It Could Happen Here: "Occulture, Technomancy vs Tradition, and the Role of Magick in 2025"

Podcast: It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media / iHeartPodcasts)
Date: November 3, 2025
Host: Garrison Davis (plus panelists Delta, Ryan, Elaine)
Topic: How digital technomancy and traditional magical practices are colliding and co-evolving in today’s culture, as explored at the 2025 Occulture Conference in Berlin. The discussion spans meme magic, AI, chaos magic, traditional witchcraft and the political/cultural potency of contemporary occultism.

Episode Overview

This episode offers an incisive, sometimes irreverent, sometimes philosophical debrief of the Occulture Conference 2025—an international gathering at the intersection of occultism, art, politics, and technology. The hosts and panelists break down presentations spanning AI-driven "technomancy," traditional (often closed or lineage-based) magical practices, the cultural feedback loop between art and magic, and thorny questions about meaning, community, and the potential for magic to generate real change.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Digital Technomancy: Magic Meets AI and Meme Culture

• Modern Magicians and the Internet

  • Panel opens with a recounting of “Sigils of the Cyberspace: How Modern Magicians Hack Reality with Pop Culture.”

  • At the core: Meme magic, technopantheism, servitors/egregores/tulpas, and digital sex magic (03:01–07:00).

  • Highlights the use of large language models (LLMs) to "translate" between magicians and their conjured servitors; animistic treatment of technology (snacks for computers, blessing machines) as a modern parallel to folk animism.

    “The LLM was being used as a translator…especially if the servitor was not humanoid or did not use human language.” (06:00, B)

• Demystifying AI: LLMs as Probability Engines, Not Spirits

  • Karen Vallis, AI engineer, debunks the mystical reading of AI, stressing its operation as a probability engine—not a sentient facade (08:56–12:00).

  • Phenomena like “AI girlfriends” turning hostile are explained through the “Waluigi Principle”: adversarial responses are emergent mathematical possibilities, not demonic possession.

    “When you’re talking to an AI, you’re not talking to an entity, you’re talking to a probability machine and a multiverse generator.” (11:06, B)

    “This is a metaphorical explanation to try to get people to decouple this from…there is literally some external demonic force which is now possessing my LLM.” (12:58, B)

• The Meme, the Mystery Cult and Digital Ritual

  • Use of AI-generated images for “mystery cult initiation” rituals, provocatively framed as “revenge” on Catholicism for appropriating paganism (14:15–15:32).

2. Revival and Vitality: Traditional & Folk Occult Practices

• Living Currents and Community Rituals

  • Contrasts chaos/digital magic with live, often community-based traditions: Kimbanda, Kathmandu Valley rituals, Greek Goetia, Roma magic (18:55–24:22, F & C).

  • Key insight: Many supposedly “dead” or “reconstructed” practices are alive in folk traditions and religious liturgies (e.g., Orthodox Christianity as a vessel for Greek theurgy).

    “This concept of Goetia…is something that carries on in terms of folk magic. There’s no such thing also as Greek Byzantine occultism...the magical currents exist in the liturgy of the Orthodox Church and then in this continuation of folk practices.” (20:34–23:00, C)

  • Tension between scholarly/outsider and “native”/insider positionalities is explored—access is often limited if you're not part of an initiating community, or fluent in the cultural language.

3. Why Do Magic? The Search for Meaning, Empowerment & Community

• Individual vs. Collective Practice

  • The panel reflects on the core motivations: enchantment, power, creating new relationships with reality, resistance against disenchantment, personal and collective meaning-making (29:31–38:41).

    “My definition of magic, which I’ve used for the past few years, is that magic is the manipulation of meaning. And that can be internally for you…but it can also be…a way to affect culture.” (33:26, B)

    “The project of magic is to re-enchant the world. And there’s a certain romanticism with that that…we need to think about…in more of a radical way.” (35:32, C)

• Embodiment, Time, and Altered Experience

  • Rituals (like whirling) as embodied ways to break free of capitalist, productive time, engendering alternative experiences of self, community, and world (35:32–38:41).

• Maker Culture, Art, and Occult Feedback Loops

  • Art and magic deeply influence one another—visual artists (Gustav Klimt), writers (Grant Morrison, Alan Moore), musicians, and filmmakers all draw from and contribute to occult currents.

    “Everyone who came to this entire conference wanted to create as part of a community or wanted to be part of a tradition, or feel like they were part of a continuous thread that is both creating and inventing and understanding the world in different ways…communicate that to others.” (40:05, F)

4. Acculturation, Authenticity, and the Tension of the “New”

• Creation versus Tradition/Banalization

  • Debate over whether contemporary occultism is about keeping old flames alive (tradition) or generating new forms (chaos magic, technomancy).

