Video: ​​​​​​​Angela’s Symposium: YouTube, Esotericism, and the Academia

Center for the Study of World Religions hosted our first Gnoseologies series webinar of the academic year on October 18, 2023.  Dr. Giovanna Parmigiani engaged in conversation with Dr. Angela Puca.  In this discussion, Dr. Puca describes how she pioneers an innovative approach to academia by utilizing popular social media platforms, aiming to bridge the gap between esoteric academic scholarship and the wider community. In this talk Parmigiani and Puca explore the challenges and opportunities of digital scholarship, discuss the implications of bridging two worlds for academia at large, and present future avenues for scholarly engagement in the rapidly evolving landscape of digital media.

Gnoseologies: Angela’s Symposium: YouTube, Esotericism, and the Academia

SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School.

SPEAKER 2: Angela's Symposium. YouTube, Esotericism, and the Academia. October 18th 2023.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Welcome to our first gnosiologies event for the 2023-2024 academic year. This is our third season. Thank you all for supporting this series.

My name is Giovanna Parmigiani, and I'm the host of this series organized within the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative at the CSWR here at Harvard Divinity School. This series focuses on ways of gnowing that often labeled as non-rational, traditionally referred to as gnosis in Western philosophical and religious traditions and often understood in contraposition to science, these ways of gnowing are becoming more and more influential in contemporary societies, popular culture, and academic research.

What is the place of spirit possession, divination, and experiences perceived as out of the ordinary in our lives? How can we study and approach this type of phenomenon? Going beyond dichotomies such as body and mind, ordinary and extraordinary, reason and experience and matter and spirit, this series hosts scholars of different disciplines and practitioners interested in exploring and expanding the boundaries of what counts as knowledge today.

Before introducing today's guest, one announcement. The Q&A feature here on Zoom is activated. And therefore you can type your questions for our guest, and we'll try to ask them on your behalf if time permits. It goes without saying that if you have questions for us after the event, you can reach out to me by email, and I will share them with today's speaker. You can find my email address in the chat box or on the CSWR and HDS websites.

So today, I have the honor and pleasure to be here with my colleague and friend, Angela Puca, Dr. Angela Puca. I'm sure that many of you already know her. For those of you who don't, Dr. Puca is an academic, a YouTuber. She's a creator of the very successful YouTube channel, Angela Symposium. Her research focuses on magic, witchcraft, paganism, esotericism, shamanism, and related currents. She's the author of several peer-reviewed publications and co-editor of the forthcoming book, Pagan Religions in Five Minutes for equinox.

With her work and social media presence by delivering scholarly content on her YouTube channel and the social media project, Angela Symposium, Dr. Puca is committed to bridging the gap between academia and the communities of magic practitioners. Today, we will talk precisely about this, Angela's innovative approach to academia by utilizing popular social media platforms. We will explore the challenges and opportunities of digital scholarship, discuss the implications of bridging two worlds for academia at large, and present future avenues for scholarly engagement in the rapidly evolving landscape of digital media. So thank you, Angela, for being here.

ANGELA PUCA: Thank you so much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: I'm thrilled to have you here. We had many conversation, all online actually. We never met in person but we crossed paths online several times, right? We will. We will soon.

ANGELA PUCA: Yes, that's definitely something that has to happen.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Absolutely. So before diving into academia and social media, which again is the topic of this conversation, a question on your backstory. I always start with a backstory question because I'm curious and I think the gnosiology community is. So your backstory, how did you become interested in the academic study of esotericism?

ANGELA PUCA: So I think that I've always been interested in magic growing up, to be honest. And I grew up in a family and in a place where was very connected to folk magic practices, the ones that I ended up studying for my PhD and that I systematized under the name, the traditional segnature. By the way, my book will be published by Brill, hopefully in six months or so.

And so growing up, I've always been fascinated by magic. That's always been my core interest. And then going to university, I chose philosophy. And I also studied Buddhism and Indian and Tibetan philosophy and traditions because as you may know, in Italy, you don't quite have. Maybe now there's something similar but when I did my university degrees, you didn't have anything similar to religious studies. So people that were interested in religion would very often take philosophy. And I'm still very much interested in philosophy. And I also added a lot of exams on religious studies.

But I guess that my interest has always been magic as a way of navigating the world and navigating reality in a way that is beyond the ordinary, as we could say. And I still find it endlessly fascinating. So I ended up becoming a researcher in magic practicing traditions, and I have focused on paganism and shamanism folk magic. But yeah, magic tends to be my core interest, my core research interest.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Thank you. Yes. Since we both grew up in Italy, and so I know that it wasn't that easy to be able to concentrate on this type of things within the mainstream course curriculum. And so you did great. Did you have a particular mentor or figure reference that helped you in the process?

