‘Spiritual’ witchcraft and magic 2.0 as weapons of resistance: The emergence of a new movement?

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the landscape of religions and the dynamics of beliefs are reshaped by several movements. On one side, a ‘return of magic’ in contemporary societies and the rise of a modern witchcraft, and in parallel, and on another side, the rise and expansion of forms of ‘spirituality’. These two movements, both featuring in a specific manner the new face of the sacred, are often considered isolated from each other by social sciences and humanities, and religious studies, they, however, significantly crossover. As a result, modern witchcraft is turning more ‘spiritual’, whereas spirituality is – to a certain extent – becoming more ‘witchy’. With reference to the empirical examples of the emerging movements Magic for resistance and Witches 2.0, this article aims at demonstrating that the issue of politics and empowerment facilitate the cross-fertilization of the two movements in the context of high digitization.

Introduction

The 2000–2020s have been particularly important for the recent history of witchcraft and spirituality. Both terms, for somewhat different reasons, have echoed significantly in hypermodern and globalized societies. Both have become buzzwords and are going through an astonishing lexical inflation in the new landscapes of the sacred and of beliefs that have undertaken quick transformation in contemporary cultures. Witchcraft spreads in particular in the field of aesthetics of videos and cinematographic productions, in music industry and fashions, in press and literature, but also infuses ideological movements and para-religious cults – what Massimo Introvigne (1992) has labeled as a ‘return of magic’. As for Spirituality, it is undergoing rather similar developments in the context of modernity: a widespread movement is unfolding in the context of consumer society, providing meanings and ‘tools and techniques’ (as goes the motto) to improve well-being and collective happiness, driven in particular by globalized Asian cults and cultures whose practices are spreading outside of tradition – what Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead (2005) have called the ‘spiritual revolution’. These two movements, that have in common to be both positioned on the margins of official religions and share more or less similar approaches to a mundane sacredness, seem to follow parallel trajectories in modernity and globalization and be equally impacted. There is no surprise, then, to witness that the two movements meet and intermingle: spirituality’s influence compels witchcraft to hybridity and cultural mixing, and witchcraft injects politics into spirituality. This article will address this intertwining of spirituality and witchcraft through power that this article will address, providing an overview of the actors and movements of this spiritualized hypermodern witchcraft, whose recent developments are accountable of the ‘digital revolution’. This article aims at underlying the influence of the ‘spiritual movement’ on modern magic and witchcraft, on account of the resonance and visibility

An anthropological and digital approach to online belief creativity

In 2021, I am conducting a fieldwork study on a recently found ‘school of witches’ in Paris, namely ‘Mun’ (i.e. ‘Sun’): the founder, a woman in her forties who calls herself a ‘witch’, is promoting a mix between magic (for the acquisition and use of ‘powers’ and the need for rituals in a given calendar context) and new trends of ‘naturalist’ spirituality (with reference to ‘ecovitality’ and healing/meditative sessions). The school itself uses a hybrid format, including a digital platform (http://mun-paris.com/) adding to also times and places for social gatherings. The reference to magic is official in the lexicon (i.e. ‘witches’) as it is the case spirituality when it comes to aesthetics (images of yoga are displayed in the front page) and practices (sessions are designed for introspection and ‘reconnection’ to Nature). The Mun school of witchcraft is therefore promoting ideas and practices ranging jointly under the categories of spirituality and magic and using the latest connected digital technologies. No logical nor practical contradictions seem to restrict the interface between the two. This example might be an isolated case of hybridization between two movements whose boundaries are all but sharp since they share certain features (marginality, individualized approaches to the sacred, practical and mundane emphasis rather than extra-worldly, and so forth see (Obadia, 2023)).

