Quinn & The Witch Hunt

As I walked through A History of Magic, Witchcraft & the Occult – and as I’ve begun to pay greater attention to how magic, imagination, and belief are woven throughout our day-to-day activities – a magic "rabbit hole" I’ve gone down is looking into the outlandish and imaginative myths and legends about the Denver International Airport. One afternoon, as I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, Brooke and Connor Make A Podcast (a comedy and relationships podcast that dives into remarkable pop culture events), they talked about the Denver International Airport. Upon further investigation, I stumbled upon a fascinating world of secret societies, underground bunkers, complex tunnel systems, visits from the lizard people, apocalyptic artwork, grinning gargoyles, and a cursed horse. For example, the airport is said to be built by members of an ages-old secret society – potentially the Freemasons, the Illuminati, or the New World Order (or, perhaps, by all three). One of the...

As I walked through “Curse or Cure” (400-1500) and “Scholars and Sabats” (1500-1700) in A History of Magic, Witchcraft & the Occult , I was intrigued by the remarkably blurry boundary between the magical and the scientific – astrology versus astronomy; medicine; natural magic versus ceremonial magic; alchemy versus chemistry. At their core, both of these practices were aimed at the discovery of truth and meaning woven throughout an intricate, interconnected, and confusing world. Interestingly, many of the tactics used by both practices were experimental in nature. Also, thinking more deeply through how this blurry boundary was drawn between the magical and the scientific, I stumbled upon the challenging quote by the free-thinking Italian philosopher and occultist Giordano Bruno (1548-1600): “Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth” (pg. 134). Bruno’s quote made me think more critically about how the immense emotion, belief, and faith surrounding “what ...