The Edition: embracing the occult, going underground & lost languages
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Big Tech is under the spell of the occult, according to Damian Thompson. Artificial intelligence is now so incredible that even educated westerners are falling back on the occult, and Silicon Valley billionaires are becoming obsessed with heaven and hell. An embrace of the occult is not just happening in California but across the world – with ‘WitchTok’, a new trend of middle-class women embracing witchcraft. Is this spooky or just sad? And to what extent are they just following in the tradition of the Victorian charlatan?
Host Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator’s associate editor – and host of the Holy Smoke podcast – Damian Thompson, alongside writers and Spectator regulators Arabella Byrne and Mark Mason.
As well as the cover, they discuss: the fascinating world of the London tube network – despite the misery of the northern line; the problems facing Kemi Badenoch, the allure of Reform UK and why Trump seems to recover from every scandal; whether languages should be saved; and they celebrate cartoonist Michael Heath, who is turning 90 – meaning he has drawn for the Spectator for 75 years.
Plus: what does Mark think Cliff Richard and Jeffrey Archer have in common with Donald Trump?
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
The Spectator is trialling new formats for this podcast, and we would very much welcome feedback via this email address: [email protected]
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Transcript
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| 0:47.8 | Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, where each week we shed a little light on the thought process behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed. |
| 0:52.7 | I'm Lara Prendergast, the Spectators, executive editor. |
| 0:56.4 | On this week's podcast, we look at the new embrace of the occult, from tech bros to |
| 1:01.0 | witch talk. We investigate the enduring fascination with the London Underground, and we discuss |
| 1:06.6 | Kemi Badenock, Nigel Farage, Lost Languages, and we celebrate Michael Heath at 90. |
| 1:16.0 | And the latest issue of the magazine has just gone off stone. I'm joined by our associate editor, |
| 1:22.5 | Damian Thompson, alongside two of our regular writers, Arabella Byrne and Mark Mason. |
| 1:30.7 | This week's cover story has the headline The Devil Rides Out. |
| 1:35.6 | And in it, Damien, you look at the new embrace of the occult found in the digital age. |
| 1:39.0 | Could you start by talking about how this cover came about? |
| 1:42.3 | Well, I knew there was something weird going on because a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about Peter Thiel, the billionaire, |
| 1:45.8 | who's the co-founder of PayPal, who's going around warning of the Antichrist, of a global elite, |
| 1:54.4 | who basically want to stifle artificial intelligence. And he thinks that in doing so, |
| 2:01.8 | they're fulfilling biblical warnings about the Antichrist, |
| 2:06.3 | ignoring the inconvenient fact that one of the things |
... |
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