ANGELA PUCA: So in the academic sense?

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Or not.

ANGELA PUCA: OK. So I think that there are two people that have been very important for me. And the first one is an Argentinian Shaman who is not an academic but she's been extremely important and influential for me. I met her when I was 17, 18. So that I think it also shaped my academic career. I think that one day I will actually write a novel about things that have happened to me probably in regards to the esoteric side of things.

But another person from the in the academia that has been very influential for me is Professor Mauro Bergonzi. He's from Rome but he was teaching in Naples. And he taught Indian philosophies and religions at my university, and I did my thesis with him. And he's always been very important for me, and I would consider him a mentor. Even though he doesn't focus on magic but I always saw the two of them as of male and female figure of reference and mentors.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: That's lovely. Thank you for sharing this with us. And I gather that it supported you in this academic kind of war of yours and your projects. But did you find any resistance between friends and family or other mentors within the academic system?

ANGELA PUCA: Oh, yes, in Italy. That's the reason why I moved to the UK to do my PhD. Yes, I definitely found resistance from some people in-- from some academics. I think that at one point actually when I was an undergrad and maybe even in during my master's, which I've both done in Italy, part of me didn't want to become an academic because I thought I associated being an academic with being very close minded and not being very innovative in the way they would produce and deliver knowledge. I just saw academia as so dry. And then I realized that it wasn't the only way that you could do academia and that perhaps the people that I had around me had shaped my understanding of academics and academia in a certain way.

So I was definitely told that I was not PhD material when I was in Italy. That's something that I probably never said online. So look at me now.

But I think this is everybody who has ever succeeded at anything in life, they will tell you I think that somebody during their formative years had told them, oh, you cannot do this or you're not cut out to do this. But you don't have to listen to them. I don't think there are people that are cut out to do something or not. It's just a matter of putting effort and learning how to do things and getting better.

Because the only thing that you can say is that you are not good enough yet. But if you put the effort into it, that's what I think a teacher or a mentor should do. Not say you're cut out to do this or you're not but rather saying you're at this point now. If you want to get to this point, that's my advice on how to improve. That would have been a much better way of communicating with me but that didn't happen.

So I had a kind of resistance from some professors and my alma mater. And in terms of my YouTube, when I started my YouTube channel, friends of mine told me that it would never be successful. Because they said, who's going to want to listen to academic stuff on the internet? You should do something on goth and makeup. That would be much more popular. I'm literally quoting. Translating of course, because these are Italian friends. But I just wanted to do what I was most passionate about to be honest.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: So thank you for sharing this as well. And I'm glad you didn't pay attention to what they told you. And by the way, that's a reason why I left Italy also because it's not easy to inhabit academic spaces with exceptions, of course. And I think it's getting better and better, I have to say. But since I'm older than you, I absolutely get that--

ANGELA PUCA: You must have faced even more struggles than I had.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Well, not really because my first research was on feminism actually. And then I wanted to study anthropology elsewhere. But going back to Italy on working on paganism and being self-defining as pagan is a bit still seen a bit weirdly, let's say. Because of course scholar practitioners are not as well received in my opinion in Italy in comparison to North America, for example, at least here. But we'll talk, it's not about me. I'm talking about this the other day.

But you mentioned your YouTube channel. And so how did you get the idea of your YouTube channel on the academic study of esotericism? And can you tell a story behind it? We love stories.

ANGELA PUCA: So what happened is that during my PhD, as it often happens, I was writing a lot of things that didn't end up in my thesis to be honest in the end. And so I thought these things, I think that they are really interesting, though. I think that people should know about this. And then I was researching the pagan community and the historic practitioners communities.

And one thing that I was finding in the scholarship as well is that pagans and historic practitioners are very interested in the academic scholarship around these types of topics. And I just thought, I just want to make this public. I just had this strong feeling that people would be interested.

And so in the final year of my PhD, I asked for a sabbatical from teaching because throughout my PhD, I also had a teaching position at the university. And so I asked for a sabbatical so that I could write up my thesis. And so I had to channel my teaching energy somewhere. And I turned on the camera and the first things that my first videos were about things that I had researched.

Other things that I had delivered as lectures at university or things that I had studied for my PhD and didn't end up in my thesis. Then I started including things that were also part of my thesis. And then I started doing research for specific topics that people were asking me to tackle. So that's how it progressed.

