The Internet is an Occult Machine (w/ Shira Chess)
Has the internet always been a magical space?
Shira Chess, a Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia and a leading scholar of digital folklore, dive into her new book, The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse, to explore the hidden spiritual architecture of our digital lives.
From the open-source creation of digital cryptids like Slender Man on early forums to the summoning of AI entities in latent space, Chess argues that technology and magic have become indistinguishable. Rushkoff and Chess discuss how the countercultural, techno-shamanic roots of the 1990s internet (including the Mondo 2000 era) transformed into today’s algorithm-driven corporate landscape, and how we might reclaim our agency by finding subversive ways to use these technologies.
They also unpack algorithmic conspirituality, exploring why we treat our social media feeds like modern-day oracles, and how meme magic has evolved from an online joke into a force that shapes political reality. Ultimately, is our digital occultism a path to liberation, or just a new way to decorate our corporate cages?
Newsletter: Subscribe to The Unseen Internet at https://unseeninternet.substack.com/
Book: Get The Unseen Internet: Conjuring the Occult in Digital Discourse wherever books are sold.
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Credits
Hosted by Douglas Rushkoff
Produced by Josh Chapdelaine
Music by:
Fugazi (On this Episode you heard “Foreman’s Dog” in the intro – thanks to the kindness of the band and Dischord Records.)
The Team Human Band - Growth Trap
Special thanks to Stephen Bartolomei.
Team Human is a Production of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at Queens College.
