Project MUSE®: Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft.daily12026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 1 (2006) through current issueLatest Articles: Magic, Ritual, and WitchcraftTWOProject MUSE®Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft1940-51111556-8547Latest articles in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft. Feed provided by Project MUSE®A Note From the Editors
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985960
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This issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft places alongside each other contributions from two separate scholarly conversations that, although developed independently from one another, complement each other so well thematically that we cannot resist pairing them for readers. First, we feature a Book Forum reflecting on the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Douglas E. Cowan's Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet (New York: Routledge, 2005), organized by MR&W co-editor Laurel Zwissler. Second, we feature a Special Issue collection of articles addressing "Digital Magic, Digitalized Magic," which explores affective relations and technology, with Lionel Obadia as guest editor. We hope that readers will
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallA Note From the Editors2026-03-26text/htmlen-USA Note From the Editors2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®26022026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Introduction
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985961
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It is my pleasure to introduce this Book Forum on Douglas E. Cowan's Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet.1 Cyberhenge remains a foundational text in the fields of digital religion and Contemporary Pagan Studies and, as our discussion here demonstrates, continues to offer insights and provocations across several subdisciplines of the academic study of religion. A qualitative study of contemporary Pagans engaged with the early internet, the book distills a crucial moment right before the hegemony of corporate social media platforms monopolized what it means to be online. The book explores how Pagans engaged nascent cyberspaces to extend and transcend IRL religious experience and ritual, but is also realistic
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallIntroduction2026-03-26text/htmlen-USIntroduction2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®245532026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Plus ça change: Online Religious Practice, from Cyberhenge to WitchTok
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985962
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Twenty years ago when Douglas E. Cowan published Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet,1 the internet looked remarkably different. Since that time, countless websites have come and gone, each platform presenting opportunities for Pagans to connect with others, explore their beliefs, and practice their religion. And yet, despite changes in technology's appearance and functionality, Cowan's analysis of how Pagans and Witches engage with the internet remains productively prescient. Based on analysis of Pagans, Witches, and other magical practitioners who are active on TikTok, this paper explores the differences and similarities between Cowan's findings and more contemporary online activity. Despite significant
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallPlus ça change: Online Religious Practice, from Cyberhenge to WitchTok2026-03-26text/htmlen-USPlus ça change: Online Religious Practice, from Cyberhenge to WitchTok2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®525012026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Witch Bottles in Cyber Space
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985963
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Inspired by this Book Forum in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Douglas E. Cowans's Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet,1 the purpose of our contribution is to understand the modern continuation of a historic custom that came to be known as the "witch-bottle."2 The origins of witch bottles can be traced from the early modern period in Britain and North America, all the way into the present. However, no practice survives unbroken or unaltered, and the witch bottle is no exception. What happens to the witch bottle between its first known appearance in the seventeenth century and its reimagining in the twenty-first century, where it has found new life within the online subculture known as "WitchTok"?
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallWitch Bottles in Cyber Space2026-03-26text/htmlen-USWitch Bottles in Cyber Space2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®365762026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26African Traditional Religions and Afro-magick Twenty Years Post-Henge
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985964
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The online world of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) and Afro-Magick has expanded and undergone numerous changes in the twenty years since Douglas E. Cowan first published the groundbreaking work Cyberhenge.1 Let me open by saying that I began both my study and practice of the African Traditional Religions of Vodou and Voodoo in the early 1990s, while I also embraced the magic of cyberspace from the very beginning and produced the first-ever, online, searchable database of magical herbs in the early 1990s. In the decades since I have seen many innovations and catastrophes related to the religions of Vodou in Haiti and Benin and Voodoo in New Orleans, some of which I analyze in this Forum contribution, coming