But at first I thought, I think in the very first trailer of my channel I said, I'm going to share knowledge that I progressively acquired during my academic journey. And stay tuned for all the academic fun. Which by the way, it came out all of a sudden because then, it became part of my brand, you could say the academic fun. But it just came out because I was incredibly embarrassed because I asked my university to give me a room, just a normal classroom with proper lighting. And they said, "But what do you have to do?" And it's like, "No, I just have to film a video. Just a room that has big windows, it's going to be fine."

And they basically took me to the TV studios of the universities. And I was in front of this person with all the fancy cameras and lighting. It's like, what's happening here? I was not prepared for this. And he's like, "Oh, I was told that you have to film a video." OK, panic. I don't know what to say. And then I started rambling things. And then I realized it was going nowhere so I said, "Just give me a minute." I just noted down on my hand the five things that I wanted to say and I said them on camera. And then at the end, it just came instinctively. I just said, "And stay tuned for all the academic fun." And then I thought, where did that come from?

But yeah, it was all pressure-driven and embarrassment-driven because I was put in a situation that was very, yeah, it was not planned. But then the very first trait, the very first video on my channel, which is this trailer from 2019, if people go back and watch it, I don't know if you can see the embarrassment on my face but perhaps I couldn't see it very well but it's there.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Thank you for sharing this. And it could be another type of knowledge that came to you in a different way since we are gnosiologists

ANGELA PUCA: From agnosis.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: We should at least point toward the possibility that could have been other types of knowledge is coming to you. What happens when you watch? First off, do you watch your first videos occasionally? And what do you think about that Angela?

ANGELA PUCA: I try not to. I think that now I have progressed in terms of my video making skills. And so when I look back at my older videos, I find them a bit cringey. But I know that people like them, so I respect that. But looking back at it, I realized that there were lots of I think in terms of production, I could have done better. But I learned by doing I was not trained in video making, so I just had to learn.

But yeah, I find some of my old-- I'm proud of the content of all my videos because that's always been my main focus. And my videos have always been video papers. It's like, I would use the same methodology as when I was writing a paper for a conference or a peer-reviewed article, and I would put it in a video format. So I'm proud of the content of all my videos.

In terms of the production and my confidence with the camera, not as much. But I think that I have grown into being a bit more comfortable with the camera.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. So it's not a small challenge starting from scratch. What do you think have been the main challenges and the main achievements of having a YouTube channel and the community, dealing with the community interested in your work?

ANGELA PUCA: I think probably the main achievement is the community. I definitely love my community. And the people that I interact the most with are my patrons, of course, because I call it my inner symposium. And we have monthly calls and conversations on the platform and on our Discord server. So I'm really proud of my community, both the inner symposium the patron one and the community of people that follow me on YouTube and other platforms. My two main platforms are YouTube and TikTok. I also have a sizable following on TikTok.

And that's I think my main achievement is the community. Also the community of my colleagues on YouTube that also do religious studies-related topics. And now we call ourselves religiontube. So the community, for me, is the greatest achievement.

And in terms of the main challenges, I think it's been a challenge to do the work to be honest, because I end up very often working seven days a week. And I think that people often don't realize-- well, not everybody but some people close to me just think, oh, everybody wants to be a YouTuber because they don't want to work anymore. So you have no idea how much work goes into making content, especially the decent content on YouTube.

So that's one of the challenges, finding the time, especially when you're also an academic and you have to produce things or teach or you're kind of balancing two jobs. Also, I think that there is a little bit of misogyny online that I have to face quite often. And sometimes, I also have pushback from certain sides of the population that are fundamentalist in their religious views. And they just tell me the places that I'm going to after I die. So those are probably the main challenges.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Beyond these examples which are hopefully not so representative, who are your followers? And what are the main interests? Are there some topics within Western esotericism at large that you find that your community is more interested in to?

ANGELA PUCA: That's a good question. And that's different from saying what is more popular on YouTube as opposed to what is more popular within my community. So I think that my audience is made of both practitioners that are academically inclined or at least interested in the academic side of esotericism because they find that it enriches their practice. Even when they don't have any intention of becoming academics, they find that knowing the academic side really enriches their practice and their understanding of what they're doing or their tradition.

Or I have academics. I have students for instance. Sometimes I get lovely letters from students that say that they have started studying anthropology or religious studies or related topics within religion, thanks to my YouTube channel. So it's lovely to see that. So I think that my audience is made of both practitioners and academics. But in both cases, you tend to see that there is an interest in the academic side of esotericism.

And in terms of what is more popular, I think that things that are generally more popular on YouTube, and that seems to be true even with my colleagues are things that are evil and dark and scary. So things that have to do with the left-hand path or Satan or satanism or demonology, demons, they tend to do better because people just generally, just my audience seem to be more attracted to those kind of topics.

