"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,' proclaimed Aleister Crowley. And if thou will is to get an advanced academic degree, the University of Exeter's new Centre for Magic and Esotericism sounds like a fantastic place to do it. The new interdisciplinary center is offering a Master of Arts degree in Magic and Occult Sciences. Before you get all debunky, note that the curriculum isn't focused on being a practitioner of magick but rather exploring "the long and diverse history of esotericism, witchcraft, ritual magic, occult sciences, divination, and related topics."
"This MA will allow people to reexamine the assumption that the West is the place of rationalism and science, while the rest of the world is a place of magic and superstition," says the program's director, professor Emily Selove. "Magic and the occult have been and remain an enormous part of Western culture, and it is foolish to deny this or to refuse to take it seriously. Rigorous study of these subjects allow us to reexamine the relationship of humans to the natural world and of different human cultures to one another."
From the Centre for Magic and Esotericism:
By housing this program in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, we place the Arabo-Islamic cultural heritage back where it belongs in the centre of these studies and in the history of the "West." Decolonisation, the exploration of alternative epistemologies, feminism, and anti-racism are at the core of this programme[…]
A sample list of optional module topics includes:
Oral History, Material Culture, The Western Dragon in Literature Lore and Art, Researching Theatre and Performance, The Legend of King Arthur, Palaeography, The Philosophy of Psychedelics, Science Technology and Society, Theorizing the Middle East, The Sovereign the Good and Society in Islamic Thought, Themes in Archaeological Theory and Practice, Writing Women in the Middle Ages, The Book in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, and Gender Society and Culture in Early Modern Europe
