Tag: occult

Of memes and magick

Deep in the labyrinthine tags of TikTok, a group of teenage occultists promise they have the power to help you change your life. ‘Manifesting’ influencers – as they’ve come to be known – promise their legions of viewers that, with the right amount of focus, positive thinking and desire, the universe will bend to their will. ‘Most of these people [who manifest] end up doing what they say they’re going to do and being who they say they’re going to become,’ insists one speaker on the mindsetvibrations account (600,000 followers). Another influencer, Lila the Manifestess (70,000 followers) offers a special manifestation (incantation?) for getting your partner to text you back. (‘Manifest a text every time.’) Manifest With Gabby tells her 130,000-odd followers in pursuit of ‘abundance’ about ‘5 things I stopped doing when learning how to manifest’ – among them, saying ‘I can’t afford.’

It’s not just TikTok. Throughout the wider wellness and spirituality subcultures of social media, ‘manifesting’ – the art, science and magic of attracting positive energy into your life through internal focus and meditation, and harnessing that energy to achieve material results – is part and parcel of a well-regulated spiritual and personal life. It’s as ubiquitous as yoga or meditation might have been a decade ago. TikTok influencers and wellness gurus regularly encourage their followers to focus, Law of Attraction-style, on their desired life goals, in order to bring them about in reality. (‘These Celebrities Predicted Their Futures Through Manifesting’, crows one 2022 Glamour magazine article.)

It’s possible, of course, to read ‘manifesting’ as yet another vaguely spiritual wellness trend, up there with sage cleansing or lighting votive candles with Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s face on them. But to do so would be to ignore the increasingly visible intersection of occult and magical practices and internet subcultures. As our technology has grown ever more powerful, our control over nature seemingly ever more absolute, the discursive subculture of the internet has gotten, well, ever more weird.

Sometimes it seems like the whole internet is full of would-be magicians. ‘WitchTok’ and other Left-occult phenomena – largely framed around reclaiming ancient matriarchal or Indigenous practices in resistance to patriarchy – have popularised the esoteric among young, largely progressive members of Gen Z. The ‘meme magicians’ and ‘Kek-worshippers’ – troll-occultists of the 2016-era alt-Right – have given way to a generation of neotraditionalists: drawn to reactionary-coded esoteric figures like the Italian fascist-mage Julius Evola. Even the firmly sceptical, such as the Rationalists – Silicon Valley-based members of tech-adjacent subcultures like the Effective Altruism community – have gone, well, a little woo. In an article for The New Atlantis, I chronicled the ‘postrationalist’ turn of those eager to blend their Bayesian theories with psychedelics and ‘shadow work’ (a spiritualised examination of the darkest corners of our unconscious minds). As organised religion continues to decline in Western nations, interest in the spooky and the spiritual has only increased. Today, witches might be one of the fastest-growing religious groups in the United States.

Magic, of course, means a host of things to a plethora of people. The early 20th-century anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard used ‘magic’ to describe the animistic religious sentiments of the Azande people, whom he deemed primitive. There is folk magic, popular in a variety of cultures past and present: local remedies for ailments, horseshoes on doors, love charms. There is fantasy magic, the spellcasting and levitation and transmogrification we find in children’s novels like Harry Potter. And there is magic-as-illusion, the work of the showman who pulls rabbits out of hats. But magic, as I mean it here, and as it has been understood within the history of the Western esoteric tradition, means something related to, yet distinct from, all of these. It refers to a series of attempts to understand, and harness, the workings of the otherwise unknowable universe for our personal desired ends, outside of the safely hierarchical confines of traditional organised religion. This magic comes in different forms: historically, natural magic, linked with the manipulation of objects and bodies in nature, was often considered more theologically acceptable than necromancy, or the calling on demons. But, at its core, magic describes the process of manipulating the universe through uncommon knowledge, accessible to the learned or lucky few.

The canny reader may note that magic as I’ve defined it sounds an awful lot like technology, given a somewhat spiritualised sheen. This is no coincidence. The story of modernity and, in particular, the story of the quixotic founders of our early internet (equal parts hacker swagger and utopian hippy counterculture) is inextricable from the story of the development and proliferation of the Western esoteric tradition and its transformation from, essentially, a niche cult of court scientists and civil servants into one of the most influential yet least recognised forces acting upon contemporary life.

