Resumen de Occult Practices in Erdoğan’s Turkey, in Historical Context

İrvin Cemil Schick

• The occult is enjoying a remarkable popularity in Erdoğan’s Turkey. Publications and web sites purveying astrology, amulets and talismans, fortune-telling, dream interpretation, and physiognomy are everywhere. How is one to explain the suspension of disbelief that leads so many in Turkey today to find these practices and pseudo-sciences compelling? This article focuses on a small number of case studies to explore the forms taken by occult practices in contemporary Turkey, emphasizing in particular both the links to their Ottoman forerunners and the ways in which they differ from them. It argues that they are well articulated with modern life—in other words, that they are less the signs of a “return” to Ottoman ways than instances of thoroughly modern acculturation.