This week's episode is an exploration of the occult underpinnings of our modern technological age, as guest Shira Chess discusses her recent book The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse. Shira is an Associate Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia, and she brings scholarly rigor to topics that don't often get such careful attention- especially in examples that seem so strange from an outside perspective. The book covers a wide variety of modern occult and magical traditions that informed the creators and early users of the internet, providing a through-line to the types of weirdness we see online and offline today.

Topics covered include meme magick, reality shifting, the Back Rooms, Mandela Effects, and the gamification of reality. In discussing such phenomena the conversation weaves in traditional occult themes such as Theosophical ideas and Solomonic Magic, and much more modern Chaos Magick and Discordian practices. In talking about all of these themes, questions are raised about the malleability of consensus reality, our perception of it, and what can be done with it. 

Check out Shira's fascinating book at https://mitpress.mit.edu/author/shira-chess-2026/
And follow her on Substack at https://substack.com/@unseeninternet