Witch Please

“Witches don’t burn, honey,” Sabrina Villard, a modern-day shaman, tells me as we’re standing in a ceremony room inside her chic apartment on Robinson Road in Hong Kong’s exclusive Mid-Levels district. “We are not going anywhere.”

As a baby, Villard took her first steps in the Sahara desert, just south of Algeria, holding the hand of her great grandmother, a Bedouin shaman who lived to be 123 years old. It was from her that Villard inherited her craft. “She is still with me every day, guiding me,” Villard tells me as she looks fondly at an altar adorned with candles, flowers and a faded photo of her great grandmother.

By day, Villard is the project manager for APAC at one of the world’s biggest luxury fashion houses. By night, she guides clients on shamanic journeys, straddling the living and spiritual realms, and if some people might think that’s a little woo-woo, it turns out that there are a growing number of others who are tapping into ancient practices,