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Medieval ‘curse tablet’ summoning Satan discovered at the bottom of a latrine in Germany

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered a rolled-up piece of lead that they think could be a medieval “curse tablet” that invokes “Beelzebub,” or Satan. 

Upon first glance, the researchers thought the “inconspicuous piece of metal” was simply scrap, since it was found at the bottom of a latrine at a construction site in Rostock, a city in northern Germany, according to a translated statement.

However, once they unfurled it, archaeologists realized that the 15th-century artifact contained a cryptic message etched in Gothic minuscule that was barely visible to the naked eye. It read, “sathanas taleke belzebuk hinrik berith.” Researchers deciphered the text as a curse that was directed toward a woman named Taleke and a man named Hinrik (Heinrich) and summoned Beelzebub (another name for Satan) and Berith (a demonic spirit).

While researchers may never know who these people were, they did offer some ideas for the reasoning behind the bad blood.

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Zombies and Voodoo: The Living Dead Religion of Modern Haiti

On the list of the most well-known monsters from Hollywood movies, zombies clearly occupy one of the top positions. In their cinematographic version, they consume human flesh and brains with the explanation that this fact diminishes their pain of being dead, while humans bitten or hurt by zombies end up becoming zombies as well. In Haiti, zombies not only exist in movies, but as a day-to-day reality that is steeped in Voodoo, which revolves around spirits known as lwa. In Haitian Voodoo (or Haitian Vodou) the Iwa spirits get their names and attributes from traditional West and Central African divinities, and they are also equated with certain Roman Catholic saints.

Haiti, the first black republic, is distinguished by colonialism, poverty, zombies, and Voodoo. Situated in the Caribbean and with its capital at Port-Au-Prince, this country continues to be dominated by the existence of gangs and corruption, and the silence of the night is often interrupted by gunshots and by violent thunderstorms. The harsh living conditions in this island nation have reduced the medium life expectancy to just 43 years. Even though life goes on, just like business, each morning brings forth the necessity to clean the streets after the confrontations of the night.

The Spanish arrived in Haiti in the year 1492 and they exterminated the local indigenous population in less than ten years. Taking into consideration the fact that the Industrial Revolution had not occurred yet, slaves continued to be in high demand and colonial Haiti quickly got involved in this horrible industry. In roughly 1503, the Catholic priest Bartholomeo de las Casas came up with the idea of bringing slaves to Haiti from Africa. After this, the French rulers of Haiti, in turn, followed the Spanish model and they continued to bring slaves from Africa to Haiti with the purpose of making them work on plantations.

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Magic and Mystical Warfare in World War II

All throughout the history of war enemies have constantly tried to one-up each other. From fist, to stick, to stone, to spear, to guns and nuclear weapons, there has always been constant one-upmanship. In the old days, people often would turn to magic and dark paranormal forces to try and change the tide of conflict, but far from mere ancient superstitions and lore, this has persisted well into the modern day. During the brutal trial by fire that was World War II there were certainly those who sought to harness supernatural powers to their own ends, and both friend and enemy alike absolutely turned to magic to try to gain an upper hand.

When talking about using magic and World War II it is inevitable that we start with the Nazis. The Nazis have always made great villains and for good reason. Their twisted philosophies, seemingly all-encompassing presence during World War II, their ruthlessness, and their numerous secret projects have all sort of wreathed them with this ominous air of evil and inscrutable mystique. Throw in stories of unleashing top secret super weapons, occult powers, secret underground lairs, and quests for powerful ancient artifacts and you have the perfect recipe for a mysterious villainous organization. Yet the movie portrayal of Nazis is not always as completely so far removed from reality as one might think. Indeed, the Nazis were deep into research, expeditions, and experiments that are just as fantastic and at times downright absurd as any fiction involving them, and they were often involved in the dark world of the weird and the occult to a degree many might not be aware of. Truth is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction, and man’s propensity for evil knows few boundaries. It is a potent combination that makes the reality of the Nazis something at once stranger and far more terrifying than any movie depiction of them.

