Satanism, Magic and Mysticism in Fin-de-siècle France

Satanism, Magic and Mysticism in Fin-de-siècle France

Author: R. Ziegler

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-06-07

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1137006617

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An interdisciplinary study of the supernatural and the occult in fin-de-siècle France (1870-1914), the present volume examines the explosion of interest in devil-worship, magic and mysticism both from an historical perspective and through analysis of key literary works of the period.


Art, Music, and Mysticism at the Fin de Siècle

Art, Music, and Mysticism at the Fin de Siècle

Author: Corrinne Chong

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-07-29

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1040028888

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This edited volume explores the dialogue between art and music with that of mystical currents at the turn of the twentieth century. The volume draws on the most current research from both art historians and musicologists to present an interdisciplinary approach to the study of mysticism’s historical importance. The chapters in this edited volume gauge the scope of different interpretations of mysticism and illuminate how an exchange between the sister arts unveil an underlying stream of metaphysical, supernatural, and spiritual ideas over the course of the century. Case studies include Charles Tournemire, Joseph Péladan, Erik Satie, Hilma af Klint, Jean Sibelius, František Kupka, and Wassily Kandinsky. The contributors’ unique theoretical perspectives and disciplinary methodologies offer expert insight on both the rewards and inevitable aesthetic complications that arise when one artform meets another. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, musicology, visual culture, and mysticism.


Edinburgh Companion to Fin de Siecle Literature, Culture and the Arts

Edinburgh Companion to Fin de Siecle Literature, Culture and the Arts

Author: Josephine M. Guy

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2017-10-23

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 1474408923

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"The late nineteenth-century fin de siècle has proved an enduringly fascinating moment in literary and cultural history. It is associated with the emergence of intriguing figures -- such as the 'new woman' and 'uranian'; with contradictory impulses -- of decadence and decay on the one hand, and of experiment and renewal, on the other; as well as with unprecedented intercultural exchange, especially between Britain and France. The 22 newly-commissioned essays collected here re-examine some of the key concepts taken to define the fin de siècle, while also introducing hitherto overlooked cultural phenomena into the frame, such as the importance of humanitarianism. The impact of recent research in material culture is explored, particularly how the history of the book and the history of performance culture is changing our understanding of this period. A wide range of cultural activities is discussed -- from participation in avant-garde theatre to interior decoration and from the writing of poetry to political and religious activism. Together, the essays provide new scholarly insights into British fin de siècle and enrich our understanding of this complex period, while paying particular attention to the importance of regionalism."--


High Culture

High Culture

Author: Christopher Hugh Partridge

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0190459115

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Humans have always been fascinated by drugs and altered states. Despite the risk of addiction, many have used drugs as technologies to induce moments of meaning-making transcendence. Beginning at the close of the eighteenth century, this book traces the quest for transcendence and meaning through drugs in the West through the modern period.


Satanism: A Social History

Satanism: A Social History

Author: Massimo Introvigne

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-08-29

Total Pages: 665

ISBN-13: 9004244964

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A 17th-century French haberdasher invented the Black Mass. An 18th-century English Cabinet Minister administered the Eucharist to a baboon. High-ranking Catholic authorities in the 19th century believed that Satan appeared in Masonic lodges in the shape of a crocodile and played the piano there. A well-known scientist from the 20th century established a cult of the Antichrist and exploded in a laboratory experiment. Three Italian girls in 2000 sacrificed a nun to the Devil. A Black Metal band honored Satan in Krakow, Poland, in 2004 by exhibiting on stage 120 decapitated sheep heads. Some of these stories, as absurd as they might sound, were real. Others, which might appear to be equally well reported, are false. But even false stories have generated real societal reactions. For the first time, Massimo Introvigne proposes a general social history of Satanism and anti-Satanism, from the French Court of Louis XIV to the Satanic scares of the late 20th century, satanic themes in Black Metal music, the Church of Satan, and beyond.


Secrecy

Secrecy

Author: Hugh B. Urban

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-01-12

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 022674678X

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The powers of political secrecy and social spectacle have been taken to surreal extremes recently. Witness the twin terrors of a president who refuses to disclose dealings with foreign powers while the private data of ordinary citizens is stolen and marketed in order to manipulate consumer preferences and voting outcomes. We have become accustomed to thinking about secrecy in political terms and personal privacy terms. In this bracing, new work, Hugh Urban wants us to focus these same powers of observation on the role of secrecy in religion. With Secrecy, Urban investigates several revealing instances of the power of secrecy in religion, including nineteenth-century Scottish Rite Freemasonry, the sexual magic of a Russian-born Parisian mystic; the white supremacist BrüderSchweigen or “Silent Brotherhood” movement of the 1980s, the Five Percenters, and the Church of Scientology. An electrifying read, Secrecy is the culmination of decades of Urban’s reflections on a vexed, ever-present subject.