My audience, specifically, I think tends to be more attracted towards things like chaos magic, perhaps the left-hand path. But it's quite spread out because I have people interested in-- obviously, I have the most interaction with my patrons, and they come from all different traditions. Some are in the voodoo and hoodoo, traditions others are Wiccans, others are other forms of paganism. There's one from the Golden Dawn. So you have very different, quite a variety of traditions and backgrounds. But they are all interested in learning more about esotericism.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. And I have two questions now, which I think are linked. So what is your vision for the future of your YouTube channel? And what is your vision for the future of the academic study of esotericism? There might be linked in your case but not. What do you see?

ANGELA PUCA: So the future of my project, I'm not sure about what is the future of my project. I'm hoping that it will become or it will offer a new way of doing and delivering academic scholarship. I think that it's about time that the ivory tower, the so-called ivory tower really tries to be more open.

Because one thing that I noticed ever since I started my YouTube channel is that I get a lot of comments from people saying, I had no idea that these things were studied in universities. So there are still a lot of people that just assume for good reasons, because we don't try to make it more accessible, they just assume that esotericism magic paganism, they are not studied in universities. It's not a thing that you find in universities. So that's one comment that I get that's quite recurrent on my platforms and that made me realize that we might do a better job of trying to make this more open and accessible to the public.

So my vision is not that clear in terms of what I want to achieve. I hope that perhaps I'm going to offer a new way of doing academia that is not just close behind the doors of a classroom and that is confined behind a paywall. Because it is true that my project is funded by my patrons because everybody needs to survive in life.

But my patrons also offer this knowledge to everybody who perhaps might not have the means to access university level information or academic information because I source my content from peer reviewed papers, and they are often behind the paywall. And they are also very difficult to find unless you are trained to find academic papers and to find these kind of things. They are very difficult to access in many different ways. So offering this kind of knowledge I think is very important.

So my vision would be to perhaps one day see academia and that kind of links to the future of academia. So I guess the vision for my project and the vision for the academic study of historicism is that it becomes more accessible to the public. I tend to have this dream of universities being public and accessible to all, but I know that it's probably a utopia. I personally think that education and health care should be public, but that's my view.

So since I'm in education, I feel like whatever I can do to make university level knowledge accessible to everybody, I feel like that's necessary. And I think that if other academics in the field, they don't all have to do a YouTube channel or anything like that. But even small things to make things more accessible, even a blog or whatever it is that it is in your interest or that you think that you could do well and that you could enjoy I think it's a step forward in terms of making academic knowledge more accessible to the public.

Because it's not just about the knowledge that you deliver, it's also about the method that you deliver. Because we cannot really complain about people going to the polling station and voting a certain way if we don't try and deliver and teach the skill set of critical analysis.

Because for instance, what I try to do with my channel, even though it tends to talk about esotericism, is not only teach esotericism but teach a methodology, a skill set. Not being content with having a yes and no answer. Looking at the nuance of things because I think we are suffering from-- we are sorely suffering from not looking at the nuances of things, of wanting things to be one way or another, extremely polarized thought. And that really doesn't do any good to any side of the spectrum, whatever the spectrum is.

So I think that also teaching and training people to exercise critical analysis, looking at the complexity of things is not only useful for people who want to understand esotericism from an academic point of view but it's useful for everybody. And that's one of the strengths of being an academic online and doing public outreach, whatever your discipline is, is that you are training people to be more complex in their thinking, to have more critical analysis, that is so essential.

So my vision for the future of my channel, I guess I'm kind of going back in circles. My vision is to show a different way of doing academia. And I hope that the future of the historic study, the academic study of historicism tends to be a bit more open to the public and allow people to access information more easily.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Thanks so much, Angela, for many of the things you said in this answer. First off, I would say that here in gnosiology, we are trying in our little field to do this.

ANGELA PUCA: That's great.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: We have been doing this for three years, and I think it's our attempt to let this conversation reach a wider public. And also, I want to do a shout out to Mark Zimmer who actually wrote an email to us touching exactly on the very important point of the exorbitant of the prices to the public of academic papers and how it's difficult, if you want, to read or access to the type of research we do without the support of a university, without affiliation, it's very expensive and taxing.

And I really love, so thank you Mark for this remark. We can all think together in ways in which we can rectify this. Some of the things you said are very important in our little spaces, just try to do what we can. And I really loved your point about teaching a method online. Simplifying is not vandalizing, making things banal. You can honor complexity even if you explain it in a simpler way. And I think you are an amazing example of how this could be done and could be done in a very successful way. So thank you for the work you do. I'm very happy to have you here.

