RR Pod E47 Bob Cluness Hellblazer & (Oc)culture: The Real World That Produced Constantine

My guest this month is Bob Cluness, whom I am thrilled to welcome back to the platform. Bob recently published a new article in the journal Correspondences, “The Working-Class Magus: Class, Politics, and Occult Power in John Constantine: Hellblazer” and he was so kind to talk with me about it. In this episode, we explore the cultural ecosystem that gave birth to John Constantine—from punk, Thatcher-era Britain, and the Stoke Newington Sorcerers to chaos magic, and how those anti-establishment ideas were later appropriated and transformed within modern occulture, plus much more!

Bob Cluness is a PhD candidate and researcher in the cultural studies program at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. His current PhD project deals with the relationship between esotericism and accelerationism expressed within UK subcultures in the late 20th century, the core research being a comparative and historical discursive analysis of the UK chaos magic(k) scene and the CCRU. This PhD project, including Bob’s research vectors, published articles, conference papers and teaching programs, incorporates the myriad intersections between esotericism and contemporary subcultures, such as cyberpunk, cyberspace and technology, the counterculture and the New Age, conspiracy culture, modern art, comics, zine culture, and music.

What made John Constantine the ultimate occult antihero, and whom would he confront today? Bob traces Hellblazer through the overlapping worlds of punk, British counterculture, chaos magic, and the emerging occulture of the late twentieth century. From the Stoke Newington Sorcerers and Thatcher-era politics to the commercialization of rebellion, and the contemporary struggle over occult ideas, this conversation explores how Constantine’s world was created, and why its tensions remain strikingly relevant.

An overview of the topics we cover in this episode:

• The cultural and political conditions that produced John Constantine
• Hellblazer, punk, class, and anti-establishment politics
• The Stoke Newington Sorcerers and Britain’s occult underground
• Chaos magic and the development of modern occulture
• Constantine as magician, trickster, outsider, and working-class “cunning man”
• The relationship between comics, popular culture, and occult innovation
• What happens when counterculture becomes commercially successful
• The mainstreaming, and political appropriation, of occult ideas
• Who, or what, John Constantine might be fighting today?
  
  
  
  PROGRAM NOTES
  
  Volume 13, no. 1 (2025)
  
  The Working-Class Magus:
  
  Post-punk, Industrial Culture Zines, and the Information Dark Age - University of Birmingham
  
  Search Results | History Workshop Journal | Oxford Academic
  
  (PDF) Punk, Politics and British (fan)zines, 1976-84: 'While the world was dying, did you wonder why?'
  
  Bob's Hot Tip: The Absolute Martian Manhunter: Absolute Martian Manhunter (2025-) — Read Comics Online
  
  Music and Editing: Daniel P. Shea
  End Production: Stephanie Shea

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