Divination, Witchcraft & the Occult *SPECIAL TOPIC*

Popular Culture Association Conference

16-19 April 2025

New Orleans, Louisiana, US

The broad interest in divination, witchcraft, and the occult has been part of popular culture for centuries. Scholars’ discomfort with the topic is often palpable: they tend to focus on intersections that feel more legitimate, e.g. legal ramifications (laws against occult practice, witch trials etc), or archival documents, or simply sticking to fictional accounts.

Whether one believes magic can be real or not, there has always been a large group of people who do believe it is real. As Amy Hale writes, ‘magic is and always has been a strategy and tactic for living. It is a form of creative resistance, a way of understanding the universe and navigating it, a deeply relational way of being and collaborating with human, non-human and extradimensional entities and even machines (2022). We could see this connection for many in modern paganism, for example, as demonstrating Donna Haraway’s ‘enmeshment’ between all animals, plants and more (2016, 40). Magic has always been the province of those on the margins with no other access to power; characterised by a desperate hope at times but offering a buoyant opportunity to believers.

Yet it’s not always the powerless who seek magic; as Tabitha Stanmore’s Cunning Folk (2024) demonstrates, people from all walks of life have a long history of turning to magic as a practical solution to the problems of every day life, especially when they need to bend the rules. And despite the association of witches with early Modern witch hunt crazes, magic was often tolerated by the authorities—whether it was dismissed as nonsense or seen as ineffective. Like swallows returning to Capistrano, journalists cry that people turn to the occult in ‘trying times’ but as Jamie Sutcliffe argues (2021) that rhetorical approach ignores the reality of a consistent interest in magic across cultures and centuries drawn to ‘the magnet of the numinous.’

Potential topics

• The efforts of witches to hex a candidate in the US presidential election

• How fictional witchcraft makes its way into real world occult practices (CAOS, Practical Magic, Charmed, Bewitched, etc.)

• The history of the Golden Dawn or other occult groups

• The rhetoric of ‘satanism’ in public discourse (church groups, police training, court trials)

• True Crime and the occult

• Modern paganism confronting the rise of racism/fascism

• New Age practitioners as a pipeline to conspiracy theories

• The transition of fairies from dangerous to Tinkerbell

• Chaos magic and its use of popular culture

• #WitchTok

• Art influenced by magic & the occult (Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Tori Amos)

• Performance and the occult (Barnette’s Witch Fulfilment or Alan Moore’s workings)

• YouTube witchcraft/tarot tutorials

• Online Occult Conferences and the transmission of magic in the internet age

• Tarot and the development of a profession

• Techniques of the ‘spook racket’

• The long history of the psychic trade

• The history of tele-psychics (e.g. Miss Cleo, Walter Mercado, Psychic Friends Network)

• The history and modern flourishing of Lily Dale, NY; Salem, MA, etc.

• From fiction to magical entrepreneur: Rachel True, Fairuza Balk, Christina Ricci

• Money Magic: marketing witchcraft from Sephora to Dior and Hermès

• Cultural appropriation in magic and witchcraft

Proposal should be about 200-300 words and include references. Proposals centred on fictional witchcraft narratives will be rejected and advised to submit to Horror or Science Fiction & Fantasy.

Proposals must be submitted via the PCA/ACA website: https://pcaaca.org/page/submissionguidelines

You must be a member of PCA/ACA to attend the conference.

Important Dates to Remember

September 1, 2024 -- Submissions Open

October 1, 2024 -- Early Bird Registration Begins

November 30, 2024 -- Deadline for Paper Proposals

December 15, 2024 -- Travel Grant Applications Due

December 31, 2024 -- Early Bird Registration Ends for Presenters

January 15, 2025 -- Travel Grant Decisions / Notifications

January 31, 2025 -- Regular Registration Ends for Presenters

February 15, 2025 -- Late Registration Ends for Presenters

*Those Presenters Not Registered by Feb. 15 Will Be Dropped From the Program

CONFERENCE IN NEW ORLEANS, IL, April 16-19, 2025

Questions regarding proposals may be sent to Dr Kate Laity (katelaity AT gmail).