If you’ve been getting into crystals, manifesting your dream board or exploring feminist readings of witchcraft, you can now take your hobby to the next level – with the UK’s first postgraduate degree in magic and the occult.
The University of Exeter is seeking to harness growing interest in the subjects with a course that will explore the history and impact of witchcraft and magic around the world on society and science.
The multidisciplinary degree, which starts in September 2024, will draw on history, literature, philosophy, archaeology, sociology, psychology, drama and religion to show the role of magic on the west and the east.
Prof Emily Selove, who leads the course, said: “A recent surge in interest in magic and the occult inside and outside academia lies at the heart of the most urgent questions of our society. Decolonisation, the exploration of alternative epistemologies, feminism, and anti-racism are at the core of this programme.”
She said this reversed a tendency in recent decades to “dismiss the study of magic and the occult”, with the idea that it is “no longer of importance to ‘modern people’”.
Citing rituals such as wearing jewellery considered to be lucky or representing a point of contact with a distant person or thing, touching wood, or not shaving to avoid jinxing the team on match day, Selove said “a superficial glance at our own beliefs and the beliefs of the people around shows us [that] magic is a part of our everyday life. Responsible scholars would do well to take this seriously”.
