The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and Its Relation to Modern Culture

The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and Its Relation to Modern Culture PDF Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 9780854402809
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Ways of thinking and the corresponding spiritual and social structures in any period of time are not accidental but are brought about by certain groups of human beings working systematically for good or evil. Steiner gives an account of the activity of these groups working behind the scenes in the 19th century and points out their effects even in our time.

The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and Its Relation to Modern Culture

The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and Its Relation to Modern Culture PDF Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 9780854402809
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Ways of thinking and the corresponding spiritual and social structures in any period of time are not accidental but are brought about by certain groups of human beings working systematically for good or evil. Steiner gives an account of the activity of these groups working behind the scenes in the 19th century and points out their effects even in our time.

The Occult Nineteenth Century

The Occult Nineteenth Century PDF Author: Lukas Pokorny
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030553183
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of alternative religious currents and practices, appropriating earlier traditions, entangling geographically distinct spiritual discourses, and crafting a repository of mindscapes eminently suitable to be accommodated by later generations of thinkers and practitioners. Penned by specialists in the field, this volume examines important themes and figures pertaining to this occult amalgam and its resonance into the twentieth century and beyond. Global guises of the occult, ranging from the Americas and Europe to India, are variously addressed, with special attention to the crucial role of mesmerism and the origins of modern yoga.

Credulity

Credulity PDF Author: Emily Ogden
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022653247X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
From the 1830s to the Civil War, Americans could be found putting each other into trances for fun and profit in parlors, on stage, and in medical consulting rooms. They were performing mesmerism. Surprisingly central to literature and culture of the period, mesmerism embraced a variety of phenomena, including mind control, spirit travel, and clairvoyance. Although it had been debunked by Benjamin Franklin in late eighteenth-century France, the practice nonetheless enjoyed a decades-long resurgence in the United States. Emily Ogden here offers the first comprehensive account of those boom years. Credulity tells the fascinating story of mesmerism’s spread from the plantations of the French Antilles to the textile factory cities of 1830s New England. As it proliferated along the Eastern seaboard, this occult movement attracted attention from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s circle and ignited the nineteenth-century equivalent of flame wars in the major newspapers. But mesmerism was not simply the last gasp of magic in modern times. Far from being magicians themselves, mesmerists claimed to provide the first rational means of manipulating the credulous human tendencies that had underwritten past superstitions. Now, rather than propping up the powers of oracles and false gods, these tendencies served modern ends such as labor supervision, education, and mediated communication. Neither an atavistic throwback nor a radical alternative, mesmerism was part and parcel of the modern. Credulity offers us a new way of understanding the place of enchantment in secularizing America.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult

The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult PDF Author: Tatiana Kontou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317042271
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
Critical attention to the Victorian supernatural has flourished over the last twenty-five years. Whether it is spiritualism or Theosophy, mesmerism or the occult, the dozens of book-length studies and hundreds of articles that have appeared recently reflect the avid scholarly discussion of Victorian mystical practices. Designed both for those new to the field and for experts, this volume is organized into sections covering the relationship between Victorian spiritualism and science, the occult and politics, and the culture of mystical practices. The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult brings together some of the most prominent scholars working in the field to introduce current approaches to the study of nineteenth-century mysticism and to define new areas for research.

Supernatural Entertainments

Supernatural Entertainments PDF Author: Simone Natale
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271077395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
In Supernatural Entertainments, Simone Natale vividly depicts spiritualism’s rise as a religious and cultural phenomenon and explores its strong connection to the growth of the media entertainment industry in the nineteenth century. He frames the spiritualist movement as part of a new commodity culture that changed how public entertainments were produced and consumed. Starting with the story of the Fox sisters, considered the first spiritualist mediums in history, Natale follows the trajectory of spiritualism in Great Britain and the United States from its foundation in 1848 to the beginning of the twentieth century. He demonstrates that spiritualist mediums and leaders adopted many of the promotional strategies and spectacular techniques that were being developed for the broader entertainment industry. Spiritualist mediums were indistinguishable from other professional performers, as they had managers and agents, advertised in the press, and used spectacularism to draw audiences. Addressing the overlap between spiritualism’s explosion and nineteenth-century show business, Natale provides an archaeology of how the supernatural became a powerful force in the media and popular culture of today.