ANGELA PUCA: Yeah, like there are people that say oh, the internet is flattening, the conversation or anything because people just interact by sharing memes and memes just flatten the complexity and just make everything a slogan. Well, why don't we use the internet to do something different? Why don't we deliver complexity instead? It's not a matter of the internet is bad, social media is bad, it's a tool. So we can try and use it in a different way because that's where people are. You have to reach out people where people are. In the past, it was the piazzas and now it's social media. So things change and people need to adapt.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: You're very right on this. And especially as a scholar of conspiracy theories, I see these polarization discourses online and offline. And sometimes fed by the type of framing of discourses and knowledge online that you were mentioning before. So I'm absolutely with you in this meeting people where they are and try to just share a method more than idea. I think ideas can be changed but the method remains something we are grounded in. And thank you for that.

I was just saying to the audience that I will leave the questions for the last part of this conversation, for the last few minutes. It's not that I'm ignoring your question, most of them are very nice. And I will ask them. Just stay with us a little bit longer and I will address them all together towards the end of this conversation.

So given your experience and your skills, what advice would you give to academics or students, graduate students, PhD students. And I'm thinking about my students, wonderful students, who might want to write or engage with non academic audiences on YouTube, on TikTok. So what advice would you give them?

ANGELA PUCA: What advice would I give to people that want to be on social media and--

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: As academics.

ANGELA PUCA: As academics.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: As academics.

ANGELA PUCA: I think to find your way of delivering information that is accurate and to also always cite your sources and have a strict methodology just as you would do in your university or when you were writing a paper. I think my advice would be to just start and try to be and to do the best that you can while you are on social media.

And I think that if you tune in your personal individual energy, I think there is something that you can give also on a personal level. Because it is true that the accuracy of the information and the methodology are important. But I think another thing that probably people that follow me like is the fact that it's very personable. That I don't appear like the stereotypical academic. That doesn't mean that somebody who appears like the typical academic would not be successful. But I think that you need to channel yourself, you need to be yourself.

And for instance, I think that I used to tone myself down a little bit more when I was in the university. And then when I started doing my YouTube I thought, who cares? Nobody's going to watch me anyway. So I might as well be myself. And I just went all out.

So I think just be yourself because it also needs to be a creative endeavor, you need to enjoy it, and you need to be yourself. Because people will relate more to you and will listen more to you if they feel like you are a person instead of just an encyclopedia of information. So I would say use the methodology that you have learned as a scholar during your university degrees. And then be yourself and be creative, express yourself.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful advice. Thank you very much. Does your community have any ideas about academics? How they are, how they should be, what would they want from us. Well, I'm using that I'm an academic. How should we be? How we are and what should we do? What are common ideas, complaints, I don't know, opinions on academics and academia?

ANGELA PUCA: I think that I used to get more of these early on in my social media journey because now, people tend to a bit more about my stance on this. I think that people tend to think that academics that study esotericism are very judgmental, and they look at practitioners as if they were these things, that they were studying these weirdos so let's see how they behave. And it's not really how academics study the community of practitioners. But there is, I think, a lingering prejudice for good reasons because the 19th century has left a clear mark on how anthropologists are perceived.

But there is this idea that you are-- and I face this not just with my audience online but even in my fieldwork for my research. One of the things when I had, for instance to undertake initiations and when I spent time with communities, the first thing that I was facing was the fact that they wouldn't trust me. Because for ethical reasons, I always had to state that I was there as a scholar, that I was an academic that I was studying what was happening. And the first reaction was sort of oh, she's studying us. We are objects of research. But I think that the teacher dealt with it very well.

Because I'm thinking about one occasion in particular where there was a medical doctor who was not particularly happy about my presence as a researcher. And so the shaman there, the shamanic practitioner, the teacher just asked me to do every single exercise first in front of everybody to show that nobody was an object of research and we were all co-participants. So that kind of-- and then over time, people get to know you and that sense of what's the term? Reservation tends to fade away when they get to know you. But I think that there is still the kind of idea even online that academics tend to--

If you are an academic and you are in science, you must disagree with everything that esoteric practitioners do. Because there is this scientistic worldview that the only thing that exists are things that are explained by science. And if you are within the realm of science and academia, then you need to be scientistic. Not scientific but scientistic.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Sure. Ethnography is always complicated, that's why I'm always a proponent of slow ethnography. I've been spending five years in the past 12 in the same place and mostly with the same people. Not only but the core community remained the same. And I think one of the benefits is that they know me very well. And so the academic aspects of my engagement with them tends to be more-- they eventually trust me. I know. But I can hear how complicated it is to navigate the spaces as a scholar, especially when you do research.