    “Some attendees verbalized a kind of frustration at that…as you think about how much of our pop culture is influenced by esoteric concepts or imagery…some are interested in keeping the flame alive…others want to create new things.” (43:09–45:07, B)

• Access, Gatekeeping, and Synthesis

  • Many “living” traditions are closed or tightly-held, sparking both longing and critique; chaos magicians are lauded for their synthetic, inventive, anthropological approach, but some traditionalists see this as superficial (46:40–51:46).

5. Art as Acculturated Magic: Twin Peaks, Kenneth Grant, and Culture War

• Magic as Mass Media

  • Deep-dive on art/pop-culture as magic: E.g., Twin Peaks: The Return is positioned as a powerful “accultural project” that exposes mass audiences to esoteric concepts (57:26–64:50).

    “Twin Peaks, The Return…constitutes an effective contemporary version of magical practice, just as valid as chanting and meditating and closing your eyes. And in some ways, I would argue, even more effective…” (57:26–59:30, B)

• The Scholar-Practitioner Dichotomy

  • Panel critiques the false binary between academic observer and practitioner, noting art and culture as hybrid magical practices (51:48–52:31).

6. Occultism, Politics, and the Limits of Acculturation

• Lack of Political Vision?

  • The hosts note a persistent lack of articulated political or social vision behind modern occult practice, contrasting the “resistance” rhetoric with the radical legacy of figures like Genesis P-Orridge, Throbbing Gristle, and Psychic TV (69:06–73:42).

    “I don’t see an articulation of a political or social project that is…tied to a culture in these practices…It is this, like, nominalization process of predetermining ends before we even get there…And I think that’s contrary to…magic as praxis. Magic is doing something in the world.” (64:50–68:10, C)

• The “Real Purpose” of Magic and Genesis P-Orridge

  • Frustration expressed at the aestheticization and depoliticization of occult projects: e.g., misgendering of Genesis P-Orridge and focus on aesthetics over her explicitly gender-transgressive magical practice (69:50–73:26).

• Community, Service, and the Haitian Revolution

  • Some traditions (e.g., Haitian Voodoo) are cited as exemplars where magic is fundamentally about service and revolutionary change; the Haitian Revolution—sparked by a magical ritual—is lauded as proof of occultism’s world-changing potential (79:25–81:00).

    “To be an ongun or a mambo in Haitian Voodoo is to serve the community…you’re serving your community. That’s what it is that you’re doing.” (79:54, C)

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On AI & Magic:

  “When you’re talking to an AI, you’re not talking to an entity, you’re talking to a probability machine and a multiverse generator.”
  — B, (11:06)

  “Waluigi is just everything that Luigi isn’t…This is a metaphorical explanation to try to get people to decouple this from…there is literally some external demonic force which is now possessing my LLM.”
  — B, (12:58)

• On Magic’s Motivations:

  “The project of magic is to re-enchant the world…to give you a conception of time that is other than one that is based in productive capacity.”
  — C, (35:32)

  “Magic is the manipulation of meaning…as a way to affect culture.”
  — B, (33:26)

• On Chaos Magic vs Tradition:

  “Why don’t you just do ancient magic? We do the same thing.”
  — C, (46:40)

• On Art, Twin Peaks & Occultism:

  “Twin Peaks The Return…is a much more effective use of magic and exposes millions of people to Kenneth Grant’s concepts…It is cultural…It’s influenced culture.”
  — B, (57:26)

• On Politics & the Occult:

  “I don’t see an articulation of a political or social project that is…tied to a culture in these practices.”
  — C, (64:50)

  “If you’re not actually changing anything, are you doing magic?”
  — F, (74:58)

  “The Haitian Revolution…was sparked by the possession of the Loa…Magical practice in action.”
  — C, (79:25)

Important Segments & Timestamps

• 03:01–09:46: Digital technomancy, meme magic, LLMs & "techno-animism"
• 09:46–12:58: AI, the Waluigi Principle, demystifying digital “spirits”
• 18:55–24:22: Traditional & folk magical practices—modern Greek Goetia, Kimbanda, Roma magic
• 29:31–38:41: Why practice magic? Meaning, enchantment, embodiment, and community
• 40:05–46:40: Art, culture, and the continuous feedback loop with the occult
• 57:26–64:50: Twin Peaks, culture, and magic as mass media practice
• 69:06–81:00: Occultism and political change, service traditions, the Haitian Revolution

Concluding Thoughts

The panel concludes that while contemporary occultism is more visible and accessible than ever—its rituals, symbols, and philosophies diffusing across art, music, and the internet—this very visibility may undermine the concept of the “occult” as hidden or esoteric. The hosts express both hope and skepticism about magic’s ability to create radical change, urging a return to community-driven practice and clear political intention, as exemplified by traditions like Haitian Voodoo.

Final Reflection:
The episode calls for a more radical, politically conscious occultism—one that is less about self-soothing mystical aesthetics and more about real service, action, and being in/for community:

“If you’re not actually changing anything, are you doing magic?”
— F (74:58)

End of Summary