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Pennsylvania Police Charge Metaphysical Shop Owner With Practicing Witchcraft and No, We Aren’t Kidding

We have become accustomed in modern times to the term “witch-hunt” being metaphorical but a practicing witch with a retail shop has become an actual target of the police for “suspicions of witchcraft” charges, despite the fact that this is the year 2023. Her crime? Fortune-telling, in the form of tarot readings. The state has a history of persecuting witches though, back to the very founder William Penn who participated in hearings against two women accused of bewitching livestock to not produce and appearing in spectral form. Basically, in the years between 1683 and right now nobody has bothered to ask if this law is useful, so it remains there to be enforced whenever the police feel like some good ol’ fashioned religious persecution.

The shop owner, @thestitchingwitch, received an email from the Borough Manager alerting her that a recent article about her business had alerted the Chief of Police himself to her allegedly illegal activities. Social media became instantly outraged on her behalf because Americans expect to have religious freedom to practice whatever they choose. It’s also very specifically targeted from the perspective of those at all familiar with the Keystone State, famous for having a groundhog predict the future weather every February 2nd. 

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The Coven of Witches That Fought the Nazis During World War II

These weren’t the “double, double toil and trouble” kind of witches Shakespeare wrote about in “Macbeth.” They were Wiccans, led by Gerald Gardner, the man whose writings would revive the pagan belief system to the modern era. In 1940s Britain, his beliefs were far from the mainstream, but like the rest of the country, he knew he might soon find himself under Nazi domination.

Gardner may have been 55 years old and leading a coven of witches, but he was still a patriotic Briton with a stiff upper lip. So the man who would be remembered as “The Father of Witchcraft” and his followers were going to do their part to defend the island, casting a spell that would target Adolf Hitler personally and end the threat of a Nazi invasion.

Gardner grew up in a wealthy English family that ran a timber company for the British Empire. He was a sickly boy who spent more time with his nursemaid than his parents. He spent much of his young life traveling and educating himself, eventually gaining a keen interest in spirituality, religious rituals and the occult. He would return to Britain as an older man, still sickly, but took up a career as a civil servant and amateur archeologist. Meanwhile, his interest in the occult only grew.

After Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Garder settled in Highcliffe-on-Sea and joined the New Forest Coven, a group of pagan witches in southern England that he believed were continuing a pre-Christian religious order that had been kept secret for centuries. As 1939 turned to 1940, Gardner’s affection for his coven grew, as did the coven itself. They practiced folk magic in tune with their beliefs and he began writing books that would later form the foundation for the brand of Wicca that still bears Gardner’s name.

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As witchcraft becomes a multibillion-dollar business, practitioners’ connection to the natural world is changing

Witches, Wiccans and other contemporary Pagans see divinity in trees, streams, plants and animals. Most Pagans view the Earth as the Goddess, with a body that humans must care for, and from which they gain emotional, spiritual and physical sustenance.

Paganism is an umbrella term that includes religions that view their practices as returning to those of pre-Christian societies, in which they believe the Goddess was worshipped along with the gods and the land was seen as sacred. Wicca focuses specifically on the practice of the British Isles.

Witchcraft has also become a multibillion-dollar business. As a sociologist who has been researching this religion for more than 30 years, I have witnessed this growing commercialization: Witch kits are sold by large companies and in stores – something unheard of when I began my research in 1986.

This surge in popularity has changed these communities in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Groups called covens were the norm when I began my research, but as my own research shows, most Pagans now are solitary practitioners. Even while the Goddess continues to be revered, the practitioners’ connection to the natural world, at least for many, is also changing.

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Placement of ancient hidden lamps, skulls in cave in Israel suggests Roman-era practice of necromancy

A pair of archaeologists, one with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the other from Bar-Ilan University, has found evidence of Roman-era necromancy practices in a cave in Israel. In their study, reported in the journal Harvard Theological Review, Eitan Klein and Boaz Zissu analyzed artifacts excavated from the Te’omim Cave over the past 14 years.

The Te’omim Cave has played a role in the history of what is now the Jerusalem hills region west of the famous city. During the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, for example, it served as a hideout for Jewish rebels. In this new effort, the researchers studied artifacts that multiple groups have removed from the cave since 2009 as part of a collaboration between several entities in Israel. Such artifacts have been dated to approximately 2,000 years ago, during the Roman era.

Researchers have found more than 120 oil lamps, various weapons, vessels, coins and even three human skulls. Many of the artifacts were found wedged into tight spaces. In this new effort, the researchers analyzed the artifacts and the places where they were found and hypothesize that at least some of them were used in attempts to speak with dead people, a practice called necromancy.

