THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Witches have come out of the forest, landed their brooms, changed back from black cats and in every other way have stepped out of hiding and into mainstream America.

Today, witches are big business: Boutiques and chains alike are stocked with sage, crystals, spell books and other witchy accouterment, and high-end brands like Gucci have pounced. (The design house dressed models up as tarot cards for an ad campaign last year, and this year, cast Tippi Hedren of “The Birds” fame as a soothsaying crystal ball gazer in a short video.) Sephora, too, recently planned to stock a Starter Witch Kit from Pinrose in stores, but it was pulled after some protested that it was culturally appropriative.

And now there’s witch-themed adult sleep-away camp. And it wouldn’t be witchy if it didn’t start with some ritual sage burning, right?

The smoky scent permeated OlioHouse, a Victorian-style home in Wassaic, N.Y., where a group of 20- and 30-somethings arrived last Saturday after a three-hour pilgrimage from Brooklyn. They had been lured north by a spellbinding weekend of witches, art and spookiness hosted by Think Olio, a pop-up lecture series founded by Chris Zumtobel and David Kurfirst.

On Saturday afternoon, the group formed a circle on the floor of OlioHouse’s backyard barn for a two-part lecture on the economic and societal impact of the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries.

“It’s one of those where the environment will make the class,” said Mr. Zumtobel, looking out the barn window as the wind swept colorful leaves across the ground and fog spilled ominously across the mountains.

Inside the barn, Lauren Hudson, a doctoral candidate at CUNY’s Graduate Center, who researches anticapitalist organizing, explained how the witch trials in Europe and in the United States were an expression of state oppression by communities bent on growing an obedient, wage-earning labor force. Hundreds of thousands of women accused of being witches died in Europe and the United States, in cities like Salem, Mass., because they didn’t exactly fit the strictures of society.

Oh, how times have changed.

This is one assembly of witches that forgot to invite any devils and Lurch did not answer the door but a hell of a good time was had by all.