Photograph courtesy Isaac Reed
Self-described, independent Catholic Bishop Isaac Reed (not affiliated with the Catholic Church) is the founder of Witches Markets, which have expanded in recent years to cities all across Greater Cincinnati. The metaphysical farmers’ markets are the embodiment of Reed’s belief that organized religion and witchcraft can coexist—and even have some common attributes in practice. Cincinnati Magazine talks to Reed about his spirituality, the Witches Markets, and what to expect in the years ahead.
I know you wear many hats: You run the Witches Markets, you are a business owner, you work in the spiritual industry as well. What can you tell me about what you do?
I own the Witches Markets. I also own my own shop called Arius & Phos on Main Street in Hamilton. I just launched the Hamilton Market, kind of like a farmers’ market, running through October 30 on every Thursday evening. As far as my background with spiritual work, I’m actually an ordained, consecrated Catholic bishop. I was an exorcist for several years. At one point, director of the International Catholic Association of Exorcists. I’ve been on television on Dead Files Revisited as their first exorcist—that was in the episode “Forgotten and Burned Alive,” which took place in Seattle, Washington. Ordained since 2001 and consecrated here in Cincinnati as a bishop in April 2010.
How did you find yourself in that line of work?
I started college in 1997 at St. Ambrose University for opera performance and music education, but I’ve always had a spiritual calling since I was a little boy. We weren’t Catholic at all growing up. I remember one evening, looking at my mom, and I was like, ‘I want to be a Catholic priest when I get older.’ And she’s like, ‘No, you’re not. Absolutely not.’ We had been going to a Pentecostal-style church at the time, and she took [my younger brother and I] to the church more at that point. And then about a year later, I said, ‘Well, since I can’t be a Catholic priest, I want to be a monk.’ And she’s like, ‘No.’ She’s trying to indoctrinate me heavily into this Pentecostal lifestyle and eradicate any form of Catholicism out of me. It didn’t work.
It ended up where I boycotted pretty hard, went into Wicca and witchcraft right after that, and went to college. I was an opera major. I had to take New Testament class and Father Edmund Dunn, I very clearly remember, was my shifting point. My first year of college, I was skipping his class all the time. He told me to come down to his office…and so I went and he’s talking to me about how he, too, used to be a music ed major before going to the priesthood. We talked for a while, and the next thing you know, I switched my major. I went over to religious studies and divinity, got ordained in 2001 after completing my degrees, and then had to parish for a while.
Next thing I know, I’m getting tapped to go into the deliverance division for exorcisms. My background is why they wanted me because I had studied witchcraft and Wicca so much. Next thing I know, they want me to be assistant director…and not even three months later, I was named director. I served for about four or five years as director.… It was a lot of work, a lot of stress. You’re heading up clergy all around the world and getting potential exorcism cases all around the world coming in, pouring in daily, and you’re passing out workload assignments and making sure everyone’s up on credentialing and it’s a lot of work. It was more administrative than I wanted it to be. I missed the hands-on aspect. So, I was very happy to walk away.
Now, I try to incorporate some of that into my shop. With the Witches Market, I’ve always had an affinity toward small business owners, because my family have always been small business owners…I wanted to find a way to help people who have this niche of metaphysical actually find their clientele. I watched this organization in Texas try to put together these types of markets for several years. I thought I could improve on that and launched [a market]. It was May 2022. It started as the New Moon Market in Hamilton. I started with about 13 vendors, and by October of that year, I had about 55 vendors, and we became the Witches Markets. Next thing I know, the following year, I’m expanding in different cities. I’ve had cities reach out to me and ask, ‘Can you bring this to our area? We’d love to have a Witches Market here,’ which I’ve never dreamt I would hear those words from anybody, but it happens. So now we’ve expanded to three cities, two states, expanding again next year as well.
In your view, is there an intersection between Catholicism and witchcraft?
