ABSTRACT From 1981 to 1991, the band Psychic TV served as the audio-visual propaganda unit of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), an international network of occultists designed by Genesis P-Orridge to resemble a subversive, militant youth movement. This essay investigates how P-Orridge, Psychic TV, and TOPY embarked on a calculated campaign of “occult research” to test whether chaos magick...
This article bridges two underground music networks that relied on inventive communications tactics to both obscure their movement and reach new followers: Genesis P-Orridge’s chaos magick sect Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, with its artistic mouthpiece Psychic TV (c. 1981–1991), and the Internet-based electronic music micro-genre witch house (c. 2008–2013). Though outwardly synergetic in their...