 at the time,” Emma, now 48, recalls. She attended the fair with her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Steve and like many others at the event the young couple were keen to unlock secrets of their future together.

“We had a Tarot reading like people do at these fairs,” she says. “I was very broody at that age, but the Tarot reader said that we wouldn’t be able to have children if I stayed with my partner. I was mortified. Mortified. I really wanted to have children. And looking back, a Tarot reader shouldn’t actually say that to anyone.”

Having grown up in a spiritual environment, where her mother was a practicing witch and her father a medium, Emma turned to magic to help her conceive. She recalls, “I stole all my mum's witchcraft books and started initiating myself. I spent nine months working on spells every single day.”

Her supportive husband was also on board for changing their supposed fortune. Emma recounts, “I was like, ‘Right. I’m going to make my husband drink this and bathe in this!’ He was open to it all. He would drink all sorts of things, and undertook rituals on a certain moon phase. He's never thought I was weird. I mean, I said from the start [of our relationship] that obviously my mum's a witch and a little bit weird, but he loved it.”

Emma credits intention and manifestation as a major aspect of witchcraft and spellcasting. Using this energy and combining it with herb-based potions, she and Steve soon conceived their daughter, Holly, who arrived in 1999. A son named Harry followed in 2002 much to the couple’s delight.

Emma recalls, “We discussed, ‘Oh, it would be nice to have another kid?’ And I was already pregnant. So, Harry was a miracle.”

As a child, Emma recalls being able to see ghosts and would often talk with them. At weekends, her mother would conduct seances around the dinner table following a Sunday roast. When she was 18, her parents taught her how to use the Ouija board. At the beginning of every new year, her mother would give Tarot readings to the whole family to illuminate what the year ahead would hold. However, it wasn’t until her encounter with the cruel Tarot reader who told her she would be childless that Emma became a witch herself.

“When I first stole all my mum’s books, I stepped into becoming a traditional Wiccan witch. I had a black altar, and I had all the tools, and I would do things [in line with] the rule books. But over the years, it felt sort of unnatural to me. I wanted to be a bit more free with my witchcraft. So I'm kind of classed as an eclectic witch. I’ve learned from traditions and inherited ways of doing things. I would use, say, fire to banish something or let go of something from my life, or use fire to activate a manifestation.”

Now working as a modern Witch and spiritual guide, Emma is sharing her experiences and learnings through a new book, titled The Witch’s Way Home, which will be released on 29 October – just in time for Halloween. “It is the book I wish I had when I started this path,” she explains. “It's a roadmap of how to do it all. How to work with the different dimensions around and within us, information on wellness and how to come back to yourself, and there's an initiation at the back, so you make a commitment and initiate yourself [as a witch].”

Having practiced the art for 20 years, Emma ‘came out’ as a witch in 2020 and found there was a stigma about her practices. “I lost a lot of people,” Emma says, revealing her career as a fashion photographer took a major hit. “My editors didn't want to work with me, and models or teams turned away because I said the word witch, and I was talking about seeing dead people.”

However, she has gone on to build a huge social media following and now helps others in need. Calling back to the beginning of her own journey towards witchcraft, Emma says she has helped others conceive.

“I have a lot of people that come see me who are doing IVF or have fertility problems,” she reveals. “I help people make fertility altars, and I've had lots of people then show me their newborn babies. I would say that's my main speciality. I do have a lot of people that come to me for that. I remember setting out, thinking, ‘I'm going to quit my fashion job to help people with witchcraft’. And it just happened naturally. It doesn't feel like work. I can connect with hundreds and 1000s of people all over the world online, just helping them find who they are. It's a beautiful job, definitely.”