The Immense Hauntology of Things with Lee Morgan

About this episode

The episode explores the enduring appeal of Witchcraft in contemporary culture compared to other spiritual trends.

I sometimes wonder why, of all the occult and magical currents we have on offer, Witchcraft manages to still have such a powerful pull on our contemporary culture. We find ourselves on the other side of a century of occult revivals and magical trends, and yet Witchcraft somehow stil retains a timeless appeal. More recent spiritual trends, such as the "New Age" movement, which you would expect to be a better gateway for contemporary Western people to explore spirituality, have aesthetically aged far worse than Witchcraft generally, and what once appeared modern and enlightened would now be better described as cringe. Similarly, Chaos Magic – with its having its cake and eating it to, non-commital metaphysics and whiff of the science-y – would seem to be the heir apparent to the most accessible form of magical engagement for the Western mind, but looking at the numbers: the domination of "WitchTok" in magical social media landscape, and the non-existence of a "CaoteTok" paints a pretty clear picture of the respective crossover appeal. The assumption that Chaos Magic would grow in popularity to become the magic trend of the future is similar to the presumption that "prog rock" would…

People in this episode

Host: Chad Andro

Guest: Lee Morgan

Topics covered

• Witchcraft
• occult
• spirituality
• Chaos Magic
• New Age movement
• cultural trends

Keywords

• Witchcraft
• occult
• Chaos Magic
• New Age
• WitchTok
• spirituality
• cultural trends

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Chaos Magic, WitchTok, New Age

Books & works: prog rock

More episodes of Radical Elphame

• Reflection and Inversion in the Faery Courts with Morgan Daimler · April 30, 2026 · 1h 18m
• The Cunning Farmer with Todd Elliott · April 15, 2026 · 1h 18m
• Set Fire to the Construct with Anthony Miller and Sinéad Whelehan · April 1, 2026 · 1h 21m
• Heathenry in Diaspora with Robert L. Schreiwer, Michelle A. Jones, and Stacey Lynne Stewart · March 18, 2026 · 1h 16m
• The Fetch of the Land with Elyse Welles · March 4, 2026 · 1h 8m
• The Mall is the New Crossroads with Celeste Mott · February 18, 2026 · 1h 8m