PsychicTV: Hauntological Cultic Rejection and Autoethnographic Lenses

Citation

Stewart F (2026) PsychicTV: Hauntological Cultic Rejection and Autoethnographic Lenses. In: Partridge C & Wagner T (eds.) New Religions, Spiritualities, and Popular Music. London: Bloomsbury.

Abstract
After the disbandment of music and visual arts group Throbbing Gristle, Genesis P-Orridge founded Psychic TV (PTV) in 1981 with Peter Christopherson and Alex Fergusson. Relatedly, in the same year, he also founded the occult fellowship and art collective, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY). In a similar vein to Throbbing Gristle, PTV were a band and an artistic collective who experimented with psychedelia, punk, electronic music and video art: and who were particularly known for their intense and visceral live performances. Furthermore, their lyrical, artistic and collective endeavours were largely focused on, or drew inspiration from (seemingly) occultist philosophy and chaos magic; and in terms of a music legacy PTV were pioneers of the acid house genre. The band, in its original form disbanded in 1999, reformed as PTV3 in 2003 with a new line-up and then disbanded for a final time in 2020 when founder Genesis P-Orridge passed away. This chapter explores the first iteration of PTV, and their impact, from the perspectives of ‘cultic rejection’ and hauntology.