Occulture

Occulture

Author: Carl Abrahamsson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-03-06

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1620557045

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Explores the role of magic and the occult in art and culture from ancient times to today • Examines key figures behind esoteric cultural developments, such as Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner • Explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture • Reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end and offers strategies to rekindle intuitive creativity Art, magic, and the occult have been intimately linked since our prehistoric ancestors created the first cave paintings some 50,000 years ago. As civilizations developed, these esoteric forces continued to drive culture forward, both visibly and behind the scenes, from the Hermetic ideas of the Renaissance, to the ethereal worlds of 19th century Symbolism, to the occult interests of the Surrealists. In this deep exploration of “occulture”--the liminal space where art and magic meet--Carl Abrahamsson reveals the integral role played by magic and occultism in the development of culture throughout history as well as their relevance to the continuing survival of art and creativity. Blending magical history and esoteric philosophy with his more than 30 years’ experience in occult movements, Abrahamsson looks at the phenomena and people who have been seminal in modern esoteric developments, including Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner. Showing how art and magic were initially one and the same, the author explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture. He reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end--if it is intense, emotional, violent, and expressive--and offers strategies for creating freely, magically, even spontaneously, with intent unfettered by the whims of trends, a creative practice akin to chaos magick that assists both creators and spectators to live with meaning. He also looks at intuition and creativity as the cornerstones of genuine individuation, explaining how insights and illuminations seldom come in collective forms. Exploring magical philosophy, occult history, the arts, psychology, and the colorful grey areas in between, Abrahamsson reveals the culturally and magically transformative role of art and the ways the occult continues to transform culture to this day.


Arguing with Angels

Arguing with Angels

Author: Egil Asprem

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-04-02

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1438441924

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This fascinating work explores John Dee's Enochian magic and the history of its reception. Dee (1527–1608/9), an accomplished natural philosopher and member of Queen Elizabeth I's court, was also an esoteric researcher whose diaries detail years of conversations with angels achieved with the aid of crystal-gazer Edward Kelley. His Enochian magic offers a method for contacting angels and demons based on secrets found in the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Examining this magical system from its Renaissance origins to present day occultism, Egil Asprem shows how the reception of Dee's magic is replete with struggles to construct and negotiate authoritative interpretational frameworks for doing magic. Arguing with Angels offers a novel, nuanced approach to questions about how ritual magic has survived the advent of modernity and demonstrates the ways in which modern culture has recreated magical discourse.


The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements

The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements

Author: James R. Lewis

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0190611529

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The study of New Religious Movements (NRMs) is one of the fastest-growing areas of religious studies, and since the release of the first edition of The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements in 2003, the field has continued to expand and break new ground. In this all-new volume, James R. Lewis and Inga B. T?llefsen bring together established and rising scholars to address an expanded range of topics, covering traditional religious studies topics such as "scripture," "charisma," and "ritual," while also applying new theoretical approaches to NRM topics. Other chapters cover understudied topics in the field, such as the developmental patterns of NRMs and subcultural considerations in the study of NRMs. The first part of this book examines NRMs from a social-scientific perspective, particularly that of sociology. In the second section, the primary factors that have put the study of NRMs on the map, controversy and conflict, are considered. The third section investigates common themes within the field of NRMs, while the fourth examines the approaches that religious studies researchers have taken to NRMs. As NRM Studies has grown, subfields such as Esotericism, New Age Studies, and neo-Pagan Studies have grown as distinct and individual areas of study, and the final section of the book investigates these emergent fields.


Authors of the Impossible

Authors of the Impossible

Author: Jeffrey J. Kripal

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-09-16

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0226453898

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Most scholars dismiss research into the paranormal as pseudoscience, a frivolous pursuit for the paranoid or gullible. Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey J. Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred and by tracing that history through the last two centuries of Western thought we can see its potential centrality to the critical study of religion. Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and sociologist Bertrand Méheust. Through incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.


