SPELL CHECK: Spiritualism, Shamanism, Sorcery & the Reincarnation of the Occult in Dark Times

EDITORIAL

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A cen­tu­ry after the “Age of Rea­son” & two after the last Euro­pean witch burn­ing, log­ic & ratio­nal­i­ty are under siege. Self-declared shamans have run amok in the US Capi­tol, sci­en­tists face death threats from the pub­lic for ideas pre­vi­ous­ly wide­ly accept­ed & peo­ple from all walks of life feel tar­get­ed by “witch hunts” for their polit­i­cal or intel­lec­tu­al beliefs. In a time of cri­sis, change & glob­al dias­po­ra, many have turned to mag­ic as part of what they see as a prac­tice of resis­tance & care. Some seek to reclaim her­itage or explore mar­gin­al­ized Indige­nous world­views & posit their prac­tices as sites of poten­tial resis­tance to con­tem­po­rary dilem­mas & con­flicts. Oth­ers view this as “woo”, or some man­i­fes­ta­tions as part of the divi­sive­ness shak­ing notions of com­mon­al­i­ty & even attack­ing or under­min­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of com­mon val­ues & beliefs. In a world unrav­el­ing through eco­log­i­cal col­lapse, social dis­in­te­gra­tion & the chaos of post-truth pol­i­tics, exam­in­ing this phe­nom­e­non takes on fresh urgency – & ambi­gu­i­ty. What does it mean for artists & oth­er prac­ti­tion­ers to engage with the ten­sions between mys­ti­cism, belief & knowl­edge? How are some try­ing to w(r)ench witchcraft(s) to dis­place or at least decen­ter sex­ist, colo­nial & het­ero­nor­ma­tive phal­lo­cen­tric cos­molo­gies? How have oth­ers used the ghosts of mag­ic to raise specters of divi­sive ide­olo­gies from their graves? 

Among oth­er speci­fici­ties, the fig­ure of “the witch” has encom­passed queered & gen­dered bod­ies as sites of resis­tance in ant­i­cap­i­tal­ist strug­gles. Mys­ti­cism, super­sti­tion & mag­ic are resurg­ing in ways both allur­ing & trou­bling. Social media trends like #Witch­Tok offer tools for self-empow­er­ment & con­nec­tion, yet their aes­thet­ics bleed into hyper-cap­i­tal­ist ten­den­cies. Artists have long engaged with the mys­ti­cal & the irra­tional, often at odds with dom­i­nant ratio­nal­ist & sec­u­lar nar­ra­tives. But as we nav­i­gate a world where the line between truth & fic­tion blurs, where belief is both a weapon & a refuge, the stakes of this engage­ment shift. Are these prac­tices path­ways to cri­tique, tools for nav­i­gat­ing com­plex­i­ty, or escapes into com­fort­ing illu­sions? What does it mean to turn to mys­ti­cism as a method in times of cri­sis? Can the mys­ti­cal be crit­i­cal? Or does it risk becom­ing an accom­plice to the escapist log­ic of ultra-reli­gios­i­ty & con­spir­a­to­r­i­al thinking? 

SPELL CHECK, the third issue of Work­ing Titles, hosts ten crit­i­cal reflec­tions of aca­d­e­m­ic & non-aca­d­e­m­ic prac­tice-based researchers alike, schol­ars of var­i­ous fields, artists, magi­cians, witch­es, shamans, and oth­ers, whose field of inter­est inter­sects with the broad top­ic of the rela­tion­ship between artis­tic prac­tice, mys­ti­cism & method. Togeth­er, they try to pro­vide some elu­ci­da­tion to the many ques­tions we put for­ward in our open call, around the often dis­missed notion of artists as magi­cians & art’s poten­tial in sub­ver­sion &/or the inter­play between art & sci­ence.

