New York has cast a spell on them.
The Big Apple has been named the best city for witches, according to a new study by Lawn Love.
“The City That Never Sleeps is also the city of spells and sorcery,” the report’s authors said, with more covens and spiritual supply stores than any other.
The study looked at a variety of criteria, including number of candle stores, reiki healers, tarot-card readers, astrologers, and even witch-oriented Facebook groups (NYC has 42 of them).
Los Angeles; Pasadena, California; Jersey City and New Age capital San Francisco rounded out the top five most enchanted burgs out of 200 cities surveyed.
In addition to hosting WitchsFest USA, an annual convention for pagans, Gotham is also home to more than 120 cemeteries.
Michelle Gruben, a young practicing witch from Dallas, Texas, claims graveyards have “spiritual, natural, and metaphysical traits that are important and useful in magical work, especially to collect dirt for casting spells.”
Dakota St. Claire, 32, co-owner of Bushwick’s Catland Books, a hub for witches, Wiccans and wizards, says he’s not surprised by the findings from Lawn Love, a nationwide gardening and outside services provider.
“This is now our busiest time of the year,” he told The Post as customers lined up in anticipation of Halloween.
Since Catland reopened Oct. 1, business has been booming: The shop has doubled in size to meet surging demand for its otherworldly books, charms, herbs, divination tools and “coffin nails,” said to add potency to spells.
One thing St. Claire’s store doesn’t sell, however, is Hollywood-style witch costumes.
“Witches are among us, but most will probably be incognito,” said Nikki Novo, a self-described spiritual mentor who runs the Soul Academy, a school for “spirituality” in North Carolina. Nova has many New York clients and knows a witch from a wannabe at the drop of a crystal.
“Witches are the mom next door, the corporate executive, the graphic designer,” Nova said of how New York witches. “There’s no limit to how we can show up.”
The number of Americans who identify as earth-worshipping, witchcraft-practicing Wiccans or pagans has soared, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center report that pegged the number at 1 to 1.5 million Americans.
