It Could Happen Here – Occulture, William S. Burroughs, and Generative AI

Podcast: It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Host: Garrison Davis
Panelists: Delta, Ryan, Elaine
Release Date: October 30, 2025
Theme: A deep dive into the 2025 Occulture Conference in Berlin, the intersection of the occult and mainstream culture, the legacy of William S. Burroughs, and debates over generative AI's place in magical/creative practice.

Episode Overview

This "spooky special" episode finds host Garrison Davis and a panel of fellow magicians and researchers reporting from the Occulture Conference—a major biennial gathering on the fusion of occult practice and cultural trends. They explore the meaning of "occulture," the unexpected centrality of William S. Burroughs to modern magical thought, and the heated, sometimes uneasy arguments surrounding generative AI’s role in creativity and magical work. The tone is irreverent, deeply nerdy, occasionally combative, and brims with both skepticism and fascination.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Occulture Conference and the "Magical Travel Team"

[03:29–06:50]

• Garrison narrates his journey to Berlin, creating a vivid, satirical intro recalling occult atmospheres: “I entered this dark, looming building and inside the air was thick with smoke and incense. Figures dressed in all black emerged from the fog… Witches, wizards, and magicians.”
• The panel is introduced:
  • Delta (Belgian magician/artist): Focuses on chaos magick, Mark Fisher, CCRU, metafiction and hyperstition.
  • Ryan: Vajrayana, Greco-Egyptian, Haitian Voodoo practitioner, ex-academic (philosophy, rhetoric, economics). “My contributions are going to be wide and varied.” [07:28]
  • Elaine: Artist/researcher in Renaissance grimoires, folk magic, chaos magic.

2. Defining "Occulture"

[08:26–14:27]

• Garrison reads Genesis P-Orridge’s formulation: “Our sensory environment is whispering to us…this concealed dialogue between every level of popular cultural forms and magical conclusions is what we named ‘occulture.’” [09:46]
• Occulture acts both as:
  • An artistic/personal mystical current and
  • An “offensive element targeted against society and perceived systems of control.”
• The panel traces the commodification of the occult—the drift from radical mysticism to marketable trend.
  • “Even creative works, which are genuine explorations…get turned into products consumed by a mostly secular audience.” [10:57]
• Elaine: Naming “occulture” is “an attempt to sort of regain control over the ways that magical practice and greater society seem to influence each other.” [13:41]

3. How Occulture Varies (Europe vs. US)

[14:27–15:30]

• In the U.S., occult conferences veer towards neo-paganism and New Age, often with suspicion of academic analysis.
• Berlin’s Occulture is more intellectual and cross-disciplinary.
  • Ryan: “There is a resistance to the kind of academic styling that we saw very prevalent at this conference…”

4. Occult Practice, Ritual Design, and Conference Opening

[15:30–19:11]

• Garrison clarifies they’re discussing “magic with a K”: rituals to change self/reality, rooted in hermetic, pagan, and folk traditions.
• The Occulture opening ritual involved a blindfolded woman with scales; attendees set intentions into stones, placed on the scales to create equilibrium.
• Ryan: Praises the ritual as highly inclusive, spooky, and genuinely mood-setting: “It did an exceptional job of actually setting intention and adding to…the vibrations that we all felt as we engaged and were present.” [18:03]
• The conference theme: the “cosmic craftsman” as a figure of resistance, reclaiming rhythm and sacred time.

5. William S. Burroughs: Surprise Occult Icon

[25:53–38:18]

• Rather than typical occultists like Crowley or Dee, William S. Burroughs emerges as the most referenced figure.
• Ryan: Recognizes Burroughs and collaborator Brion Gysin are closer to late Surrealists than Beat poets—a “more compelling” connection given their cut-up experiments. [27:31]
• Garrison: For Burroughs, magic is “resistance” and “culture jamming”—disrupting the “one god universe” and mechanisms of social control.
• Magic, technology, and the manipulation of language/time are central:
  • Elaine: “Tech available at the time can be a magical instrument…for William Burroughs, it’s tape recorders, words and language.” [30:06]

6. The Cut-Up Method Explained

[31:22–32:47]

• Garrison: “Cut up the words or pieces of sentences, jumble them up…and see what sort of thought that generates, what kind of meaning can be constructed through that combination.”
• Elaine: Early cut-ups even involved literally cutting through book pages to see new combinations.
• Ryan (quoting Burroughs): “When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” [32:54]
• The method aims to bypass linearity, break master narratives, and act as psychic/cultural subversion—a tradition that ties through to contemporary concerns.

7. Cut-Up, Reality, and Control

[34:44–39:58]

• The cut-up is not just art—it’s active “reprogramming,” attacking reality’s reproduction mechanisms (from language to media).
• The “third mind” theory: collaboration generates emergent creativity and intelligence.
  • Ryan: “When two people collaborate, a third mind, or intelligence, communicates with you through the revelation of the new that was already present.” [34:52]
• Burroughs’ “circuit jump” tactics: using replayed sound recordings as psychic “attacks” (cf. Burroughs shutting down a café by playing disruptive recordings outside it). [38:24]

8. Hyperstition and Reality Engineering

[39:16–41:31]

• The move from Burroughs to the CCRU/Mark Fisher’s concept of “hyperstition”—how repeated fictions (including political/moral panics) become real via cultural repetition.
• Garrison: “This is part of how reality can get formed… falsehoods, through repetition and dissemination, become self-manifest.”