Necromancy is the practice of enchanted conjuring, involving attempts to communicate with the dead by calling forth their spirits or visualizations of them for the purpose of divination or revealing future events, or to discover secrets. It is also generally associated with black magic or witchcraft. Klein and Zissu suggest that the placement of many of the lamps, for example, is indicative of behavior associated with necromancy—mostly because of the presence of the skulls.

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The astonishing story of the last British woman jailed for witchcraft – just 80 years ago

It’s November 25 1941, and off the Egyptian coast, HMS Barham explodes after a U-boat torpedo strike. Jets of steam, smoke and iron fragments are thrown into the sky; the ship sinks within minutes; over 800 Navy men are killed almost simultaneously. All news of the sinking is censored. Yet, in Barham’s home port, Portsmouth, the sailors’ families soon hear rumours; and visitors to the séances of Helen Duncan, a spiritualist medium, apparently witness a miracle. Helen – known as Nellie – speaks with the ghost of a Barham sailor, and reveals the ship’s loss. She makes it public long before the official announcement of the sinking.

How did Duncan know Barham had sunk? Or was her revelation just a guess, a fraud in which she charged the bereaved to listen to nothing better than gossip? In 1944, prosecutors would judge her magical knowledge to be fake, and the Barham story would be told at the end of her trial for defrauding her customers. Even so, however, instead of facing straightforward allegations of deception and theft, Duncan had been charged under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. The British public was gripped by a modern witch-trial, shocked that a 200-year-old law had been revived. In what way, people asked, could Nellie Duncan be a witch?

Duncan had flirted with the supernatural her whole life. She was born in Callander, near Stirling, in 1897, and as a child claimed the magical ability called “second sight”. On becoming an unmarried mother at 17, she was disowned by her parents, and found dusty, dangerous work in a jute mill. More hopefully, in 1916 she married a cabinetmaker, Henry Duncan – but, trapped by poverty and overwork, the couple fell chronically ill. Soon they had eight children – contraception was considered sinful – and a mountain of debt. 

Nellie Duncan took in washing as well as labouring in a bleaching plant, and in spite of all their troubles, she claimed joyful contact with God and the afterlife. As she fell into apparent trances, ghostly spirits would speak through her lips. She and Henry set up a darkened séance room where white gloop – “ectoplasm” – appeared before paying visitors, flowing out of Nellie’s mouth and nose to manifest spirits’ bodies. It looked awfully like muslin cloth, but her customers loved it.

In 1930, Duncan went to Edinburgh and London for appointments with psychic investigators. They tested her mediumship, strip-searching, photographing and X-raying her. Some observers confirmed her claims, although celebrity investigator Harry Price accused her of regurgitating muslin to fake materialisations. Nonetheless, her efforts paid off. Being accepted by the London Spiritualists’ Alliance meant the opportunity to go on séance tours of Britain, bringing fame and wealth.

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How Occultism Was a Catalyst for Avant-Garde Art

Twenty-first-century art has seen a proliferation of tendencies that can be collectively referred to as ‘the esoteric turn’. The manifestations of this proclivity show no signs of waning in the 2020s, discerned in the work of legions of contemporary artists, the recuperation of once-dismissed oeuvres, in academic research projects that reveal how occultism was a catalyst for the avant-garde and innumerable thematic institutional exhibitions. Swedish Ecstasy amalgamates all these symptoms, bringing historical figures together with living artists, all of whom originate from Sweden (or in the case of Carsten Höller, reside there). The exhibition’s opening gallery is devoted to a substantial extract from Hilma af Klint’s renowned 193-piece opus Paintings for the Temple (1906–15); this is the first time af Klint has been exhibited in Belgium, but it’s just one of several major European institutional exhibits featuring her work this year. The extent to which af Klint’s legacy has (rightfully) been validated and revived over the past two decades is remarkable, and a similar process of restitution is now taking place in response to the work of Anna Cassel, who collaborated with af Klint both in the studio and in séances as part of a small Christian Spiritualist group known as The Five. Here Cassel is represented by a suite of diagrammatic paintings – all produced over consecutive days in April 1913 – that are built upon Anthroposophical and Rosicrucian symbolism.

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