Meme Magick?: Technology and the Esoteric in the Age of the Internet

Is the Internet magic? From the Renaissance onwards, the development of technology has been inextricably bound up with religious and theological ideas about magic, self-divinization, and self-transcendence. From the alchemists' pursuit of the philosophers' stone to the Hermetic humanism of Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola to the angelic languages of Cabalist conjurer John Dee, the Western esoteric tradition has sought to link technological discovery with personal gnosis. But in the "vibes-based" age of the Internet -- when our desires and attention can seemingly "magically" influence political and economic reality -- are we witnessing a new era of magic?

Join authors Tara Isabella Burton (Strange Rites, Self-Made), Gary Lachman (Dark Star Rising), Kat Dee ("Default Friend") and Chris Gabriel ("Meme Analysis") for a conversation about magic, technology, esotericism -- and whether the world of the modern Internet is an enchanted one, after all.

Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.

Tara Isabella Burton:

Tara Isabella Burton is the author of the novels Social Creature, The World Cannot Give, and Here in Avalon, as well as the nonfiction books Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World and Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians. She is currently working on a history of magic and modernity, to be published by Convergent in 2026.

Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Granta, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and more. She also co-writes the Substack newsletter "Line of Beauty". Tara is a Visiting Fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and a Visiting Research Fellow at Catholic University of America's Institutional Flourishing Lab.

Gary Lachman:Gary Lachman is the author of several books about consciousness, culture, and the Western esoteric tradition, including Dreaming Ahead of Time, The Return of Holy Russia, Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, Lost Knowledge of the Imagination, Beyond the Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson, and, most recently, Maurice Nicoll: Forgotten Teacher of the Fourth Way. He has written biographies of C G Jung, Madame Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, Emanuel Swedenborg, P D Ouspensky, and Aleister Crowley. He writes for several journals in the US, UK, and Europe, lectures around the world and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. In a former life he was a founding member of the pop group Blondie and in 2006 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Before moving to London in 1996 and becoming a full time writer, Lachman studied philosophy, managed a metaphysical book shop, taught English literature, and was Science Writer for UCLA. He is an adjunct professor of Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He can be reached at https://www.gary-lachman.com/, www.facebook.com/GVLachman/ and twitter.com/GaryLachman

Katherine Dee:

Katherine Dee is an Internet culture writer and ethnographer. Her work has been featured in UnHerd, The Spectator, Tablet, The Free Press, and on her Substack, default.blog. She also hosts the Internet culture show The Computer Room.

Chris Gabriel:

Chris Gabriel is a 25 year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis and writes for Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton.

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