The First World War, which saw a massive upsurge of interest in and use of magic amulets and divination, threw up profound problems for the idea of British ‘rationality’ and ‘modernity’.⁴ At stake was a narrative long used to justify racism, misogyny and homophobia both within the UK and throughout the empire: the claim that such subjects were hysterical or mentally ill and in need of control and containment from a strong paternal hand. The English traveller William Hepworth Dixon, for example, claimed in 1876 that ‘if we wish to see order and freedom, science and civilization preserved, we shall give our first thought to what improves the White man’s growth and increases the White man’s strength’.⁵ Indeed, during the war science took on a particular association with manliness, while the British Association for the Advancement of Science considered how the discipline could increase the ‘efficiency’ of empire.⁶

This worldview seems to have entered a profound crisis after the 2016 referendum, as fears and fantasies of British superiority on the world stage have struggled against the reality of negotiations with the European Union. Leavers and Remainers have often used the occult as a metaphor to attack each other as ‘diabolical’, possessed by ‘dark forces’ or ‘unleashing demons’.⁷ Remainers such as the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown complained, notably, that ‘our country turned its back [. . .] on our once globally renowned traditions of pragmatism, rationality and evolutionary progress’.⁸ A narrative of national decline can be found among Brexiteers such as journalist Douglas Murray who claims the UK is ‘going through a great crowd derangement’ as waves of feminist, anti-racist and queer activism over the last decade meant ‘people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish’.