This was terrible. Our fault for not being more careful when booking it (we booked it just hours before when leaving to go visit Salem). Even though it was a witch tour, we expected a certain level of historical background. Got none. Started with this phoney seance type ritual behind their shop that took up the first 15 minutes of the tour. The guide, Sammie, was even very disrespectful of the tragedy that happened in Salem by calling those persecuted "fake witches." When asked about the poor man who was pressed to death, she exclaimed "pancake! " Half the tour was devoted to taking you into the shops owned by the same company to try to get you to give them more money by buying their junk.
Odpowiedź od gospodarza
Jul 2015
We often use these reviews to identify where our tour and guides improve but I always agonize whether to respond to this particular type of review because it mixes halft-ruths, complete fabrications, and outright religious bigotry. But I'm responding because I want others to know what kind of tour we are and what they should expect.
This review is unfair. While we certainly touch on the history of what happened in 1692, as evidenced by your own mention of our reference to Giles Corey, who you refer to as "the poor man who was pressed to death," but we are not a history tour and have never presented ourselves as such. We are a tour about modern Witches and we explain the ways of the ancient religion of
Witchcraft through the lens of both modern practices and, yes, our history, but the history of 1692 is referenced only insofar as it helps to show the contrast between what was believed about Witches in 1692 (that we were devil-worshippers harming the community) versus who we really are and always have been. To admit that you "booked it just hours before when leaving to go visit Salem" and didn't know what kind of tour it was and then attack it for not being the type of tour you were hoping for is like visiting an Italian restaurant and then publicly reviewing them badly for not having Won Ton soup. Moreover, yes, you can argue that you might have confused us because the Witch Trials and real Witches both have the word "Witch," but so do Kitchen Witches and the Wizard of Oz and we aren't about those topics either.
In other words, this review is unfair because there is no way we could learn from or improve on our business based on this review anymore than the aforementioned Italian restaurant could start carrying Won Ton soup in order to please those people who bash them for not having Chinese food. We taught you exactly what we said we would teach you—the wondrous ways of the ancient path of the Witch.
As for the shops we visit, the first shop is the start of the tour and we're actually outside conducting a religious ceremony of Witches. The other two shops we visit, we do not visit in order to shop. In fact, we don't allow shopping during the tour. We visit them because each of them contains Witchcraft altars, neither of which contain anything for sale, but rather exist only to show the tour how Witches perform their personal ceremonies and magic within their own spaces and how those spaces work. One is an altar of the dead, where thousands of people each year come and leave messages, at no charge at all, for their beloved dead, each of whom you just disrespected far more than any of the victims of 1692. The other altar is for healing, and people come frequently to that altar and leave healing requests for their loves ones, who you also disrespected. I pondered whether I should be so staunch in my position in the face of others reading these reviews, but my commitment to the spirit and to those who come to us to find it, is too great not too.
What you so bigotedly referred to as a "phoney [sic] seance type ritual" is actually drawn from the practices and rituals of Witchcraft. They are, to be sure, distilled down to the core elements of the Craft—quite literally, since we call on the ancient elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. We also seek to empower those standing in this sacred circle that they may discover their own power from within, the power to transform their lives with real magic, a gift each of us possesses in our innermost souls—a thing that you have cast aside as "phoney" in what is perhaps the most blantant display of religious hatred I have seen yet on this website.
Finally, and I hesitate to say this because I don't want to seem petty, but Sammie is a third generation Salem Witch and is also deeply respectful of the victims of 1692. She would never call them "fake Witches," but rather explains how most or all of them were simply good Christian people following their Puritan ways to the best of their abilities, when their lives were cut short as the result of an accusation of devil worshop—something that has nothing to do at all with Witchcraft. Moreover, she did not and would never use the term "pancake" to refer to Giles Corey, who was, perhaps, the most courageous of the trial victims, for he sacrificed himself that his may children may gain the inheritance they would have lost had he been found guilty. Yes, there's a bit of history for you, as I have studied the trials myself for over 25 years.
Our collective knowledge of the trials of 1692 could probably fill volumes, but that is neither here nor there. We are not a 1692 history tour. We reference it only insofar as it helps us to contextualize the true ways of Witchcraft. We are quite clear on this and always have been. How dare you attack our religion, denigrate our way of life and our careers, and defame our tour guides with lies simply because, by your own admission, was not what you were looking for to begin with?
Blessings,
Christian Day
The Salem Witch Walk