The Occult in Nineteenth-Century America

The Occult in Nineteenth-Century America PDF Author: Cathy Gutierrez
Publisher: The Davies Group, Publishers
ISBN: 9781888570830
Category : Occultism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description


The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema

The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema PDF Author: Tessel M. Bauduin
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319764993
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Many modernist and avant-garde artists and authors were fascinated by the occult movements of their day. This volume explores how Occultism came to shape modernist art, literature, and film. Individual chapters examine the presence and role of Occultism in the work of such modernist luminaries as Rainer Maria Rilke, August Strindberg, W.B. Yeats, Joséphin Péladan and the artist Jan Švankmaier, as well as in avant-garde film, post-war Greek Surrealism, and Scandinavian Retrogardism. Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.

Politics and the Occult

Politics and the Occult PDF Author: Gary Lachman
Publisher: Quest Books
ISBN: 0835630080
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The gritty business of politics is not something we usually associate with the occult. But esoteric beliefs have influenced the destiny of nations since the time of ancient Egypt and China, when decisions of state were based on portents and astrology, to today, when presidents and prime ministers privately consult self-proclaimed seers. Politics and the Occult offers a lively history of this enduring phenomenon. Author and cultural pundit Gary Lachman provocativly questions whether the separation of church and state so dear to modern political philosophy should be maintained. A few of his fascinating topics include the fate of the Knights Templar and the medieval Gnostic Cathars, the occult roots of America and the French Revolution in Freemasonry, Gurdjieff and the swastika, Soviet interest in UFOs, the CIA and LSD, the Age of Aquarius, the millenarian politics that inform the struggle with Islamic terrorism, fundamentalism, and more.

Foundations of Esotericism

Foundations of Esotericism PDF Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 185584561X
Category : Anthroposophy
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
‘It is a cosmic law that what has once taken place can never vanish, but must reappear later in a metamorphosed form. Every thought, feeling and action brought about by man does not only affect the world around him but will reappear in the future…’ (From the Preface) This course of lectures was originally offered as private, strictly verbal instruction to a select group of esoteric pupils. In an atmosphere of earnest study, Rudolf Steiner ‘translated’ from the Akashic Script valuable concepts of human and cosmic knowledge into words of earthly language – content that is often not to be found in his later lectures. Although working within the Theosophical Society, Steiner was an independent spiritual teacher: ‘… I would only bring forward the results of what I beheld in my own spiritual research.’ The manifold, exact and detailed descriptions of the events of evolution in these lectures form a background to the evolving figure of the human being. The mighty event of the moon leaving the Earth, vividly described, took place – according to Rudolf Steiner – in order to provide an environment suited to human progress. The wonderful moment when the higher being of man descended in a bell-like form and enveloped the lower human body, still on a level with the animals, depicts what eventually provided human beings with a body suited to the development of the self or ‘I’. Spiritual beings and the great initiates led humanity along the path it was destined to tread. Rudolf Steiner presents a sweep of occult knowledge, including the phases of planetary evolution, various myths and symbols, human physical and spiritual organs, illness, reincarnation, and much more. Also included are unexpected insights into specific phenomena such as dinosaurs, bacteria, radiation, black and white magic, the Sphinx and Freemasonry.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-century Spiritualism and the Occult

The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-century Spiritualism and the Occult PDF Author: Sarah A. Willburn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781782686675
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Designed both for those new to the field and for experts, this volume is organized into sections covering the relationship between Victorian spiritualism and science, the occult and politics, and the culture of mystical practices. The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult brings together some of the most prominent scholars working in the field to introduce current approaches to the study of nineteenth-century mysticism and to define new areas for research.