President Donald Trump has been fond of branding the ongoing investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election by special counsel Robert Mueller as a “witch-hunt”, with the obvious implication that he feels he is the target of a bogus campaign to remove him from power as he is a threat to the establishment.
A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 19, 2018
Or, given that he has recently added a lawyer fluent in medieval history and religion to his team, maybe Trump literally believes that people mistakenly think he is a witch and the Inquisition is coming for him…who knows?
All joking aside, however, it’s interesting to note how Trump’s presidency has seen a rise in occult ‘activity’. There are some who believe that Trump’s success was achieved through ‘meme magic’, which came about through a confluence of chaos magic, 4chan trolls, Pepe the frog memes and a coincidence involving an ancient Egyptian god called Kek (I’m not even going to attempt to unravel all that for you, follow the link for an explanation).
Occult researcher Théodore Ferréol explained the rise of ‘meme magic’, in parallel with the rise of Donald Trump, to Vice.com:
“I think meme magic is going global,” Ferréol told me. “And I think that believing in meme magic is a motivational key to success.” According to him, creating a meme of Clinton and a cat is not the same thing as building an entire mythology around Pepe. “These people are channeling power.”
“For me, Trump is not only the new president,” Ferréol said. “He’s the new Slender Man.”
On the other hand, since the election, anti-Trump occultists have in turn attempted to use magic to control the president’s power. Daily Grail writer Michael M. Hughes came to national prominence early last year after publishing a spell to bind Trump on his blog.
Starting at midnight on Friday, witches around the country are calling for a mass spell to be cast on Donald Trump every night of a waning crescent moon until he’s driven from office.
The spell was publicized by Michael M. Hughes, who told ELLE.com that it was tweaked from multiple spells he saw going around private witchcraft groups. He published it on Extra News Feed because he felt “it would be very welcome to a lot of people.” It quickly spread, with events being formed around the country and support on social media.
Hughes explained that he chose a binding spell because “we’re not wishing harm on anyone, we’re just trying to stop the harm they’re doing.
Michael has a book coming out later this year going into this ‘occult resistance’ in more detail (Magic for the Resistance: Rituals and Spells for Change), and during his research he discovered that casting spells against those in power is hardly a new development – rather it’s been ever-present in history, from enslaved Africans’ use of voodoo against Haiti’s slave-owners and rulers, through to spells cast against European royalty by those suffering in poverty.
And if you’re looking for an in-depth look at how the occult has influenced the ‘alt-right’, another Daily Grail writer also has a new book out soon that explores the occult aspects surrounding the presidency of Donald Trump! In Dark Star Rising, esoteric historian Gary Lachman “examines the influence of occult and esoteric philosophy on the unexpected rise of the alt-right”:
Did positive thinking and mental science help put Donald Trump in the White House? And are there any other hidden powers of the mind and thought at work in today’s world politics? In Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, historian and cultural critic Gary Lachman takes a close look at the various magical and esoteric ideas that are impacting political events across the globe. From New Thought and Chaos Magick to the far-right esotericism of Julius Evola and the Traditionalists, Lachman follows a trail of mystic clues that involve, among others, Norman Vincent Peale, domineering gurus and demagogues, Ayn Rand, Pepe the Frog, Rene Schwaller de Lubicz, synarchy, the Alt-Right, meme magic, and Vladimir Putin and his postmodern Rasputin.
So no matter where your political allegiances lie, there are definitely some interesting esoteric aspects to explore further.