A couple of years earlier, I visited a ‘school of magic and esotericism’ in the heart of another European capital, Brussels: here to the school is a modern one, in urban settings, organized on both ‘on-site’ activities (teachings, rituals, ‘circles’, sessions, stages, …) and in addition an ‘online’ series of courses, training, and sources accessible through the Internet mixing ancient and modern traditions, Eastern and Western beliefs, occult and meditative (http://www.aether.be/). Here too, but in a slightly different way, witchcraft is the main matrix of the organization’s identity. But there again, other elements are aggregated. Among the different resources supplied by this school, Daoism and Buddhism range among the most visible Asian traditions, with a focus on meditation and rituals of offering (‘puja’) – among other elements from Asian cosmic religions – including the nowadays shamanism. In both organizations, the terms ‘magic’/‘witchcraft’ and ‘spirituality’ are used jointly or alternatively in a single repertoire. The patchwork of different traditions they offer is faithful to the inclusive spirit of nineteenth century new wave of magic, but if there is one crucial difference: a large part of the activities of the groups and their practices is digitalized, and they rely on online presence to increase their visibility. Yet, none of them is utterly digital or has achieved a complete digitization of their people, symbols, sites, and practices. These two examples, taken from continental Western Europe fieldworks (where empirical research on modern magic and witchcraft are far less developed than in Northern Europe and North America), exemplify (to a certain extent only) the new dynamics of magic and spirituality, that are both embodied in places and circles, and dematerialized through digital technologies (here, mainly the Internet). They typify, to a certain extent, the forms assumed by the global and contemporary movement of magic, and the dynamics it is subjected to. They otherwise epitomize a model of what can be called ‘witchcraft online’, that is, when (self-claimed or affiliated) ‘witches’ from ‘real life’ (in material and social worlds) expand their influence by means of digital technologies, rather than ‘online witchcraft’, when beliefs and practices of witches are entirely molded in and shaped by a digital environment, as it is already the case for religion (borrowing the conceptual opposition from Helland, 2000).

The broad question addressed in this article is about the mutual encounter between the two modern movements magic (or witchcraft) and spirituality. I will mainly focus on the role of digital technologies in their developments and intermixing. Magic and spirituality will be essentially circumscribed in an operational definition as two distinct movements: the former is characterized by a focus on the desire and research for mastering supernatural powers for mundane affairs (Bailey, 2006) while spirituality refers to subjective odyssey and self-accomplishment (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005).

Departing from the study of magic in modern technological environments, I have developed elsewhere (Obadia, 2020a), this article aims at exploring the what can be called a ‘spiritualization’ of online witchcraft: cyberspace is a site of encounter and hybridization with spirituality.

The material used for this article has been collected by means of hybrid methodology, consisting mainly of collecting digital traces by means of Nethnography (through direct access to ‘witchy’ networks and Internet websites, firsthand scriptural, audio, and video productions of self-labeled ‘witches’ and ‘magicians’) and second-hand sources collected on the Internet (newspapers, blogs, and online publications by observers and analysts of these phenomena). Witchcraft modern movements and spiritual new trends are both strongly represented in digital environments, online on the Internet, in electronic networks and in the new economy of smartphones and I-pad applications. Tiktok witches (Berger and Ezzy, 2004), Chaos Magik (Cusack, 2013), Cybercovens (Klassen, 2002), online witch communities (Frampton and Grandison, 2022) range among the salient case-studies that have unveiled the quick and massive developments of online individualized and collective expressions of witchcraft. Websites, social networks, and smartphone apps not only epitomize the techniques favored by new generations of witches: they also feature their primary (and for some of them, the only) environment in which they have developed and flourished (Davis, 2005). For these reasons, this article is relying upon materials collected in digital contexts, using the method of online research and other tools for the study of digital forms of the sacred (see Helland, 2005). But rather than remaining attached to one case study only, I intend to broaden the scope and include different movements in a single discussion, on the crucial condition that they are part of the spiritual and witchcraft crossover. I therefore harvested the content of websites relating to the two themes ‘spirituality’ and ‘witchcraft’, respectively, and the corresponding elements according to in associating the two keywords for Internet crawling, I focused on the digital expressions of belief and representations when these two aspects were together. The analytical aim was to evaluate the degree of hybridity in between the two. A final issue that will be discussed is the degree and nature of innovation in the domain of non-religious beliefs. I will raise the issue of changing faces of magic and witchcraft under conditions of digitization and influence of the spiritual movement.

