A spectrum of magical consciousness: Conspiracy theories and the stories we tell ourselves

Abstract

Magical thinking expressed in conspiracy theories is alive and well, as recent insurrection events at the US Capitol have shown, where alt‐right White supremacist activists stormed the government waving Confederate flags and a noose to hang the vice president. This article suggests that such ‘magical consciousness’ is a pan‐human mode of participatory awareness that plays out in a spectrum of various cultural situations with very different objectives and outcomes. While alt‐right conspiracy theories are based in a fascistic, neo‐Nazi, Christianized ‘blood and soil’ battle intent on fostering racial and social separatism, many contemporary British pagan practitioners of magic, for example, might use the same myths but with broadly inclusive meanings. At its most basic level, magical consciousness forms relationships between things created through myths and the stories people tell each other. Broadening the perspective, I suggest that anthropological theories might also be viewed as ‘stories’ in the form of frameworks guided by scientific analysis with their own changing history.