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Paper short abstract:

Pagan visitors to the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall describe their interactive and relational engagements with a plethora of magical items seen as active and alive. This ethnographic paper explores how these stories add to our understanding of sensory and dynamic museum experiences.

Paper long abstract:

The turn towards a dynamic museology has seen radical changes in some museum exhibits through the increased effort to make museums more interactive. The Museum of Witchcraft on the North Cornish coast provides a valuable sense of heritage for many magical practitioners today. It has an extensive collection of magical artefacts, which although exhibited in an apparently silent and still manner, pagan visitors experiences are far from static. The objects contained inside glass cabinets are perceived as active and numinous. These are not salvaged from a lost past, but are dynamically engaged with through an array of magical practices, invested with supernatural agency and spirit. While many of the artefacts are seen in a positive light, as healing or protection charms and talismans, others, such as curses, are more problematic, and are safely concealed inside cabinets. These items are very much alive.

Stories engage with these dynamic artefacts in ways that intersect and validate visitors own magical histories and practices. Museum visits are described interactively through highly charged atmospheres and supernatural experiences. Encounters with artefacts connect with human and non-human entities. Magical practitioners to the Museum do not see a flat, silent collection, but one full of expansive and sensory engagements. Other visitors, while often full of intrigue and wonder, sometimes remark that the museum is a little old-fashioned. These contrasts reveal the diversity of interactive museum experiences. This paper examines some of the stories pagan visitors tell, and situates this within a broader range of sensory experiences and practices.