Magic and witchcraft have become lexical references which, have become central in the context of modernity, considering their extension but also the meanings associated to them. Magic has a strong resonance in the context of the digital revolution and the development of artificial intelligence and robotics, where it has become a kind of reference that cannot be ignored to designate the irrational side of the relationship with these new machines (Obadia, 2021). However, it is important to distinguish in this context between the magic of machines and technologies (in this case, how machines become the object of beliefs for their own sake) and the magic through machines and technologies (in this case, how machines and computer programs contribute to the circulation of references to magic, both in terms of beliefs (the digitalized magical movements) and in terms of new cultural forms (the new economy of magic that is unfolding in ‘online witch’ circles) (Obadia, 2020a). As for witchcraft, it can be associated the modern extension of the domain of magic but also relatively autonomous: the new witchcraft assumes multiple forms either born of the global offensive of evangelical religions which designate as such the old polytheistic or animistic beliefs, or arising from social tensions generated by rapid economic mutations (Geschiere, 2000) or constituted as self-proclaimed movements and, in all cases, are linked to political tensions. While witchcraft (or movements claiming to belong to one of its traditions) is globalizing, it is mainly in the Western context that conditions seems to be fulfilled for a genuine encounter and cross-fertilization between these reinvented trends Witchcraft and modern spiritual movements or spiritualties and give rise to what we could call an emerging New spirituality – ‘paint-in-black’ or a ‘spiritualized-witchcraft’.

‘Signs O’ the (magical) times’?

‘Magic is in the air’, obviously, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. References to magic can be found in a wide range of textual and hypertextual references, even if the term assumes quite different meanings but surfaced and become recurrent, especially in the media (Stahl, 1995) and disruptive technologies (Obadia, 2021). This contemporary enthusiasm for magic is first independent of any traditional filiation, and in this case, it arises from the imagination of modern engineers (Aupers, 2009). In parallel, it can also be part of an historical genealogy tracing back to belief systems of ancient societies reinvented in modern technological societies (Davis, 2005).

But the movement started in the nineteenth century’s Western Europe, in the very historical and cultural heart of modernity when ‘new magicians’ of the nineteenth century (Eliphas Levi, 1810–1875) and of the twentieth century (like E. Gardner 1884–1964), the esoteric revival of the early twentieth century (under the influence of Papus 1865–1916), the occult counter-culture fashions in the second half of the twentieth century (after Aleister Crowley 1875–1947), and the reinvention of ‘ancient’ magic in the 1960s and 1970s, with the remarkable rebirth of satanism, encouraged by Anton Lavey (1930–1997) (see Petersen, 2009). From ancient times to the contemporary times, magic and witchcraft remained generally considered as marginal systems of beliefs and treated as such but gained popular recognition in the context of Modernity (Hutton, 1999). Despite the attempts to rehabilitate witches and witchcraft as victims of oppression rather than threats for society in the late nineteenth century (by Jules Michelet’s La sorcière in 1966 [1875]), it was not before the 1980s and 1990s that a major change took place: the neutralization of witchcraft by means of mediatization and cultural domestication. With the foundation of the Wicca movement in the mid-twentieth century, under the joint influence of Margaret Murray and Gerald Gardner, the movement, initially developing in the esoteric circles, finally became global while infusing mainstream culture, associated with the worldwide neopagan movement (Waldron, 2008). Literature and cinema integrated witches and magicians in twentieth century popular culture (Greene, 2018). In the 2000s, the lexicon of magic and witchcraft expanded dramatically in hypermodern, mediated, and digitalized societies (Stahl, 1995) and understandably permeated cultural trends and styles in the 2010s, giving birth to the fashion of so-called ‘Tiktok witches’ (or Witchtok movement) (Miller, 2022). This ‘Return of magic’ is actually assuming the forms of a new wave of ‘magical’ organizations but assuming the form of New Religious Movements religious ones (Introvigne, 1992), the reinvention of ‘traditional’ or ‘ancient’ systems of beliefs and practice (Collins, 2007), as well as the dispersion in Globalized societies and cultures of a galaxy of signs and practices, with the help of active promoters sponsoring the relevance of new ‘laws of magic’ for modern societies, and the psychological and social benefits they could bring about (see Hutson, 2012). At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, references to magic and witchcraft seems to have disseminated in almost every sector of Westernized modern cultures and societies: Medias, cinema, Science, technologies and AI, the economies of Well-being, ordinary life, workplace, politics, Religion, Fashion, and music all allude to it in a way of another (Subbotsky, 2018) ¹ .

The ‘return of witches’: a fashionable’ Witchcraft ?

