Andrew Sage

At any given moment, our sensory environment is whispering to us, telling us hidden stories, revealing subliminal connections.

This concealed dialogue between every level of popular cultural forms and magical conclusions is what we named a culture, unquote.

That is from Genesis B. Peorage, a musician, magician, artist, cult leader, and hashtag slightly problematic queer icon.

In the 70s, they started the band Throbbing Gristle, pioneered industrial music, and later started the chaos magic organization The Temple of Psychic Youth and its associated band Psychic TV.

Though a culture did not just describe this sort of personal spiritual movement, it carried a strong offensive element targeted against society and perceived systems of control.

Through their many projects, including Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and the Temple of Psychic Youth, Peorage utilized art and magical practice to conduct a quote-unquote war on culture and

similar to another figure that we'll soon get to, William S. Burroughs.

A culture describes a process of cultural osmosis,

The occult bleeds into and morphs culture, affecting everything from pop culture to politics and philosophy.

But as a part of this osmosis, the occult becomes increasingly commodified, knowable, safe territory, marketable.

The hidden occult loses its very essence of being hidden.

despite its use as a tool of attack against mainstream culture, like most countercultural forms, the occult has been largely recuperated.

Even creative works, which are genuine explorations into the occult, fall into this recuperation paradigm.

they get turned into products, consumed by a mostly secular audience, like the works of dueling wizards Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.

Now, some occultists rejoice knowing that this wide exposure will influence more people to become interested in or adopt occult practices of their own, while others bemoan this dilution and commodification of what to them is an important spiritual practice.

As the modern occult revival, along with a heavy helping hand of scientific advancement, deterritorialized Christian hegemonic religion, now the occult itself has been re-territorialized.

Which is not to say that the occult is no longer a field of play, which is what this conference attempts to assert.

Let's go back to the panel.

In terms of the conference itself, as we'll get into later, the term occulture very specifically seems to be focused on the study of the interrelation of magical practice and the material aspects of occult culture and its influence and appropriation by wider society.

So