As sug­gest­ed by its title, the con­tri­bu­tions in this issue will check the cur­rent dis­tance – the syn­onyms and dis­crep­an­cies – between mag­i­cal spells and their schol­ar­ly spelling and mis­spellings of and about them. Under­pin­ning it all are two key ques­tions: How can rit­u­als, per­for­ma­tiv­i­ty & witchy prac­tices with­in prac­tice-based research illu­mi­nate resis­tances, ambiva­lences & hid­den inter­sec­tions, in a time of height­ened polit­i­cal divi­sion? How can these approach­es trou­ble estab­lished frame­works – & how can they fail & lead to fur­ther divi­sions? Can we find real solu­tions through mag­i­cal think­ing, or is this just an escapist fantasy? 

These can then be bro­ken into more spe­cif­ic inquiries such as: How does con­tem­po­rary art nego­ti­ate the ten­sions between reveal­ing mys­tic truths & crit­i­cal fab­u­la­tions – resist­ing the sta­tus quo & escap­ing from it? How does this func­tion with­in broad­er pow­er struc­tures & how can artists posi­tion them­selves with­in – or against – this ter­rain? How do artis­tic prac­tices adopt/adapt mys­ti­cal frame­works? What does it mean to work with mag­ic, rit­u­al, or the super­nat­ur­al as research? How can trends that revis­it somat­ic work play into super­sti­tion, cul­tur­al cri­tiques, buzz­words & mask anti-pro­gres­sive agen­das? Why do some say they are vic­tims of a witch hunt for not being polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect? How does mys­ti­cism offer frame­works for rethink­ing rela­tion­ships with non-human worlds – e.g., fun­gi, microor­gan­isms, ani­mals, plants, or geo­log­i­cal for­ma­tions? How does dig­i­tal cul­ture reshape con­tem­po­rary rela­tion­ships with the mys­ti­cal & who ben­e­fits from it? How do queer, fem­i­nist, or decolo­nial prac­tices redefin­ing mys­ti­cal & rit­u­al­is­tic tra­di­tions dif­fer­en­ti­ate from con­spir­a­to­r­i­al thinking? 

Would it be over the top to wish you a mag­i­cal time while read­ing this issue?

That’s exact­ly what we’re here to check. We hope you enjoy it, either way!


Work­ing Titles*

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Edi­to­r­i­al team for issue No. 3: Yvon Chabrows­ki, Leopold Haas, Be Körn­er, Eleft­he­rios Krysalis, Pablo San­ta­cana Lopéz, Hans-Mar­tin Robert Rehnig and Felix Björn Sat­tler; direct­ed by Ann-Kathrin Müller and Gabriel S Moses.

*Our spe­cial thanks go out to Mar­gari­ta Cristi­na Gar­cia and Har­ri­et von Fror­e­ich for col­lab­o­rat­ing with us on the texts that became this issue’s open call, as well as the foun­da­tion for this editorial.

Sup­port­ed by Bauhaus-Uni­ver­sität Weimar, Pro­fes­sor­ship Arts and Research

Pub­lished by Work­ing Titles, c/o Bauhaus-Uni­ver­sität Weimar, Ph.D.-Studiengang Kun­st und Design, Geschwis­ter-Scholl-Straße 7, 99423 Weimar

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For pre­vi­ous issues, go here

ESSAYS

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Download Issue No. 3
as a Bulk File

Rendition:
Stochastic Method
in Six Parts

Yvonne Salmon

D_FIN_NG W_TCHCR_FT

Kris­ten Nelson

Alchemy of the Unseen:
Ritual Movement, Chaos Magic(k), and the Queer Reclamation of Mystical Praxis as a Method of Emotional Processing

Luke Faza­k­er­ley

Vampire, Frauen* und Geister

Tere­sa Mayr

BRUESCHE

Joachim Perez

Mediumship as Method:
The application of a Process-Based Understanding of Mediumship to Research and Arts Practices.

Julia Moore

Haunting Conspiracy.
Conspiratorial thinking and Summoning as artistic practice

Liese Schmidt & Lisa Hoffmann

Ritual and Mysticism
as Subversion:
Rethinking the Sacrifice-
Redeemer Mechanism

Rotem Ritov

Technospirituality in
a Techno-Political World:
The Algorithmic Sacred
and Its Beneficiaries

Alp Cenk Arslan

Zwei Zicklein in der Seife

Lau­ri­ane Daphne Carl

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