This global interest for witchcraft is still on the rise in the 2020s, confirmed by quantitative data, census, and surveys. While belief in ‘traditional’ witchcraft remains sound around the world (Gershman, 2022), there exist a modern fascination for witchcraft previous to the Digital revolution, even if the ‘digitization’ of societies played a key role in the spread of ideas about magic. According to recent polls, paranormal beliefs are gaining more and more ground, even if belief in witchcraft nominatively remains the least widespread of these new attitudes toward supernaturalism: between 20% and 40% of people in the United States and Great Britain are concerned, and in these two regions, the revival of magic seems more important than elsewhere ² . Still, and to a certain extent, it remains statistically marginal as compared to other alternative belief and practice systems flourishing in late modernity ³ . Yet, people identifying as ‘witches’ and more generally to Wicca (as synonymous of Witchcraft in general and not the organization founded after Gardner) increase in numbers everywhere and especially in the United States ⁴ . Another sign of these magical times is the qualitative shift from Witch-Hunting (the persecution of witchcraft in history, see Dell, 2016; Klaniczay and Pócs, 2008) to Will-hunting (witchcraft as voluntary spiritual odyssey, Horne, 2000) in media and online: infusing ordinary life by means of printed and electronic media, witchcraft partakes on the re-enchantment and cultic effervescence of late modernity in Western context (Ezzy, 2003). Witchy items, symbols and practices circulate thought the markets of global consumer culture: ‘witchy’ goods, services, books, and recipes are fashioned, promoted, supplied, and consumed in modern subcultures, and especially youth cultures, and their sales figures amount by billions in wealthy countries ⁵ .

For scholars like Ezzy (2001) and Waldron (2005), this is related to the rise of modern consumer culture and market structure in the new economy of the sacred, and it seems like that magic would be less threatened than other ‘ancient’ beliefs by the logics of global capitalism and can even benefit from this situation to take advantage on religion in secular contexts, where it can flourish in accordance with economic instrumentalism and materialism (Clifton, 2006, Obadia, 2020a). A closer look at the relationships between magic and economy in history, however, calls for a relativization of this modernist posture: regardless of time and space, there is an intimate connection between the two since magic is not about belonging, even not believing, but ‘dealing’ and contracting with the supernatural forces (Obadia, 2013). The economic and political conditions of globalization and global capitalism have nevertheless been propitious to a rebirth and reinvention of magic and witchcraft (Ezzy, 2006). Yet, it is also the case for religion (Iannaccone, 1998) and spirituality (Davies and Freathy, 2014; Possamai, 2003; York, 2001) but the reasons cannot be confounded in a single analytical model.

Modern magic is subjected to global diffusion and dispersion in segments of modern societies and cultures, while witchcraft is conditional on the interplay between ‘authenticity’ of ancient traditions and adaptation to moderns ‘demands’. Wicca maybe the most visible and influential of these movements, but it is not the only one (Drury, 2011) ⁶ . More interesting and less discussed is the cultural impact of the context of modernity and globalization. As an integrative movement inclined to hybridization, Wicca is mixing different influences (Asian and Western, modern and traditional, ‘black’ and ‘white’ magic), and Witchcraft is also reinvented through ancient magical inspired forms of beliefs infusing the wide and complex technocultural milieu (in the technopaganism, and cyberanimism trends, see Aupers, 2002; Davis, 1995; Tanaka, 2015) in which a métissage between technology and the supernatural operates – ‘paganism’ is traditionally related to ‘magic’ but when reframed after ‘technocultures’, it is also explicitly impacted by the process of digitization (Davis, 2005). Other movements like Discordianism and Chaos Magick build a bridge between witchcraft and modern ideologies (bringing ‘chaos’ to the modern world as symbolic ontology) (Cusack, 2013), and in this regard, technology also plays a key role as interface (Collins, 2004).

Made more visible due to a large media coverage in the late 2010s, the rise of ‘Digital witches’ (the fashionable slogan of ‘Tiktok witches’) turns old-fashioned witchcraft into a hype and techno-friendly movement on account of their massive online presence, their active engagement on electronic networks (Pinterest, Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook Youtube …), and also the edition of online Magazines and journals (like Witchology https://www.witchologymagazine.com/ or witches magazine https://www.witchesmagazine.com/). Reference must be made to other key features of the new digital and social ecosystem of modern societies: countless blogs and personal websites have been created, in addition to the extensive presence of witches on large platforms like Reddit and Rumblr ⁷ . Cyber-covens are established in Cyberspace and generate online connectivity channels for self-labeled witches (Cowan, 2005; Klassen, 2002). These adaptations of witchcraft in digital ecosystems, partakes on other sociological changes in the status of witches who promote themselves as ‘coaches’ and ‘counselors’ ⁸ on the background of an expanding neo-capitalistic ‘spirit of capitalism’ (Salman, 2015).

