Gen Z Is Paying Witches for Love Spells Instead of Swiping

The group chat has moved on from dating app screenshots. These days, Gen Z's love life runs through tarot spreads, psychic readings and paid love spells — and the numbers are bigger than the jokes suggest. Almost two-thirds of Gen Z adults, 64 percent, say they have tried at least one spiritual, psychic or manifestation-based practice to improve their love lives, according to a new survey from DatingNews, a dating industry news outlet. Nearly one in five has paid real money for a love spell, most often through sellers on Etsy or TikTok.

The survey was conducted online by Cherry Data Signals in August 2026 and covered just over a thousand U.S. adults across ages, incomes, regions and political affiliations, with a margin of error of about three points. Respondents were asked whether they had tried six tactics: manifestation or scripting, seeing a psychic, paying for a spell or love ritual, seeing a tarot reader, astrology or compatibility charts, and crystals or other spiritual tools. They were also asked why they tried them, whether they believed they worked, and whom they trust most for dating advice. The findings were covered by CNBC this month and debated on The View, but the full data set published by DatingNews is where the details get interesting.

Love Spells Are a Real Line Item Now

Gen Z led nearly every category in the DatingNews survey. Among the generation, 29 percent said they had tried manifestation or scripting, a quarter had seen a psychic and 17 percent had visited a tarot reader. Nineteen percent said they had paid for a spell or love ritual — compared with 16 percent of millennials, six percent of Gen X and just two percent of baby boomers. Across all generations, one in ten respondents said they had paid for a love spell. DatingNews frames the trend as a response to dating app fatigue, writing that there is a thriving online marketplace for love spells and rituals, which suggests young people are finding something in magic that they cannot find in the dating industry.

Millennials were not far behind in the mystical turn: just over half, 51 percent, said they had tried at least one of the practices, and they were the most likely generation to use astrology or compatibility charts. Interest drops sharply with age — a quarter of Gen X and only 12 percent of boomers said they had tried anything on the list. Older adults leaned toward the classics: astrology and psychics rather than paid spells bought from strangers on the internet.

Gen Z Means It More Than Older Generations Do

What separates Gen Z is not just the participation rate but the seriousness. Only 15 percent of Gen Z respondents said they tried a magical tactic for entertainment, compared with 40 percent of baby boomers. More than one in five said they wanted a relationship to improve, versus eight percent of boomers, and 13 percent — the highest of any generation — said they used a magic-based method to try to win back an ex. Millennials were the most likely to use magic to attract someone new, at 16 percent. DatingNews suggests it all comes down to control and the power of suggestion: trusting something mysterious requires only faith, while hiring a dating coach would mean confronting parts of yourself you may not be ready to face.

That hunger for control tracks with how expensive and high-stakes dating has become. According to Zelle's New Economics of Dating Report, based on a survey of eighteen hundred Gen Z and millennial daters conducted in August 2026, 84 percent said rising costs had changed their dating lives, and more than half of Gen Z respondents admitted they had ghosted, blocked or unfollowed someone to avoid paying them back after a date. When a single date can wreck a week's budget, it is not hard to see why a tarot reading starts to look like the affordable option.

Do Love Spells Actually Work? Ask the Believers

Plenty of younger respondents think their rituals helped — at least partly. Among Gen Z, 17 percent said their method worked and another 29 percent said it kind of worked, for a combined 46 percent. Millennials were the most confident group, with nearly half saying the same. Older adults were far more skeptical: two-thirds of boomers and 57 percent of Gen X said their attempt did not work. DatingNews itself is careful on the key question, noting that whether hiring an online witch or a social-media tarot reader actually improves anyone's love life is impossible to say. A new relationship after a spell could have happened for entirely ordinary reasons, and someone who paid for one may simply be more inclined to credit it.

There are real limits to what the survey proves. As reported by StudyFinds, which published a detailed analysis of the data, this was a commercial opinion survey rather than a peer-reviewed study: it measures what respondents say they did and believe, not verified outcomes, and the generational subgroups are smaller than the full sample, so their margins of error are wider. The survey was also commissioned and published by a dating industry outlet. Still, the direction of the trend is hard to dismiss — and love spells are beating the professionals in at least one metric: eight percent of Gen Z said they trust a love spell most for dating guidance, compared with seven percent who trust a dating coach. Friends and family, meanwhile, show the clearest age divide of all: only 23 percent of Gen Z named loved ones as their most trusted source of dating advice, compared with half of boomers.

The most trusted advisor of all, though, was not mystical in the slightest. Nearly two in five Gen Z respondents, 38 percent, said they trust therapy more than anything else when it comes to dating guidance. The generation will try almost anything in the hunt for love — tarot, psychics, paid spells — but it still puts a licensed professional at the top of the list. As DatingNews puts it, the only magic more powerful than a love spell is the comfort we find in each other. For Gen Z, that comfort increasingly comes with a receipt from an online marketplace. For more on how money pressure is reshaping young romance, read our earlier piece on the Gen Z sex recession or browse the Sexual Wellness topic page.