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallAfrican Traditional Religions and Afro-magick Twenty Years Post-Henge2026-03-26text/htmlen-USAfrican Traditional Religions and Afro-magick Twenty Years Post-Henge2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®297692026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Reimagining Cyberhenge: Social Media, Unverified Gnosis, and the Digital Reconfiguration of Pagan Epistemology
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985965
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In the two decades since the publication of Douglas E. Cowan's Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet,1 the landscape of digital engagement has undergone a seismic transformation. Cowan's work was foundational in mapping the early relationships between contemporary Pagan religiosity and online environments, particularly focusing on how emergent internet technologies facilitated the growth of decentralized, experiential spiritualities. His analysis of cybercovens, ritual creativity, and the rise of personal gnosis as a locus of authority helped inaugurate the scholarly field now known as digital religion studies. Yet, Cowan's research was rooted in a Web 1.0 ecology, dominated by static websites, text-based
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallReimagining Cyberhenge: Social Media, Unverified Gnosis, and the Digital Reconfiguration of Pagan Epistemology2026-03-26text/htmlen-USReimagining Cyberhenge: Social Media, Unverified Gnosis, and the Digital Reconfiguration of Pagan Epistemology2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®458832026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26From Cyberhenge to the Age of the Algorithm: Magic and Technology Twenty Years Later
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985966
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Twenty years after the publication of Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet, Douglas Cowan's core insight remains valuable: the internet is not just a venue for religious activity, but a medium that facilitates both religious bricolage and spiritual expression. As digital technologies have evolved from static websites and email lists into immersive platforms, mobile interfaces, and most recently, generative AI systems, Cowan's concept of "open-source religion" provides a useful theoretical framework for exploring how digital magical practices have evolved over the last two decades.1 From virtual temples to digital divination tools, the "open-source" paradigm reveals how magical practitioners hack, remix, and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallFrom Cyberhenge to the Age of the Algorithm: Magic and Technology Twenty Years Later2026-03-26text/htmlen-USFrom Cyberhenge to the Age of the Algorithm: Magic and Technology Twenty Years Later2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®653912026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26So … This Happened: Reflections on Cyberhenge at 20
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985967
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So … this happened.I was teaching my final fourth-year course prior to retirement, and class discussion turned to the effects of social media, especially in the context of news consumption through apps such as X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok. A number of students—an alarming number, if I'm honest—indicated that they consumed the majority of their news through the latter. I asked, innocently enough, I thought, "So, how many of you get your news through Facebook?" As one, twenty-five senior undergraduates looked at me as though I had suddenly grown a second head or a third arm.I felt very old.What would become Facebook first appeared in early 2004 as an innocuous-looking app called "thefacebook." This was right about
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallSo … This Happened: Reflections on Cyberhenge at 202026-03-26text/htmlen-USSo … This Happened: Reflections on Cyberhenge at 202026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®385602026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Introduction to the Special Issue: Digital Magic, Digitalized Magic
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985968
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This special issue of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft explores the language of magic in relation to High-Tech, or cutting-edge technology. The years of 2000–2020 represent a period of quick, widespread digitalization; during this time the term "magic" became a common buzzword in the fields of Science and Technology, Computing, and Media Studies. Moreover, online and mainstream media echoed this language, with references to magic applied to a diverse range of advanced technologies: Artificial Intelligence, Connected Technologies and the Internet of Objects, Cobotics1 and Robotics. As one example among many, in July 2022, the online magazine Dazed published an article entitled "The worlds of technology and magic are
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallIntroduction to the Special Issue: Digital Magic, Digitalized Magic2026-03-26text/htmlen-USIntroduction to the Special Issue: Digital Magic, Digitalized Magic2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®812512026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Magicians in Video Games, From Mana to Hackers: Towards a Pragmatic Anthropology of Magic
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985969