Networks abound with hashtags and posts, creating transient communities and webs of persons (this is the case for the ‘we All are witches’ Facebook hashtag https://fr-fr.facebook.com/we.all.are.witches/ for almost 3 billion users of the whole network) ⁹ or more durable showcases for individual (accounts on Instagram for 1.3 billion users of the network) ¹⁰ . The New ‘Spirit of Capitalism’ is tainted with witchcraft, and digital witches are key actors of this sociological disruption (but also a certain form of functional continuity) selling services on Facebook (Renser and Tiidenberg, 2020). In the same vein, Witchy apps surfaced recently but massively in the supply and demand hypermodern connected technologies, extending a ‘magical’ relationship to smartphones (Nova, 2020). The development of a market for magical apps and a new economics of spells, fortune telling, astrology in the digital ecosystem, and the spiritual supermarket raised critical issues relating to authority of traditions and the legitimacy of these self-claimed and self-trained witches, against their counterparts affiliated to a tradition or recognizing the authority of a traditional genealogy (Coco and Woodward, 2007). These digital ‘witches’ are most of them young and attractive women (according to media, more inclined to commit with witchcraft online) ¹¹ , in stark contrast with the traditional and archetypal cliché of the lonely, ugly and evil old woman (see Levack, 2001). They are professing freedom and the right to write their own narrative (Orion, 1995), borrowing symbolic and practical resources to different traditions: as such, they exemplify the hypermodern trends of individualization, eclectism, and activism (Coco, 2012).

Semantic extensions, changing aesthetics, and activism

In a context of technological communication and mediatization, the lexical basis of ‘magic’ and ‘witchcraft’ remains unchanged, but their semantics are subjected to significant reframing: magic has become trendy and sounds in an Age of machines, technologies, and digitization of cultures around the world (Aupers, 2002; Obadia, 2020a; O’har, 2000; Stahl, 1995). In his pioneering and influential book Techgnosis (2005 for the second edition), Erik Davies maintains that new media, and connected technologies offer a chance to witches to have a revenge against history. Twentieth and twenty-first centuries epitomize a new stage in the (re)invention of witchcraft on the background of modern ideologies like science and global capitalism, after having been reframed after 1960s counter-culture ideologies, 1970s’ New Age, 1980s eco-feminism, 1990s antimodern romanticism, and 2000s consumer culture (Waldron, 2008). New occultist and esoteric trends contributed to make witchcraft fashionable, and social-electronic network as spaces for the reinvention of identity for a new generation of young men and especially women regardless of social determinants of the ‘real’ (offline) world (Quilty, 2022, Salomonsen, 2002). Witchcraft is particularly appealing to young people ¹² in the West for sociological reasons, that is, correspondences between teenage ethos, and the libertarian ideology associated to witchcraft, (among other factors) (Berger and Ezzy, 2009). The online Media Quartz maintains that it could even be ‘the perfect religion for liberal millennials’ ¹³ . This massive appropriation of witchcraft and magic by key actors of modernity (socially integrated, culturally active young people familiar with digital technologies) noticeably reflects a major change in the domain of beliefs and practices: until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and still today under certain conditions), Witchcraft was label ascribed, in a process of accusation, targeting passive victims, mainly women (Dell, 2016; Levack, 2001). The portrayal of the modern witches is a reverse mirror of these historical figures of martyrdom. From traditional witches to hypermodern witches, there is a series of significant shifts from domination to freedom, from shame to pride, from fear to joy, from secrecy to mainstream culture, and finally, from accusation to self-ascription (Obadia, 2020b).

