This study maintains that, as institutions of higher education have converted themselves into corporatised institutions under managerial governance, they have taken on occult qualities. These tendencies are analysed in the light of Jean and John Comaroff’s theory of occult economies: wealth‐generating enterprises involved in areas of mystery and magic. Modern universities, it is argued, have become occult economies, and this study examines the ways in which various distinctive features of contemporary academic discourse and procedure have become steeped in areas of ritual and enchantment. Paradoxically, then, although the commodification of higher education has been depicted as a process based on real world principles of rationalisation, cost effectiveness and accountability, it has drawn universities closer to the otherworldly.