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Over the past four decades, video games have become one of the most significant cultural practices of contemporary societies. In many franchises, "magic" is omnipresent: avatars cast spells, mana fuels abilities, and mythic references provide narrative depth. From the floating city of Dalaran in World of Warcraft (WoW) to the spell systems of role-playing games, magic has become a normalized element of digital universes. Yet what does this "magic" really signify, and what does it tell us about contemporary forms of play1 and imagination?This article proposes that video-game magic should not be reduced to an aesthetic ornament or to a technical mechanic of combat and healing. Drawing on a ten-year ethnography of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallMagicians in Video Games, From Mana to Hackers: Towards a Pragmatic Anthropology of Magic2026-03-26text/htmlen-USMagicians in Video Games, From Mana to Hackers: Towards a Pragmatic Anthropology of Magic2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®755382026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Virtual Magic: Animism, Metamorphosis and Syncretism in Experiencing and Reflecting on Second Life and Virtual Reality
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985970
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It has been recounted that a person who once visited Niels Bohr asked him why he, a famous and successful scientist, had a horseshoe hanging on the wall of his house. Bohr answered that he did not believe in the power of the horseshoe, but that he had been told that it works—brings luck and provides protection—even if one does not believe in it. This story illustrates very well the status of magic in contemporary culture. We tend to assume that encountering magic in the contemporary world should be rather rare, but we find it "working" in places where we would not expect it at all and among persons who—due to the rationality we ascribe to them, as well as their explicit declarations—should not have anything to do
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallVirtual Magic: Animism, Metamorphosis and Syncretism in Experiencing and Reflecting on Second Life and Virtual Reality2026-03-26text/htmlen-USVirtual Magic: Animism, Metamorphosis and Syncretism in Experiencing and Reflecting on Second Life and Virtual Reality2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®1062632026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Money and Technology as Modern Magic
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985971
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It is intriguing to discover, in revisiting one of Bruno Latour's earliest publications, that his influential perspective on human societies may have emerged while studying baboons.1 Together with Shirley S. Strum, Latour observed that while the structures of baboon societies are constantly being negotiated by individuals using only their bodies and their social skills, humans are able to use extra-somatic resources like material objects and symbols to create more stable and more extensive social systems. In their words, resources like language and technology are "strategic means of enhancing one's influence over others in increasingly more durable ways."2 In this article, I shall consider some ways in which
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallMoney and Technology as Modern Magic2026-03-26text/htmlen-USMoney and Technology as Modern Magic2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®802872026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth: Digital Innovation and Media Experiment in a Transgressive Esoteric Order
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985972
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In 1969 COUM [Cosmic Organicism of the Universal Molecular] Transmissions was founded in Hull as a musical group by Neil Megson, who was already known as Genesis P-Orridge.1 After two years all band activities were suspended, and COUM re-formed as a performance art collective. In 1975, the band Throbbing Gristle was formed by COUM members P-Orridge (1950–2020), Cosey Fanni Tutti (1951–), Chris Carter (1953–), and Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson (1955–2010).2 In October 1976, COUM Transmissions's retrospective Prostitution was hosted by the Institute for Contemporary Arts, London. Conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Fairburn, outraged at the exhibition, lambasted COUM as "the wreckers of civilisation."3
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallGenesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth: Digital Innovation and Media Experiment in a Transgressive Esoteric Order2026-03-26text/htmlen-USGenesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth: Digital Innovation and Media Experiment in a Transgressive Esoteric Order2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®1062942026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Magic in the Lab: Elements for an Ethnographic Study of (not-so) Hypermodern Magic
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985973
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Over the past fifty years, robots have played an increasingly important role in human society: in healthcare, industry, scientific research, and the military. The widespread deployment of these machines is both result and partial cause of several technological "revolutions," revolutions that are significantly changing human attitudes, beliefs, and relations to their environment. Digital technologies are frequently referenced in religious contexts, with descriptions of these technologies as a new medium for expressing transcendence and spirituality. Additionally, robotic technologies are sometimes referred to as "haunted" machines. Philosopher Jacques Ellul was among the first to identify and analyze the progressive
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallMagic in the Lab: Elements for an Ethnographic Study of (not-so) Hypermodern Magic2026-03-26text/htmlen-USMagic in the Lab: Elements for an Ethnographic Study of (not-so) Hypermodern Magic2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®957732026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Afterword: Is the Magic in "Digital Magic" the Same as the Magic in "Medieval Magic"?