A new generation of self-proclaimed witches is therefore becoming visible in the social and especially digital scenes, notably through the witchtok movement, these young women who claim to be witches and who use social networks to promote their services and the resources they use and provide: Rituals, gem magic, olfactory essences and herbal uses, alternative medicines, symbolism and divination, card reading, geomancy, palmistry, ‘communication with the forces of the universe’. Buddhist-inspired Meditation and introspection, body techniques such as Yoga, ‘work with energies’ from the New Age movement also constitute important elements in the stock of symbolic, material, and practical resources from which they draw. They figure out a galaxy of individualities, often in conflict because they are competing with each other for audience (clicks and likes), and do not share a unified belief system, often lack training in ‘traditional’ witchcraft, or training other than online access to archives and ancient textual material. Social and intellectual individualism seems to supersede the ‘sense of community’ and traditional transmission of knowledge that was prevailing in 1980s and 1990s waves of witchcraft, unless one considers the term ‘community’ in the computational sense (as a cohort of individuals communicating via identical techniques, see Coco, 2012; Jones, 1995).

In these online expressions when it is about magic, the reference to the ‘cult of Hecate’ (a reinvention of the Athenian goddess of necromancy worshipped fifth century BC) and to ‘nature worship’ seem to prevail on others, according to a sample of 50 sites Internet, blogs, hashtags, and online communities under consideration in this article, but in a loose way. The hypermoden witches, be they self-proclaimed or officially considered as ‘Wiccans’, are not clearly neither explicitly affiliated to any social community or group but set up fluid identities in the digital context where interactivity is prominent over belonging (Frampton and Grandison, 2022). This is why digital witchcraft (or digital magic, at large) challenges the issue of community, as it is the case for ‘real-life’ witches (Berger, 2019). The network structure of these new forms of ‘hybrid’ magic (both online and offline) however and paradoxically generate community processes (Bloch, 1998), whereas online modern witches are aligned on the logics of modern global capitalism supplying services, advices, and products on different platforms (Tiktok and Pinterest) ¹⁴ . But they are also active online through social networks (mainly Facebook), where they promote spiritual eclectic views (Renser and Tiidenberg, 2020) and promote affirmative action, and support minority claims (queer, LGBT+, African-American communities …, see Snow, 2020) ¹⁵ . For Penczak (2003), this posture epitomizes a new ‘paradigmatic’ change and new worldview, mixing (minority) communities’ expectations and society programs (inclusion).

A few names have surfaced in this movement and stand out for their intellectual and ideological leadership: at least three of them deserve to be mentioned here, even if there are far many more. First, David Salisbury (2019), author of Witchcraft Activism an opus subtitled A toolkit for magical resistance, who explicitly displays his marginal tendencies and his desire to make witchcraft and its techniques ‘instruments of resistance’, so as to satisfy a desire for social justice for the marginalized and oppressed, but also in the service of broader causes, such as the environment, for example. Salisbury, located in the United States, has created its own online coven (which also sets up offline gatherings), as a place for activism and for sharing witchcraft resources and how to use them in this political struggle. In the same vein, and in direct connection with the former (who maintain bonds of knowledge and mutual reference in their publications and thus moral and hypertextual connections), Michael M. Hugues (2018), author of Magic for the resistance who also supports the idea that the techniques of magic (a term he prefers to ‘witchcraft’ but ultimately referring the same techniques: spells, conjurations, rituals, and divination), have the capacity to change the world effectively hic et nunc in command of human will, independently from any divine intervention, and partake on a relocation of the individual (his or her rights and freedom) in the core of social order. Finally, in Great Britain, Sarah Lyons (2019), who published Revolutionary Witchcraft: A guide to magical activism shares with her American alter-egos the wish to elevate magic and its techniques to the rank of an instrument of social transformation.

The three above-mentioned authors, thus committed to magic, for which they have made themselves the spokespersons of an active and activist magic, are particularly visible through their militant action, and partake on an historical mutation: that of the empowerment of individuals through the practice of magic or sorcery (the two terms being interchangeable) in order to act on ‘society’ as a whole – a multi-scale resource (from the individual to the whole society) that replicates the general properties of magic as elaborated by James G. Frazer (1911 [1903]) at the beginning of the twentieth century. They also resonate with political concerns: against the abuse of power by the US government, witches in the United States cast a spell (Hex) through Facebook network against former president Donald Trump ¹⁶ ; after interracial violence in Charlottesville (USA), members of the W.I.T.C.H organization (in reference to the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, founded in the late 1960s but active now) displayed posters requesting ‘to hex White supremacy’. Through a potential of social subversion, magic and witchcraft nourish anti-authoritarian and disruptive movements associated with ‘ancient social orders’ (monotheistic, white, patriarchal systems) and became the political forefront of the contestation of modern feminism whose figures are now those ‘witchy women, queer conjurers and magical rebels’ described by West and Elliot (the subtitle of their 2019 book).

