Emily Selove’s recent research has focused on a 13th-century Arabic grimoire, the Kitāb al-Shāmil wa-baḥr al-kāmil (Book of the Complete) by Sirāj al-Dīn al-Sakkākī (d. 1229). This multi-cultural, multi-lingual guide to cursing, healing, and harnessing the power of stars, angels, jinn, and devils, was conceived at the crossroads of many magical and religious traditions, and serves as the intersection at which multiple scholarly methodologies and disciplines can intersect today.

Psychedelic Magic at the University of Exeter

The University of Exeter is home to two unique research centres: the Centre for Magic and Esotericism, which I founded and convene, and the Transdisciplinary Psychedelic Colloquium, of which I am a proud member. These represent a powerful movement, characterised by optimism and bravery, that is growing on the vanguards of academic research, two major currents of which, by synchronicity, have converged in our university community. These movements are balancing academic rigour with creative and embodied sources of wisdom, to forge paths by which to responsibly explore alternative ways of knowing.