Most people don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to be totally honest. There’s ritual. They both have rituals. Every Sunday that you go to Mass, you’re doing a ritual. Just like in witchcraft, when you have Wicca specifically, you are talking about drawing in the moon, drawing in the goddess, drawing in the god for that, as well as the priest and priestess or high priest and high priestess, depending on their cousins. So it’s the same structural integrity of invoking angels or invoking elements and then invoking either the Christ or the god and goddess to basically transform you to accomplish something.
And then it goes beyond that, where you have Catholicism, you’re praying with the saints and constantly doing prayers. Whereas spellwork is the same equivalent as prayers. You’re asking for something to change in your life or change for someone else, and you’re manifesting that. So either way, be a prayer or spell, is a manifestation. In Catholicism, we talk about form, matter, intent. Did you use the correct form to celebrate the Mass? Was it your intention to do this? And did you use the correct matter, the objects used, to make this happen? Spellwork [also has] form, matter, intention. Did you use the right candle pillar? Did you have the right herbs? Was the moon in the right location, or the sun or this planet? Form, matter, intent—it takes place on both sides. So there’s a lot of similarities that people don’t want to talk about and don’t want to recognize. It’s just a difference of what name you’re prescribing.
Do you use Wicca or witchcraft in your everyday life?
I use hoodoo. Hoodoo is using the book of Psalms from the Bible to actually accomplish. The book of Psalms can be used like spellwork. They’re prayers that can be transformed. All of my candles I make for customers, I use that—it’s a form of hoodoo tradition. I’ve kind of transformed out of Wicca, more towards a hoodoo spiritual practice.
What does that do?
For instance, one of my candles, Dark Moon, is kind of a form of an exorcism in a candle for clearing away generational bloodline curses and helping somebody get their life back on track. I even use an exorcism prayer with the hoodoo prayers when I put my hands over the candle. I have another candle called Purify, which is what I call the exorcism in a candle, because I have holy water and sacred prism that I consecrated myself and basically pour exorcism prayers into the candle. That way, when someone uses it, it’ll help you use exorcism in their room. It’s not the full power of the exorcism, like bringing a Catholic priest to perform it, but it does give some relief. I’ve had a lot of customers that have used it to get rid of minor annoyances, as I call them.
Is there a decent community of people that practice hoodoo or other forms of witchcraft in Greater Cincinnati?
Absolutely. There is a large following. I mean, if there wasn’t a large following, my markets wouldn’t be doing as well.
You said in 2022, Witches Markets started as the New Moon Market, that you had 13 vendors. When did things really start to take off?
It took off so fast. We started with 13, and the next month, we jumped up to about 18, and then it kept growing and growing so quickly, where by the time we hit Halloween Market for October, we were about 55 vendors. I just remember sitting back thinking, This was so fast. I never anticipated it to be so fast. There was media coverage there I didn’t even know about. We started in 2022, where I needed to expand because I had other cities reaching out, so we expanded a little bit, and then started bringing in musicians, and next thing we had fire dancers wanting to perform there, and we had belly dancers performing, food trucks were starting to get involved. It just grew. Some people started calling it a festival, and I kept saying, ‘No, no, it’s a metaphysical farmers’ market.’ In my opinion, at that point, it grew into something more than I anticipated. We launched into Springfield for a few months. We headed up towards Dayton, Ohio, and then Milford and now Covington and still in Hamilton. Hamilton’s been fantastic this whole time with it. They love it. They count it as one of their staples.
For someone who hasn’t been before, walk me through what’s available at the Witches Markets.
It is a metaphysical farmers’ market, so everything there is metaphysical based. The vendors have to be either witchy, pagan, oddity, curiosity-based, something along those lines that are metaphysical. You’re going to find different books on topics of Wicca, witchcraft, herbology, paganism. You’re going to find vendors with crystals, candles of all types—be it Zodiac candles, spell candles, and tension candles. We have jewelry vendors that have to make their own jewelry. That’s the other thing is, because I want to keep that farmers’ market feel to it, I don’t allow commercial stuff to come in. Oddities, curiosities, so you can buy moths, butterflies, skulls. I’ve got one oddity vendor that actually sells Catholic relics as well, so he’ll have Catholic statuaries, rosaries, crucifixes, in addition to old oddity items from doctors’ offices or something along those lines. We have some clothing vendors that sell cloaks, witches hats, cross-stitch items that they made for patchwork. It’s just a huge variety.