Spiritual connections?

As it is the case for magic, spirituality has become a buzzword in social arenas and in scholarly institutions. The term, which is capturing the interest of many social and academic communities, is assuming a wide range of meanings, even if a consensus arose on the idea that key features like ‘quest of meaning’, ‘subjectivity’, ‘experience’, ‘search for something greater than humans’, ‘sense of connectivity to the world and human condition’, and ‘sensitiveness to ecological issues’ … (King, 2011). Very precise concept (Hill et al., 2000; Teasdale, 1999), yet ‘good to think with’ (borrowing Claude Lévi-Strauss). Torn between extensive definitions, extending the conceptual scope and empirical perimeter, spirituality displays features similar to those of magic: it is focused on mundane, individualistic, subjective, practical, non-institutionalized ideas, and practices (Obadia, 2023). Sociologically speaking, spiritualties are developing in similar ideological and spheres of contemporary societies (Flanagan and Jupp, 2007). Heelas and Woodhead have envisaged a ‘spiritual revolution’ inflating modern societies and overcoming religions (2005) changing the nature of the sacredrelationship to it, the authority of the divine, and the form of institutions. Spirituality aligns on same ideals and dynamics of modernity: individualism, openness, and eclecticism … (see Garcia-Canclini, 1995). As salient facets of modern times, Magic and spirituality are distinct from each other, regardless the features they have in common (see infra). The issue of politics and power seems to make the greater difference between the two: while magic and witchcraft are very directly related to the question of human power over the environment and humanity’s control over its destiny, and to the resistance of alternative beliefs against the hegemony of dominant belief systems, spirituality is, quite the reverse, depicted as escapist and as such, portrayed as a subjective and intimate experience, devoid of issues of this nature (Gottlieb, 2013).

So far, on the example of Asian spiritualities, Peter Van der Veer (2009) pointed at the importance of politics as context and as challenge for spiritualities in context. Seil Oh and Natalia Sarkisian (2012) have called attention on the fact that, contrary to the commonly accepted idea that spirituality is free of politics and of social activism, the ‘mind-body-spirt’ practitioner are torn between ideals of spiritual individualism and an engaged spirituality. Under the label of spirituality, in fact, that a whole range of movements claiming to be spiritual or being labeled as such, reveal a process of politicization, as it is the case with ecospirituality, which is becoming more radical as it gains influence in modern cultures (Taylor, 2001). But spiritual movements are in general exclusive of political engagement (Obadia, 2023). On the contrary, the relationship of magic and sorcery to politics (as a belief of the dominated or as an instrument of their resistance, as a symbolic basis for power or as conditions for its exercise) is well known in ancient, medieval, and recent history (Frazer, 2018; Shuck, 2000).

Are modern spirituality and modern magic proposing same paths to interiority and therefore, participating is a single New Age movement, as some scholars suggested? (Davis, 2005; Houtman and Aupers, 2007). There are evidences of symbolic and practical crossover between the two movements. The modern symbolism of Wicca is replete with symbols borrowed from Asian cosmic traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism (chakras, breathing techniques), while ‘meditation’ is nowadays an ingredient of Modern magic movements or a resource promoted by individual witches on electronic networks and in social interaction (Penczak, 2002). In return, the world of spirituality is colored with occult, esoteric, and witchcraft references, the feminist neo-paganism movement is maybe more than other, building ideological and practical bridges between the two movements (Finley, 1991). Beyond the parallelism of these movements, there are therefore concrete transversal ties between the magical-sorcery revival and the new wave of spirituality.