9. Occultists vs. the Experts of Reality Manipulation

[41:54–42:14]

• Elaine (sarcastically): “Are you saying that media companies are currently cutting up reality to shape it in the image of the people who fund them?”
• The panel argues that modern media corporations—or political actors—are often more effective “magicians” than actual occultists, when it comes to reality manipulation.

10. Burroughs the “Doer” vs. Philosophical Contemplation

[47:45–49:24]

• Ryan: “The point is, those [philosophical] texts talk about similar things. What’s unique about Burroughs is that he’s actually doing shit… He was actively involved in this practice, which again makes him far more magical than most occultists.” [48:45]

Generative AI Debates Within Occulture

1. AI as Magic? – Panel Discussion

[49:24–53:50]

• Post-Burroughs, the conference’s most contentious subject is generative AI: Is it magic? Art? Or corporate theft?
• Elaine: Audience questions orbited around whether prompting AI art is akin to magical trance, channeling, or the cut-up method. Most panelists were “very annoyed at the question.” [53:10]
• Ryan: Some conceded AI could theoretically be a magical tool (techne), but the analogy with the cut-up method is weak.

2. The Third Mind & AI: A Philosophical Friction

[55:03–59:49]

• Elaine: “Does it matter that corporations are controlling the algorithm…?” She and others saw AI as ultimately the product and extension of corporate interests, not spirits or muses.
• Ryan: “When one interacts with any form of Large Language Model or ChatGPT... that’s one mind. Can you tell me where the second is?” [58:59]
  • He argues LLMs fail to create the dialectical “third mind”—they are not true collaborative, emergent intelligences.
• Garrison & Elaine: AI’s outputs rely on scraping the “toilet bowl of human production,” as opposed to the intentional, creative cut-ups by a mind.
• Kate Lady (panelist, paraphrased): “No, this is bullshit. Let’s actually look at the material implications,” citing environmental impact and labor exploitation. [56:25]
• Garrison: “These large language models and generative AI just scrape so much data… appropriation of human labor to shit out some advertising, essentially.” [57:08]

3. Contrasts With Pre-AI Non-Human Creation

[59:49–61:00]

• Garrison describes a tarot-based experimental writing system—randomized, but still reliant on a human actively generating narrative links, not just passively assembling probabilistic fragments.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Our sensory environment is whispering to us, telling us hidden stories, revealing subliminal connections.” —Genesis P-Orridge (quoted) [09:46]
• “The occult bleeds into and morphs culture, affecting everything from pop culture to politics and philosophy.” —Garrison Davis [10:30]
• Elaine: “Naming it and calling it something is also… an attempt to sort of regain control over the ways that magical practice and greater society seem to influence each other.” [13:41]
• Ryan: “Reality is made of words, images and vibrations… and therefore these sounds and images and words can be marshaled or used, edited, cut through, rearranged for the purposes of reprogramming.” [33:01]
• Burroughs (paraphrased): “When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” [32:54]
• Garrison: “Occultists are a class of people who are maybe the worst at doing magic because the people that are really good at this sort of thing are perhaps way better at the occult element of hiding their awareness of what they are doing.” [42:10]
• Ryan: “He’s not just developing a method… he was actively involved in this practice, which again makes him far more magical than most occultists. Don’t come for me.” [48:45]
• Kate Lady (paraphrased): “No, this is bullshit. Let’s actually look at the material implications as to where this is coming from…” [56:25]
• Ryan: “When one interacts with any form of Large Language Model… that’s one mind. Can you tell me where the second is?” [58:59]

Important Timestamps

• 03:29 — Garrison’s spooky narrative intro & introduction of the panel
• 08:26 — What is "occulture"?
• 14:27 — The “American vs. European Occulture” comparison
• 15:30 — Distinguishing “magic with a K”; the opening ritual
• 18:03 — Ryan on the inclusiveness & atmosphere of the opening ritual
• 25:53 — William S. Burroughs as occult superstar of the conference
• 31:46 — Explanation of the cut-up method
• 32:54 — “When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.”
• 38:18 — The Burroughs “café incident” (psychic sound attack)
• 39:16–41:31 — Media’s role in “cutting up reality” for its own ends
• 47:45–49:24 — Ryan: Burroughs as a “doer,” not just a thinker
• 49:24–53:50 — Occulture’s AI panel: generative AI as magic, art, or labor theft?
• 56:25 — Kate Lady’s emphatic anti-tech, pro-materialist stance
• 58:59 — The impossibility of a “third mind” with current LLMs/AI
• 59:49–61:00 — AI vs. randomizing tarot writing: LLMs can’t replicate human-channelled randomness

Conclusion: Episode Takeaways

• The Occulture Conference in 2025 is a vibrant, heady space where living traditions, radical politics, and cultural critique swirl together.
• William S. Burroughs—more than classic occult figures—exerts a surprising gravitational pull, with his techniques and philosophies mapping neatly onto anxieties about reality, control, and technological mediation.
• Generative AI sparks thorny debates: Does it undermine or extend magic? Is it creativity, labor theft, or merely an extension of capitalist realism? Most panelists remain skeptical and see more continuity between the cut-up (an art of surprise and intent) and the easy, pleasing output of LLMs.
• The episode closes with the suggestion that the people most skilled in reality manipulation are not occultists per se—but those wielding AI, media, and narrative power in politics and business.

Next Episode: The panel will return to discuss digital technomancy, traditional magical practice, and the purposes of occultism in 2025.

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