Political Witchcraft

On 13 August, Southampton University hosted ‘Political Witchcraft: Magic and the Politics of Representation,’ an evening of public talks exploring how magical beliefs and practices have been researched, debated, and distorted by various interested parties at different times and places in history. Dr David Cox organised the event from Southampton’s History Department as part of his British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship project, Conjuring Race: Perceptions of Black Magic in Nineteenth-Century America. After a last-minute change of venue due to overwhelming public demand, the speakers addressed a packed lecture theatre, presenting a diverse range of intriguing case studies on the politics of magic. As a means of exercising power and gaining status and authority, magic has always been a political act. However, as each of the public talks demonstrated, the act of representation can also perform its kind of magic. The depiction by one group of the spiritual beliefs and practices of another is an exercise of power, making certain spiritualities seem legitimate or illegitimate, while rationalising and justifying persecution and domination. As the evening’s talks made clear, such portrayals can do more — they can conjure beliefs and traditions into existence. The evening began with a talk by Dr David Cox titled ‘Land of Blood: Haitian Voodoo and Jim Crow America’. Dr Cox examined late-19th-century claims by white Americans that Haiti was rife with ‘Voodoo’ ritual sacrifice and cannibalism. ‘Voodoo,’ it was alleged, was an imported African cult devoted to the worship of Satan incarnated as a snake. While such claims captivated white imagination, they grossly misrepresented Vodou, the Black diasporic religion genuinely practised in Haiti. As Dr Cox showed, these tales of terror aimed to justify Jim Crow segregation and disenfranchisement by arguing that, without white dominance, people of African descent would revert to savagery. Additionally, stories of ‘Voodoo’ crimes displaced the real violence of spectacle lynching onto the imagined Black violence of ‘Voodoo’ rites.

The next speaker was Dr Ashton Kingdon, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton and a former PhD student in Southampton’s History Department. Dr Kingdon, a leading figure against online political extremism, plays many roles beyond academia, including serving on the Advisory Board of the Accelerationism Research Consortium and the steering committee of the British Society of Criminology’s Hate Crime Network. Drawing on her recent book, The World White Web: Uncovering the Hidden Meanings of Online Far-Right Propaganda, Dr Kingdon delivered an engaging, wide-ranging talk on ‘Folk Tales and the Führer: The Supernatural Propaganda of the Virtual Reich,’ analysing how mythology, magic, and folklore continue to influence far-right online communities.

Professor Mark Stoyle gave the penultimate talk from Southampton’s History Department. Professor Stoyle offered an entertaining and thought-provoking account of ‘The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda during the English Civil War.’ Like Dr Cox, he explored how accusations of magical wrongdoing can serve as political propaganda. With characteristic wit and erudition, Professor Stoyle recounted the strange case of ‘Boy,’ a white hunting poodle and cherished pet of Charles I’s nephew and chief cavalry commander, Prince Rupert of the Rhine. During the English Civil War, rumours spread that Boy was a transformed witch, able to predict future events and catch bullets aimed at Prince Rupert. Professor Stoyle argued Parliamentarian propagandists deliberately spread these rumours to show that the Royalists were in league with the devil.

The evening concluded with a keynote speech by Professor Ronald Hutton of the University of Bristol. A Fellow of the British Academy, Gresham Professor of Divinity, frequent documentary guest, and author of twenty books, Professor Hutton is among the most distinguished historians today. His talk, fitting with the event’s theme, was truly captivating. Professor Hutton began by explaining how modern Pagan witchcraft, or Wicca, was formed. Contrary to the claims of its founders, Wicca was not an ancient witch cult but rather a hurried collection of late-19th and early-20th-century esoteric sources, including Freemasonry rites, the writings of Aleister Crowley, and even Rudyard Kipling. However, this does not mean Wicca is illegitimate. On the contrary, as Professor Hutton convincingly showed, Wicca is a lively and significant faith that, in many ways, foreshadowed the feminism, environmentalism, and individualism of the late 20th century. He also discussed how his own career was impacted by false and defamatory claims that he was a practitioner of witchcraft, reminding us that academics are not immune to the politics of representation. The event wrapped up with a lively question-and-answer session and was a great success, indicating a strong community interest in public outreach during the summer months.