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Between 1875 and 1947, a period bookended, respectively, by the founding of the Theosophical Society and the death of notorious occultist celebrity Aleister Crowley, Britain experienced an unparalleled efflorescence of engagement with unusual occult schema and supernatural phenomena such as astral travel, ritual magic, and reincarnationism. Reflecting the signal array of responses by authors, artists, actors, impresarios and popular entertainers to questions of esoteric spirituality and belief, this interdisciplinary collection demonstrates the enormous interest in the occult during a time typically associated with the rise of secularization and scientific innovation. The contributors describe how the occult realm functions as a turbulent conceptual and affective space, shifting between poles of faith and doubt, the sacrosanct and the profane, the endemic and the exotic, the forensic and the fetishistic. Here, occultism emerges as a practice and epistemology that decisively shapes the literary enterprises of writers such as Dion Fortune and Arthur Machen, artists such as Pamela Colman Smith, and revivalists such as Rolf Gardiner
List of contents
Table of Contents
Christine Ferguson: Introduction
Occulture Beyond the Metropole
Chapter 1: Michael Shaw, "Theosophy in Scotland: Oriental Occultism and National Identity"
Chapter 2: Nick Daly, "The Everyday Occult on Stage: The Play of Lord Dunsany"
Chapter 3: Clare Button, " 'A very perfect form of discipline': Rolf Gardiner, folk dance and occult landscapes"
Occulting the Public Sphere
Chapter 4: Jake Poller, " 'Under a Glamour': Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and Neo-Theosophy"
Chapter 5: Nick Freeman, "The Black Magic Bogeyman 1908-1935"
Chapter 6: Elsa Richardson, "Stemming the Black Tide of Mud: Psychoanalysis and the Occult Periodical, 1910-1924"
Women's Occulture
Chapter 7: Caroline Tully, "Egyptosophy in the British Museum: Florence Farr, the Egyptian Adept and the Ka"
Chapter 8: Dennis Denisoff, "Occult Synaesthetics and Pamela Colman Smith's The Green Sheaf"
Chapter 9: Andrew Radford, "Anxieties of Mystic Influence: Dion Fortune's The Winged Bull and Aleister Crowley"
Art, Fiction and Occult Intermediation
Chapter 10: Aren Roukema, "Naturalists in Ghost Land: Victorian Occultism and Science Fiction"
Chapter 11: Massimo Introvigne, "Painting the Masters in Britain: From Schmiechen to Scott"
Chapter 12: Steven Sutcliffe, " 'Beating on Your Heart': The Novels of David Lindsay and the Cultic Milieu in the 1920s"
About the author
Christine C. Ferguson is Senior Lecturer in English in the School of Criticial Studies and Andrew Radford is Lecturer in English in the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK.
Summary
Reflecting the signal array of responses by authors, artists, actors, impresarios and popular entertainers to questions of esoteric spirituality and belief, this interdisciplinary collection demonstrates the enormous interest in the occult during a time typically associated with the rise of secularization and scientific innovation.
Report
"Ultimately, this is an important and well-assembled contribution that warrants wide reading among scholars of British esotericism, par-ticularly those specializing in Theosophy."
- Ethan Doyle White, University College London