The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy

The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy

Author: Liana Saif

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-29

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 1137399473

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Investigating the impact of Arabic medieval astrological and magical theories on early modern occult philosophy, this book argues that they provided a naturalistic explanation of astral influences and magical efficacy based on Aristotelian notions of causality.


Octave Mirbeau's Fictions of the Transcendental

Octave Mirbeau's Fictions of the Transcendental

Author: Robert Ziegler

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-04-21

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1611495628

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Political firebrand, tireless reformer, champion of the avant-garde, Octave Mirbeau embraced his role as disturber of the peace. Inspired by Kropotkin and Dostoyevsky, Mirbeau became the social conscience of the era, speaking in a clear voice to impugn capitalist ideology, to defend the cause of the worker, the child, the pauper, the prostitute, and the soldier sacrificed as cannon fodder. Mirbeau’s critiques of society seethe with indictments of indoctrinating agencies: the family, which stifled the child’s freedom and expressive creativity, the school, which besotted students with the aridity of its curriculum, the army, which privileged patriotism over the sanctity of life, the church, which sanctified suffering, perverted instinct, and alienated the faithful from nature. Yet Mirbeau shared the admiration of fin-de-siècle zealots for the pariahs, tramps, and beggars rehabilitated in the Scripture. The personal trials of the misbegotten became an insignia of election. Those marginalized by society experienced damnation here below yet had glimpses of the bliss they hoped might await them somewhere higher. Yet it was not just in the less fortunate that Mirbeau sought evidence of the supra-rational. Generally neglected by critics, Mirbeau’s interest in the unknown and the inexpressible informed virtually all of his writing and helped shape his views on artistic work and political struggle. For this reason, this study sets out to analyze the spiritual politics of the author. As Mirbeau was becoming involved in the escalating controversy over the Dreyfus case and cementing his alliance with prominent anarchists, he was also undergoing a uniquely personal spiritual evolution. This volume breaks new ground, exploring the author’s secular metaphysic, charting his investigation of the spiritually transfiguring experience that redeems man’s desolate existence. What begins as Mirbeau’s indictment of Catholicism’s death-glorifying ethos, his attempt to find refuge from life’s pain in the blessedness of Nirvana, becomes a pursuit of mystical diffusion into the community of others. Showing how Mirbeau controverts the existence of a Christian god, this study argues that Mirbeau never abandons his exploration of life’s mysteries, apprehensions of the infinite that come from a refinement of his art and an identification with his brothers.


A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity

A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity

Author: Francis Young

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-04-27

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 3319291122

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This book traces the development of exorcism in Catholic Christianity from the fourth century to the present day, and seeks to explain why exorcism is still so much in demand. This is the first work in English to trace the development of the liturgy, practice and authorisation of exorcisms in Latin Christianity. The rite of exorcism, and the claim by Roman Catholic priests to be able to drive demons from the possessed, remains an enduring source of popular fascination, but the origins and history of this controversial rite have been little explored. Arguing that belief in the need for exorcism typically re-emerges at periods of crisis for the church, Francis Young explores the shifting boundaries between authorised exorcisms and unauthorised magic throughout Christian history, from Augustine of Hippo to Pope Francis. This book offers the historical background to – and suggests reasons for – the current resurgence of exorcism in the global Catholic Church.


Shadow Worlds

Shadow Worlds

Author: Andrew Wood

Publisher: Massey University Press

Published: 2023-07-13

Total Pages: 514

ISBN-13: 1991016514

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A vigorous strand of interest in the occult, the spooky and the mysterious has been part of New Zealand's history since 1840.Shadow Worlds takes a lively look at communicating with spirits, secret ritualistic societies, the supernatural, the New Age — everything from The Golden Dawn and Rosicrucianism to Spiritualism, witchcraft and Radiant Living — and introduces the reader to a cast of fascinating characters who were generally true believers and sometimes con artists.It' s a fresh and novel take on the history of a small colonial society that was not quite as ploddingly conformist as we may have imagined.