Audio of a talk given by Dr Amy Hale at The Horse Hospital, 30 May 2019, as part of our event Towards a Critical Magic:
Identifying Barriers, Dismantling Frameworks
Modern occult practice, for many, relies on structures, ideas, values, and aesthetics that are inherently linked to conservative and reactionary thought. Examples of this are the valorisation of tradition, the idea of an initiated spiritual elite and the notion of a highly-ordered Neoplatonic universe, where everything is in its right place – including people and cultures.
These conservative traits create opportunities for activists to use the social mechanisms of occult subcultures – for example festivals and conferences, book publishing, the music and fashion industries – to promote radical political and cultural agendas without people even noticing that it has happened.
This presentation will help to identify some of the frameworks and assumptions present in occult subcultures that allow for entryism by far right political organisations. I will discuss how ideas of tradition and “nature” are exploited, and how the discourses of “free speech” are deployed to create and justify platforms for radical, intolerant politics in an occult milieu.
More from Amy Hale -
www.amyhale.me
medium.com/@amyhale93/the-pagan-and-occult-fascist-connection-and-how-to-fix-it-d338c32ee4e6
released September 17, 2019