Waking the Witch

Waking the Witch

Author: Pam Grossman

Publisher: Gallery Books

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1982145854

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From the podcast host of The Witch Wave and practicing witch Pam Grossman—who Vulture has dubbed the “Terry Gross of witches”—comes an exploration of the world’s fascination with witches, why they have intrigued us for centuries and why they’re more relevant now than ever. When you think of a witch, what do you picture? Pointy black hat, maybe a broomstick. But witches in various guises have been with us for millennia. In Waking the Witch, Pam Grossman explores the impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales to the rise of contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women. Part cultural analysis, part memoir, Waking the Witch traces the author’s own journey on the path to witchcraft, and how this has helped her find self-empowerment and purpose. It celebrates witches past, present, and future, and reveals the critical role they have played—and will continue to play—in the world as we know it. “Deftly illuminating the past while beckoning us towards the future, Waking the Witch has all the makings of a feminist classic. Wise, relatable, and real, Pam Grossman is the witch we need for our times” (Ami McKay, author of The Witches of New York).


The Re-Enchantment of the West, Vol 2

The Re-Enchantment of the West, Vol 2

Author: Christopher Partridge

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2006-06-20

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0567041239

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Challenging some assessments of religion in the West, this study argues that, although much organized religion, particularly Christianity, is in numerical decline, in actual fact we are witnessing an alternative spiritual re-enchantment of society and culture.


Aleister Crowley's Influence on Pop-Occulture

Aleister Crowley's Influence on Pop-Occulture

Author: Ken Ammi

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-08-20

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9781974673445

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Magickian Aleister Crowley referred to himself as Baphomet, The Beast 666, To Mega Therion, Frater Perdurabo and even Little Sunshine. He, in turn, was referred to as "the wickedest man in the world." Find out how he has been influencing music, books, comics, cartoons, TV shows, and movies for decades-even from beyond the grave. "I am the Snake that giveth Knowledge & Delight and bright glory, and stir the hearts of men with drunkenness. To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof!"-Aleister Crowley supposedly channeling Aiwass


Contemporary Esotericism

Contemporary Esotericism

Author: Egil Asprem

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-09-11

Total Pages: 540

ISBN-13: 1317543564

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The study of contemporary esoteric discourse has hitherto been a largely neglected part of the new academic field of Western esotericism. Contemporary Esotericism provides a broad overview and assessment of the complex world of Western esoteric thought today. Combining historiographical analysis with theories and methodologies from the social sciences, the volume explores new problems and offers new possibilities for the study of esoterica. Contemporary Esotericism studies the period since the 1950s but focuses on the last two decades. The wide range of essays are divided into four thematic sections: the intricacies of esoteric appeals to tradition; the role of popular culture, modern communication technologies, and new media in contemporary esotericism; the impact and influence of esotericism on both religious and secular arenas; and the recent 'de-marginalization' of the esoteric in both scholarship and society.


Magic

Magic

Author: Jamie Sutcliffe

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0262371243

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The first accessible reader on magic’s generative relationship with contemporary art practice. From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and often disorienting bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians, and theorists that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art’s varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic. Dispensing with simple narratives of reenchantment, Magic illustrates the intricate ways in which we have to some extent always been captivated by the allure of the numinous. It demonstrates how magical culture’s tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption might provide contemporary artists with strategies of remedial communality, a renewed faith in the invocational power of personal testimony, and a poetics of practice that could boldly question our political circumstances, from the crisis of climate collapse to the strictures of socially sanctioned techniques of medical and psychiatric care. Tracing its various emergences through the shadows of modernity, the circuitries of ritual media, and declarations of psychic self-defence, Magic deciphers the evolution of a “magical-critical” thinking that productively complicates, contradicts and expands the boundaries of our increasingly weird present.


Restless

Restless

Author: David J. Gillard

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2022-01-06

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1666711918

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Why do many popular songs positively reference God if our culture is widely viewed as secular? Why is it a challenge to tell the Christian story when many say they are spiritual and believe in God? Why do we draw so much meaning from the popular songs we listen to? And might a deeper understanding of popular-music culture help us to explore the bigger stories we listen to throughout our lives, such as the Christian story? Primarily using Zygmunt Bauman's understanding of "liquid modernity" we look at the social forces that shape Western society and consider why, while many are looking for "authentic," ontologically based stories to understand their life experiences, historic providers of the big stories that shape our lives, such as the church, favor a different, epistemological way of telling them. How do these different approaches to storytelling affect their reception and what insight might we draw from that? Whilst this book is written primarily with those in Christian ministry in mind, it will be of interest, too, to those who use music to explore life experiences through their work, who are interested in the social forces that shape society, or who simply enjoy listening to popular music.