On talking about your research, what are you working on? And then we'll move to the questions from the audience. So if you have questions, write them in the Q&A box.

ANGELA PUCA: So what I'm working on at the moment. So I've just handed in the final manuscript to Brill for publication. So that's on Italian witchcraft and shamanism and the tradition of segnature and forms of transcultural Indigenous shamanism in Italy and is the product of my PhD research. And I'm working on ideas of apocalypticism in paganism. I was asked by the Cambridge dictionary of-- I can't remember the full thing but it's a Cambridge dictionary that asked me to write an entry on paganism. So I'm working on that as well.

And I'm working on the AAR paper on open and closed practices, which is something that is quite popular at the moment. I mean, it is part of the contemporary discourse around magic practices, so I think it's important to research that.

And in the future, I've sent a book proposal to Oxford University Press which has shown interest in it. And it's going to be on AI technology and witchcraft and how witchcraft is being reshaped and esotericism is being reshaped by the use of AI and the advent of AI and social media and the advancements in technology.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Wonderful. It's lots of on your plate. And I think this last one, I can see how it draws interest of many. It's very, very important topic.

ANGELA PUCA: Yeah, and also we don't have much research on that. If you look at the scholarship there isn't-- I think the last influential text that I can remember is cyberhunt from 2003. And then there was techno paganism from the '90s, I think. So it's something that it seems like there's a gap to be filled in academia. And especially now with 2023 being the AI revolution for everybody.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: No, absolutely. And on the academic side of things, when we write something, it takes forever to be published. So that's also--

ANGELA PUCA: That's very annoying.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: That's very annoying. And we might have been doing research on a topic and it takes forever before people can actually read it.

So I am starting from a question from David but broadening up a little bit. David asks, do you have any advice for pagans considering an MDiv? In general, do you have advice to students who would like to follow your step? You didn't do a MDiv but you worked on magic and paganism within academia. Do you have any advice to students?

ANGELA PUCA: For pagans or for students in general?

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: For students who are pagans in the academic study of paganism.

ANGELA PUCA: In terms of how to go about their studies or what to do afterwards?

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: I think both. And if we want to add into the conversation, our question from Amanda on the recent MBA degree program in magic and the occult science offered by University of Exeter in UK close to you. That would be wonderful. Where are the places in which you would go to study paganism? And how would you interact with the academic system as a scholar interested in deepening these type of questions?

ANGELA PUCA: OK, let's start with the first question. So my advice for students who are pagans considering an MDiv, so if you are considering it, I'm guessing that you're trying to decide whether to do it or not. And then the answer is do it because education is always good. And I think you will learn many more things about both your views, since this person, David is talking about being a pagan. I think that you will learn much more about your own practice but also about other religious practices because I think it's very important to have a very broad view.

And the second question was about the--

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Yes, it was about the masters in magic and occult science by the University of Exeter in the UK. There's a master's recently being founded. And what are your thoughts on this? And again, what your value would be--

ANGELA PUCA: Yeah, I am aware of these masters because I interviewed Matthew Melvin Kowski who's not in Exeter but this master is-- there are two universities that are working on it. And I think he's at the University of is it North Carolina? I hope that I'm not misremembering. And Exeter. So there is these masters that they are offering on magic.

I'm not personally involved in it but who knows? Maybe in the future. I think that it's great that they are doing this. And I hope that people take it. And in terms of where you should study if you're interested in esotericism. I think that you have very good universities in Sweden and of course, University of Amsterdam is probably the most famous for having an entire department on the history of hermetic spirituality now and esotericism. So I think Amsterdam is kind of the main university, I think. The most famous university for tackling esotericism.

But generally speaking, if you're interested in esotericism, I think that any religious studies course will do because you need to also learn about religious studies. And then if you are particularly interested in esotericism, then you can tailor your-- I don't know how it works in your country but in the UK, you tend to have assignments and assessments. And in most cases, you can tailor it to whatever it is that you're most interested in.

So if you're most interested in esotericism and you are taking a religious studies type of course or a divinity type of course, you can then tailor your assessment and even your final dissertation or thesis towards what most interests you. So I think that that's also feasible. So you don't have to move to the other side of the planet to study esotericism, you can just take a religious studies course or a divinity course and then try and include as many things on the esoteric side as you can. And then you can move forward.

