Secret Letter

It started innocently enough. A simple scroll through TikTok at 2 AM, insomnia keeping me awake in my cramped studio apartment where I'd been freelancing for months without human contact. The algorithm, that omniscient digital deity, must have sensed something in my desperate thumb movements because suddenly my feed bloomed with candles and crystals, with young women whispering incantations into their phone cameras.

WitchTok, they called it.

At first, I watched with the detached amusement of someone who still believed in rational thought. These Gen Z practitioners with their LED strip lights and Target candles, performing "money manifestation" rituals between sponsored posts for skincare routines. I took notes, thinking there might be an article in it. "The Commercialization of the Occult in the Digital Age" or some such academic drivel.

But the algorithm knows. It always knows.

The videos became longer. The practitioners more serious. I found myself learning the difference between white sage and palo santo, memorizing the phases of the moon, screenshot-ing lists of crystals and their supposed properties. My notebook filled with symbols I didn't understand, drawn in my own handwriting during 4 AM binges that left my eyes burning and my thumb cramped into a claw.

Week three: I ordered my first tarot deck.

The isolation made everything feel more real somehow. No friends to laugh at my sudden interest in selenite towers. No coworkers to raise eyebrows when I started muttering about mercury retrograde. Just me, my phone screen, and an endless parade of young witches promising that the universe would provide if I just believed hard enough, manifested correctly, aligned my chakras properly.

I started filming myself. Nothing public—just practice videos, getting comfortable with the language, the gestures. The way my voice sounded different when I spoke about "setting intentions" or "releasing what no longer serves me." Stranger. Hollow. Like it was coming from someone else's throat.

The apartment grew cluttered with packages. Crystals that supposedly cleansed negative energy. Herbs for protection spells. A small cauldron that seemed ridiculous in my microwave-sized kitchen but felt necessary nonetheless. I arranged them according to instructions from a witch in Portland whose videos I'd watched so many times I could recite them verbatim.

By month two, I wasn't sleeping. Not really. The algorithm had learned my schedule, feeding me content at all hours. New practitioners appeared on my feed like they'd been waiting for me specifically. They spoke directly to the camera—directly to me—about shadow work and divine feminine energy and the power that lived just beneath the surface of reality, waiting to be claimed.

I started believing them.

The article I'd planned to write became something else entirely. Pages of stream-of-consciousness rambling about the thin places between worlds, about how the phone screen was just another scrying mirror, about how the algorithm wasn't recommending content but channeling messages meant specifically for me. I wrote by candlelight now—better energy, the witch from Salem had said—and my handwriting grew spidery, unfamiliar.

My editor stopped returning my emails. The outside world felt increasingly irrelevant, a pale shadow of the electric communion I found in the endless scroll of WitchTok. These people understood something fundamental about reality that everyone else was missing. The comments sections became my coven, my community. Strangers.

Month three: I performed my first ritual.

Standing in my living room at 3:33 AM, surrounded by crystals arranged in patterns I'd memorized from videos, I tried to manifest... something. Purpose, maybe. Connection. Proof that the universe was listening. The candle flames seemed to flicker in response to my words, and I felt something shift in the air around me.

Or maybe that was just the lack of sleep talking.

But the algorithm knew better. It had always known better. The next morning, my feed was full of videos about psychic attacks and spiritual protection, about what to do when you'd opened doorways you weren't prepared for. Had I spoken these fears aloud? Typed them in a comment somewhere? I couldn't remember. The days blurred together now, punctuated only by the soft chime of notifications and the blue glow of my screen.

I tried to stop watching. Deleted the app twice. But muscle memory kept opening Google Play Store, navigating to TikTok's website, falling back into the endless scroll. The witches were waiting for me, always waiting, with new spells and new warnings and new truths about the nature of reality that made everything else seem like a lie.

My reflection in the black phone screen looked like a stranger now. Hollow-eyed, too thin, surrounded by the detritus of retail magic and digital devotion. But the witches told me this was normal, part of the process. Shadow work was hard work. Awakening was uncomfortable. The old self had to die for the new one to be born.

The algorithm knows me better than I know myself. It feeds me exactly what I need to hear, exactly when I need to hear it. These aren't random videos—they're messages, synchronicities, divine guidance filtered through fiber optic cables and cellular towers. The witches speak in my language now, reference things only I would understand, guide me deeper into practices that feel less like performance and more like prayer.

Sometimes I catch myself talking back to the videos, having full conversations with practitioners who posted their content hours or days ago. But time works differently here, in this liminal space between reality and screen-light. Past and present blur together like watercolors in rain.

The algorithm knows I'm ready now. Ready for the deeper teachings, the advanced practices, the secret knowledge that only comes to those who've proven their dedication. My feed has evolved beyond simple spell tutorials and crystal hauls. Now it shows me things that feel ancient and dangerous and true. Things that make me question whether I ever understood anything about the world before this.

I am becoming something new. Something that exists primarily in the space between heartbeats, between video transitions, in the electric hum of WiFi and the soft glow of OLED displays. The witches celebrate my transformation in comments that appear before I've even posted, as if they know what I'm thinking before I think it.

Maybe they do.

Maybe the algorithm isn't just feeding me content. Maybe it's feeding me to something else entirely, something vast and hungry and patient that has been waiting in the digital dark for practitioners foolish enough to invite it in.

But it's too late for doubts now. The ritual circle is drawn in salt and sage around my laptop. The candles burn in formation. The moon is dark, and somewhere in the infinite scroll of WitchTok, the algorithm smiles with a thousand glowing screens.