As both movements are characterized by a certain nebulosity and ill-defined or constantly changing contours, it is difficult to attribute distinctive characteristics to each of them, but obviously both share the characteristic of being intra-mundane and above all, techno-friendly. Magic is assigned the will to transform the destiny of individuals through supernatural recourse, to the risk of violence, and spirituality is associated with the intention of transforming oneself and thus the world through asceticism, an attitude of introspection and a quest for ‘something greater’ (Teasdale, 1999). Modern spirituality is significantly influenced by Eastern traditions (Heelas and Woodhead, 2005) whereas Eastern traditions are labeled as ‘Spiritualities’ (Van der Veer, 2019). Modern magic is as well replete with Asian influences, especially esoteric ones (Introvigne, 1992). One can wonder to what extent the crossover between magic and spirituality owns to the dynamics of modernity and Globalization (i.e. hybridization) or exemplifies the ancient and ongoing tendency of magic for creativity and inclusivism. Since the nineteenth century reinvention of magic in the heart of modernity, there exist an Eastern(-inspired) bridge built with the movement of modern spirituality. D.P. Walker’s (2000) work on the connections between magic, medicine, and the arts among Renaissance philosophers (Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples, Jean Bodin, Francis Bacon, Tommaso Campanella, among others) demonstrates that magic has been intertwining links with the ethos of spiritus for a long time. Then raises the question of the originality of modern cross-breedings. Magic and spirituality, in classical definitions of the terms, stand for two facets of the sacred, at the margins of religion: the occult side of the sacred was no stranger to the luminous side (Walker, 2000). However, in the present situation, this is a modern spirituality, reinvented in new economic (in the global capitalist context) and ecological conditions (in an environment which, from now on, is largely organized around digital technologies) interacting with a reinvented magic which is just as modernized and which has largely lost its dangerous and violent character – at least in the particular forms it assumes.

Is the distinction between, on one hand, magic, whose history is characterized all the way around by issues in politics and power (Dell, 2016), and, on the other hand, spirituality, which seems on the contrary to be freed from such a tutelage transposable in this context? The very notion of spirituality is still, to a certain extent, synonymous of religion, and therefore embedded in issues of power and authority (like in Michel Foucault’s views for example, even if his approach retains more or less spirituality with the character of ‘transformation of the Self’ (Chevallier, 2004). As for modern spirituality, the examples exposed in this article obviously attest that the empirical reality is more complex than one could ex expect. Freedom of speech, ideological liberty, and the possibility to establish spaces for the expression of cultural choices and symbolic preferences that digital communication technologies offer is perfectly illustrated in technological uses motivated by a ‘spiritual’ purpose. The use of identical technologies by social actors or movements self-identified to or labeled as ‘magic’ is rather part of a militant, activist (Magliocco, 2020), and even proselytizing use of digital tools, against the background of the development of a digital activism.

Conclusion

In the landscape of modern, globalized, and highly technologized societies, the two movements of ‘rebirth of magic’ and ‘spiritual revolution’ are thus contributing, each in its own way, to the reconfiguration of the sacred. But scholars’ attention has been put on their properties rather than their interfaces, except in the case of neopagan movements, which have been the subject of solid and convincing empirical work. But beyond neo-paganism, the most visible space of a crossbreeding between witch/magical beliefs and ‘cosmic’ practices, hybridizations between the two are taking place in a wider scale and space, as well as a politicization of the two sectors. Yet, as O’har (2000: 863) accurately underscored, ‘as Ellul also pointed out, magic had a spiritual side’ since magic also provides resources for existential meanings. But since the 1950s, when Ellul wrote his famous essay La Technique ou l’Enjeu du siècle, not only the definition of both terms came across significant changes, but magic and spirituality are been extended to different empirical references than those of the half twentieth century. This article attempted to shed light on these new approaches, and call attention of scholars on the importance of the triad magic-spirituality-technology.

On the basis of a preliminary approach to an effervescent empirical and theoretical field in which the two movements intersect and intermingle, this article finally aimed at emphasizing the contemporary relationships and dynamics between the fields of modern magic and spirituality that are much more a matter of mutual interference than of a clear separation between the two movements. Witchcraft and magic are dyed with reciprocal influences favored in the context of globalization and high digitization, participating both in blurring the boundaries between the two, nevertheless without corroding their nature. It was also question to bring about the essential role of empowerment in the metamorphoses of the new magics and new witchcraft in the discussion. The concept of ‘spiritualization’ of witchcraft, that is, of a certain ‘witchcraft 2.0’, is seems relevant for a discussion on the dynamics at the margins of religious sacredness, in the context of the digital revolution. However, it is also possible and even desirable to characterize the process otherwise by turning the slogan on its head and by positing that we are observing a ‘bewitchment of spirituality’, in the image of a process of ‘witching culture’ as described by Sabina Magliocco (2004). The choice of one or the other category is obviously dependent on the perspective chosen, but in both cases, it is the same tendency to use or instrumentalize the resources of magic and spirituality and to put them at the service of soft powers that emerges.