In the UK, there are the Masters by Research. I don't know if you have those in the US. But for instance, instead of you have the Masters of Arts where it's more similar to the bachelors, and then the Masters by Research is sort of a mini-PhD where you do research on a specific topic that you choose. So that's also an option.

If you want to study esotericism, you go into researching these type of topics. You attend conferences. All around the world, there are conferences on esotericism. You watch my YouTube channel. And also you start to get more educated about how to find resources. And you kind of slowly enter these spaces so that you can further your knowledge and your research.

So I don't think that you necessarily-- obviously, it's great if you can. But if you want to study esotericism academically, I think that any religious studies course will help you. Will help you do that because the most important thing is learning the methodology. And then within your religious studies course, you can tailor it the way you're most interested in.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: And David, if you are on this side of the Atlantic Ocean because I don't know if you're based in Europe or in North America. Where are you based actually? Here in the CSWR, especially within Transcendence and Transformation Initiative, we have been tackling this question for a number of years attracting also scholars, researchers from other universities, tackling these type of questions.

So if it's true that very many-- you could concentrate on esotericism in religious studies, in anthropology, in other topics within mainstream academia, pretty much everywhere. It's true that there are some centers that offer the presence, physical presence of scholars that are interested in this type of things. And Angela clearly mentioned Amsterdam, of course, northern Europe, UK. On this side of the ocean, definitely Rice University, definitely HDS.

ANGELA PUCA: Oh, yes.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: Are absolutely a place in which we are moving towards that direction, giving more space. The fact that I'm teaching magic at school. The anthropologists magic.

ANGELA PUCA: Well done.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: It's a sign in itself that there's interest in this type of things. That there are also other universities in which you can do that. If I can add an element, just as Angela was saying, try to build your own connections, go to conferences, follow Angela's videos and reading suggestions and make your own exciting path and journey by yourself. Just going to that and finding how the institutions can support your interests. You don't necessarily have to listen to things from a scholar that teaches you.

But if any instructor you encounter is a facilitator, they will be happy to make space for your own journey of your own discovery of what matters and interest to you. So good luck.

So let me see other question. Let's start from the beginning. Mark. Do you think that people are drawn to esoteric and magical practice primarily for cultural, social or spiritual reasons or perhaps a combination of both? Also, do you think that magic practice can have a psychological therapeutic value to practitioners?

ANGELA PUCA: So if I think that people are drawn to esoteric and magical practice primarily for cultural, social, or spiritual reasons, I think there are many reasons. Many different intertwined reasons as to why people are drawn to magic, and that's very individual. I don't think that I really have statistics on that. But my perception is that it's a mixture of things. And for some people, there is an element that is more prevalent and for other people, there is another element that is more prevalent.

I think that magic appeals for many reasons to investigate the side of reality that we cannot see, to understand the unseen and also understand better the seen because of that, because of the perception of the sacred and the profane. And so the investigating the sacred aspect of reality.

I think the magic also appeals because it feels like a direct exploration of the sacred as opposed to what happens in other religions where there's more of an intermediate. And it's not just the direct access to the divine, it's also the participation in the divine. Because you have religions that have a more direct and not as intermediated access to the divine. But with magic and magic practicing traditions, you have that there is not only direct access to the divine but co-participation with the divine. Because practitioners work with deities and with other spirits to affect change in their reality and affect changes in themselves.

And also there are cultural and social reasons to be interested in magic. For some people, witchcraft is a form of rebellion. For instance in the US, there has been the Wicca has become particularly popular among the gay and women liberation movement and tends to have more of that feminist flavor about it.

I was also working with a scholar in Spain about the witch as a symbol of opposition to patriarchy. She's in political studies and we were discussing that. So there are many, many reasons as to why people are interested in esotericism and magic. I think it's very individual. But I would say that the most things that I would say is the direct access to the divine, which is and access that is also co-participation with the divine and it's quite unique to magic practices. I would as far as I can think off the top of my head.

And also exploring your agency. Magic allows you to explore your agency as when you are alive. I'm not saying even in a physical body because there are practitioners that talk about astral traveling. So as far as you can perceive yourself as alive, what are the ways that you can explore the world? Is it just for the physical? Is it also in a metaphysical way? What's the extent of my agency? I think that magic tends to tackle all these questions in its own unique way and that probably appeals to a lot of people.

And also do I think that magic practice can have a psychological therapeutic value. Yes, of course, I think that there are also atheistic witches that primarily focus on the psychological aspect of ritual magic and spells. So they don't actually believe in the metaphysical side of things. But they still perform spells and rituals because they believe that there's a psychological effect that they will have as a result of the spell.

