The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of Political Power

Greer (The Long Descent), a spirituality and ecology blogger at Ecosophia, makes an ardent if zany argument that magic plays a powerful role in politics. He defines magic broadly as “the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will” and goes on to suggest salaried elites and corporate media have perpetuated the political status quo that oppresses hourly wage earners through a magic-inflected “ritual drama” of assigning blame. He trots out rehashed defenses of Trump supporters as being motivated by economic self-interest before suggesting users of online message boards used chaos magic to ensure Trump’s 2016 victory. (He also posits that anti-Trump magical resistance failed to adhere to appropriate protocols and faltered.) Amid the more outlandish claims, certain lines of thought, such as his comparison of the liberal fixation on hate speech with the harmful Victorian obsession with sexuality, have some promise. He closes with a discussion of the projected rise of a new mode of life through a process called “pseudomorphisis” that will gain ascendency in the 26th century. While Greer’s analyses are occasionally unusual enough to grab attention, anyone not already in his camp will remain unconvinced. (June)