With markets in different locations, is it the same vendors showing up at every market or does it vary based on the area?
I work with about 160 different vendors I have amassed over the years. Some of them do one show a season. Some of them do a couple shows a season. Some of them do the entire season. I’ve got several vendors who started on day one. I think about nine of them started with me from the very first market and are still with me today.
Is this market for people who are more knowledgeable and a part of the witchy community, or is it also a place for people to learn or are just curious about checking it out?
It’s for everybody, whether you’re just starting or you’ve been practicing for your entire life. It’s not just a market, it’s a fellowship. I love the fact that people show up and they greet one another and talk to one another. And every vendor is so knowledgeable in their own way, because everybody has a different technique that they use for how they spiritually practice. They’re more than willing to help everybody that comes along, from a brand new neophyte to the most experienced in their craft. They’ll guide them, answer questions. That’s one of the things I do love is our vendors don’t have to be reminded of this; they just naturally took on that role of being that source of knowledge.
What can we expect from this year’s market?
I am launching for the first time ever, a brand-new concept: Evening Star Fair. We are transforming the Witches Market in Milford for October into a witches village for one night only. I’m a renaissance geek, I love renaissance fairs. This is our nod to renaissance fairs. Every year, we’ve asked our vendors to dress up in any costume they want. This year, though, it’s a little bit different for Milford. They have to decorate their booth like a cottage. They had to create an actual character of a witch, wizard, or warlock. They could choose if it was going to be a good or evil or chaotic or anything they wanted within that realm, kind of like [creating a character] in Dungeons and Dragons, and they were told to stay in that character that entire night and create their booth to match who their character is and what type of shop they are. This is a whole new concept. We’ve got live bands performing, we have a kids section with kid games this year as well as face painters. And it’s just the starting point, which is only going to get larger and better each year. I’ve told the vendors, if you say you’re a bad witch, I don’t want you talking about healing and doing good things in your booth. Stay in that character. Talk about cursing and hexing and doing evil things. Make it fun, make it authentic.
Are the vendors pretty excited about this?
They are excited about it. They’ve been working on this for a few months. It’s going to be a blast.
What day is that going to be?
October 4 in Milford. It’s at the Riverside Park in Milford.
Earlier, you said this is like a fellowship. What does this community and this type of spirituality mean to you?
This has been my life. Seeing people just targeting their craft, asking questions—it fills me up. It really does. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what religious or spiritual path you walk—we’re all serving the same thing: the greater good, the greater cosmos, the universe, God, whatever name you prescribe to it. For me, this is my life. I was a very spiritual being to begin with, but it’s great seeing that out of new ones, and hearing people still talk about it. These women and men who come to the market in their 60s are talking to these younger generations, letting them ask them, ‘What did you buy?’ and talk about their spiritual choice and life path as well. It’s refreshing and it’s very fulfilling.
What else should people know about the Witches Markets?
We’re constantly updating things on our website. For instance, we have our Masquerade Ball in March 2026. We are launching something new called Veiled Realms in April 2026, which is going to be a metaphysical, mystical, paranormal convention where we are bringing in vendors from the Witches Markets and new ones that are more paranormal-based. We are going to have speakers and panels on things from witchcraft and herbology and crystals to things like demonology and paranormal activity and that kind of stuff. You’ll find all types of great speakers, authors, in addition to the vendors. One of the other things we’re still building and growing is our yule market, which we call our Krampus Market, here in Hamilton in December. Our goal is to get enough people to dress up like Krampus to be a little bit of Krampus parade this year. I love trying to bring back that old-world, Germany feel into the U.S.
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