And famously you have the-- I don't know how known he is in anglophone countries but there's Jodorowsky who's quite known in Europe, and he talks about psychomagic and psychorituals and it's a combination of psychology and magic that tends to leverage a lot on the idea that magic and rituals of all sorts can have a transformative impact on a psychological level and as a consequence on you as a person.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: We always study Jodorowsky in--

ANGELA PUCA: Oh, you do.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: --my courses. Yes, yes. Also because of the recent video, it's like magic. It's so important in the-- it's controversial figure, I have to say.

ANGELA PUCA: I have to make a video on Jodorowsky.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: I think so. It's a quite controversial figure but very popular in Europe and Central and South America. Thank you for that. You can pick a question. There are so many, there are 17. Pick a question, Angela. The one that's-- Who do you think is more in line with you would like to talk to come visit about today.

ANGELA PUCA: So Matt 14 says, "Hello, Dr. Puca. Can you elaborate on Italian witchcraft and how it differs from other forms of witchcraft." I have a recent video on-- well, since I don't have enough time, I can tell you that I have a few videos on Italian witchcraft on my YouTube channel. But to answer shortly, and then you will find the longer answers over there, I think that Italian witchcraft as I said in my research, I systematized the forms of the vernacular healing tradition under the label, the tradition of segnature.

So something that is distinctive is the practice of segnature. For the old generation, there would be a strong syncretism with Catholicism. But then the new generation of Italian witches, of Italian segnature and segnatrici tend to synchronize more with paganism. So you would say, oh, that's a strong Catholic component. Used to be but now it's kind of changing because many of the people that wanted to get the segnature passed down unto them and didn't think oh, that's just a superstition or it's devil working or things like that were pagans. So there's a reason why there's a stronger presence of pagans in the new generation of segnature and segnatrici.

So I think what's distinctive, maybe the malocchio and the evil eye in Southern Italy is particularly prevalent. But I've talked with other scholars who have studied folk magic practices in Central and Eastern Europe, and it seems like there are a few elements in common between the Italian folk magic tradition and other folk magic traditions from other countries.

So yeah, I guess the practice of the segnature would be probably distinctive of Italian witchcraft. But I can't guarantee it because I think that we need a broader study because it looks like there are other countries that actually have very similar practices.

Like, there is on my channel an interview to Dr. James Capello who talks about folk magic in the Republic of Moldova. And we were highlighting the similarities between Italian witchcraft and Republic of Moldova. And at conferences, I was also approached by other scholars who were studying in Switzerland. In Switzerland, they also have the segnature with the same exact name and even in Germany. So there are countries where they actually use the same exact term that they use in Italy. So it's difficult to say if it is truly distinctive of Italy.

There is part of the cultural side. The culture that surrounds these magic practices is very Italian and the way of dealing with things is very Italian. But it's possible that these practices actually are part of a broader tradition.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: But I also think a bit about Italian migration to the North, to Switzerland and Germany from Southern work in Southern Italy, not on segnature specifically. But there are many who actually traveled and families who have been--

ANGELA PUCA: Yeah, I think that I just don't have enough research data to tell whether it's due to immigration or whether in other countries, they have something very similar. Because even countries that are not as closed as Switzerland and Germany, I found that they have very similar practices. So I think that having more research on Europe more broadly would clarify that.

GIOVANNA PARMIGIANI: And just that thing that I found online over the summer on my ethnographic work, I don't work on segnature but I noticed that folk theories about secrecy and our culture, so to speak, around this type of rituals are changing with new generations, are much more open. You don't have to wait to certain days of the year of the calendar to pass this knowledge through others as much. So I think yeah, things are changing and evolving. So maybe we are seeing, witness this little forging of a new Italian witchcraft traditions as well. Matt, wonderful.

I think it's time to go, it's 1:00 o'clock. So it's time to wrap up unfortunately. We'd love to spend more time talking to you and with the community here. So thank you Dr. Puca for your participation and wonderful conversation. And thank you all for having been with us. Please stay tuned on the activities of the CSWR, the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative and gnosiologies. You can find all the information in the chat box, including the registration link for our next gnosiologist event that will be on November 1st.

As many of you requested last year, we have Professor Susan Lepselter again with us this year with the performance and presentation of a video poem left standing.

One last thing, a little shout out to my gnosiologist community. Please, contact me if you would like me to talk about specific topic or specific scholars in this gnosiology space. I'm happy to hear your voice and your opinions on this. So thank you all for being with us and have a great rest of your day. Thank you.

SPEAKER 2: Sponsor, Center for the Study of World Religions.

SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2023, President and Fellows of Harvard College.