The world of online occultism is hardly esoteric. Whether it’s social justice witches hexing the patriarchy or bored teenagers “reality shifting” into other dimensions, millennials and Gen-Zs have popularised alternative spiritual practices on platforms like TikTok. Look up #WitchTok and you’ll find hundreds of thousands of tutorials — mostly by young women — teaching you how to cast spells or summon pagan deities, interspersed with healing crystal hauls and vlogs about their latest otherworldly encounters. You’d be justified if you think this should not be taken too seriously. But what happens when they start summoning demons? I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on TikTok spiritualities, and whilst researching I stumbled across self-made teenage witches doing all kinds of bizarre things. Some were attempting to astral project into Hogwarts; others were “manifesting” the lyrics of rap songs. But I also found some claiming to have encountered malevolent entities. In a few cases they had done so on purpose, often as part of practices tagged with #demonolatry. But in others, they had summoned them unintentionally… (READ MORE)

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