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985974
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If asked today to answer the question "Do you believe in magic?" most people, regardless of whether they answered in the affirmative or the negative, would not have a shared sense of what was being asked. To some people, "magic" refers to extreme prestidigitation and sleight-of-hand practiced by celebrity showmen, and to the production of illusion. To others, it refers to anything vaguely esoteric or "woo-woo," such as astrology, chiromancy, or numerology. To the faithful (of many different religions), magic means the work of the Devil and all his tricks. And to a different group of faithful, one that includes Wiccans and contemporary Pagans, magic refers to a set of ritual practices meant to elicit specific
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallAfterword: Is the Magic in "Digital Magic" the Same as the Magic in "Medieval Magic"?2026-03-26text/htmlen-USAfterword: Is the Magic in "Digital Magic" the Same as the Magic in "Medieval Magic"?2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®401032026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Bedeviled: Jinn Doppelgangers in Islam and Akbarian Sufism by Dunja Rašić (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985975
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Dunja Rašić's recent study, Bedeviled: Jinn Doppelgangers in Islam and Akbarian Sufism, is a welcome addition to the field of jinn studies and Akbarian thought. Rašić examines the writings of Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240 CE), one of the most influential Sufi scholars and Muslim philosophers. Ibn ʿArabī's legacy is referred to as the Akbarian tradition because he was granted the moniker al-shaykh al-ʾakbar (the greatest shaykh). While Akbarian thought has been widely studied, Rašić has identified an understudied niche, focusing on Ibn ʿArabī's writings about jinn doppelgangers.Jinn are considered invisible and incorporeal beings that inhabit the material world. They are attested in the Qurʿān and ḥadīth, but
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallBedeviled: Jinn Doppelgangers in Islam and Akbarian Sufism by Dunja Rašić (review)2026-03-26text/htmlen-USBedeviled: Jinn Doppelgangers in Islam and Akbarian Sufism by Dunja Rašić (review)2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®84062026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26The Museum of Witchcraft: Objects, Practices, Symbols: A Guided Tour to the Occult by Diane Purkiss (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985976
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Diane Purkiss, an eminent professor at Oxford who has authored monographs on witchcraft and the English Civil War, guides readers into the material and symbolic world of witchcraft in Western civilization in The Museum of Witchcraft. Through a survey of one hundred witchcraft-related artifacts, Purkiss shows the rich meaning behind these objects, figures, symbols, and practices. Covering topics commonly associated with witchcraft such as the wand, broomstick, and cat, and lesser-known topics like Hoodoo, pentacle, and menhir, The Museum of Witchcraft gives a taste of the dynamic and unsettling world of the witch.Written for a popular audience, The Museum of Witchcraft is a captivating book that gives a snapshot of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallThe Museum of Witchcraft: Objects, Practices, Symbols: A Guided Tour to the Occult by Diane Purkiss (review)2026-03-26text/htmlen-USThe Museum of Witchcraft: Objects, Practices, Symbols: A Guided Tour to the Occult by Diane Purkiss (review)2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®101172026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Brainwashing: Reality or Myth? by Massimo Introvigne (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985977
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Massimo Introvigne begins his short, furiously argued, and ultimately frustrating Cambridge Element on Brainwashing with a provocative question: can it responsibly be said that the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021—"otherwise ordinary Americans," many of them well-educated (1)—had been "brainwashed" by QAnon and similar online conspiracies to commit the mob violence of that fateful day? He answers, unequivocally, in the negative. Nobody has ever been brainwashed; "brainwashing" is a false category, a myth, the product of pseudoscientific speculation, Cold War paranoia, and moral panics over religious conversions to high-commitment new religious movements such as Scientology, the Children of God, or Aum Shinrikyo.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallBrainwashing: Reality or Myth? by Massimo Introvigne (review)2026-03-26text/htmlen-USBrainwashing: Reality or Myth? by Massimo Introvigne (review)2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®98642026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26Feminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism by Brydie Kosmina (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985978
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In Feminist Afterlives of the Witch, Brydie Kosmina delineates (mostly Western) feminist debates surrounding the political legacy of those women accused in early modern witch hunts, as well as ways these debates are metabolized by popular culture, mainly through specific fictional film and television representations. Kosmina immediately signals the impossibility of determining a single, stable meaning for "the witch," writing of this cultural figure that "she exists at the intersection of multiple modes of knowledge and culture" (1). The book offers perspectives from some of these intersections on how witch-related cultural memories—not in the sense of empirical events, but in the sense of cyclical narrative
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-15T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/387/image/coversmallFeminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism by Brydie Kosmina (review)2026-03-26text/htmlen-USFeminist Afterlives of the Witch: Popular Culture, Memory, Activism by Brydie Kosmina (review)2026-03-262026TWOProject MUSE®201892026-05-15T00:00:00-05:002026-03-26