The ghost in Clyde Wood’s house is known as “The Walker,” nicknamed for the way she walks back and forth on the creaky floorboards of his historic Victorian-era Galveston home. Wood has become used to her presence and welcomes it, even. His familiarity with the paranormal, supernatural, and mystical is all part of the job.
Wood and his wife own and operate The Witchery, one of Galveston’s most well-known magic and metaphysical shops. Founded in 2008, The Witchery is bustling with customers during spooky season, giving Wood a chance to show people that his shop is about more than just broomsticks.
The Witchery aims to sell products that allow customers to begin a journey of self-empowerment and discovery. In addition to witches’ brooms and guides to practicing witchcraft, The Witchery stocks an inventory of candles, herbs, oils, tarot cards, spiritually-themed jewelry, and religious statues and icons. The store also has shelves of books on dreams, angels, self-improvement, spiritual enlightenment, global religions, philosophy, and ritual work.
The Witchery embraces the existing spiritual world of Galveston, a place where locals have long believed the veil between the spirit world and our world is at its thinnest.
In an act of reclaiming the historically taboo culture around witchcraft, the couple named The Witchery after the historic site in Scotland where they took their honeymoon—a place where more than 300 witches were burned at the stake there during Europe’s witch trials.
Galveston’s ghost obsession isn’t a new tourist trap, even if the ghost tours do cost an arm and a leg. Communication with spirits goes back hundreds of years, when people believed they could reach beyond the veil and speak with their loved ones.
“On Galveston Island, especially during the Victorian era, everyone was very proud of the spirits they had in their homes,” said Wood. “I had a 100-year-old lady come into the shop when we first opened telling me stories about how all the well-to-do ladies got together to do table tipping and seances to communicate with the spirit world, which was trending back then.”
One of the pillars of Galveston’s ghost history was the tragic 1900 storm, which killed over 8,000 people and wiped the city of infrastructure, beginning a 126-year-old legend of ghosts wandering the island.
Wood says the legacy that the storm left behind can be felt by those attuned to the presence of lost souls.
“Galveston has a long history of spirit activity,” said Wood. “Some people who are sensitive to subtle energy can feel it. When I come over the causeway, I start to get vertigo, and it’s almost like you’re moving through this boundary.”
The Witchery has offered their psychic services to historic haunts of the island, helping put spirits to rest. One of these places is the Grand Galvez Hotel, where legend says a tragic shipwreck led a grieving widow to hang herself from the turrets.
“We sent one of our psychics over there to perform a spiritual wedding ceremony so the couple could be joined together. Two orbs came together on the bed and then flew out of the room,” said Wood.
Wood says that even though they’ve lent a helping hand to Galveston’s historic institutions, the philosophy of The Witchery is to provide individuals with the tools to practice magic themselves.
“I like to joke around that we’re the Home Depot of the occult,” said Wood. “We have everything you need to build your house, and we can show you how to build it, but we’re not gonna build it for you. I think any sort of magic or self-empowerment should be done by the person themselves.”
Wood gives short lectures to customers throughout the day on practices spiritualism and the occult, hoping shoppers will take his words to heart and find what they need to complete rituals, spells, and personal practices.
Despite a loyal base of customers, Wood says there are still attitudes toward his store that reflect the older taboo he’s trying to dispel.
“Journalists have done stories on downtown Galveston, and they’ll set up their cameras right in front of my shop, but they never show The Witchery,” said Wood. “Journalists don’t talk about us because it might stir up some bad comments on social media because they’re featuring a witchcraft store. And in fact, The Witchery is so much more than witchcraft.”
outside of witchcraft, like incense, tarot cards, and crystals. (Anna Raj/Courier HTX)
Misconceptions around witchcraft keep some tourists away throughout the year, except on Halloween, when Wood says the fear of the occult is embraced.
“As a kid, when you celebrate Halloween, sometimes you get scared, but it’s a safe scare, it’s a fun scare,” said Wood. “Even though people are scared of our shop during the year, come Halloween, they’re a kid again. And the thing is, once they get through the door, all the fears drop away and there’s a whole lot more to this store.”
Wood says that once people see that his shop is about buying the tools to change your own circumstances, they embrace it. Whether that’s solving spirit problems or practicing rituals to gain inspiration, customers can purchase resources at the store to guide them on their personal spiritual journeys.
“People come in here all the time with problems they can’t solve,” said Wood. “If you want to change things, you need to turn around and start swimming upstream to make your own path. Magic is just being in control of your own world. You can’t just let your environment carry you to where it wants to carry you. It’s just about taking control of your own destiny and making it happen.”
Wood’s customers achieve this by turning to tarot cards and psychic readings, learning and practicing personal rituals to gain self-confidence, and exploring different religions and philosophies that may be outside of their own worldview.
Whether shoppers are trying to appease ghosts or are seeking out spells to gain clarity and control, The Witchery offers year-round tools to seek out your destiny.
