The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern

by Alex Owen

Product Description:

By the end of the nineteenth century, Victorians were seeking rational explanations for the world in which they lived. The radical ideas of Charles Darwin had shaken traditional religious beliefs. Sigmund Freud was developing his innovative models of the conscious and unconscious mind. And anthropologist James George Frazer was subjecting magic, myth, and ritual to systematic inquiry. Why, then, in this quintessentially modern moment, did late-Victorian and Edwardian men and women become absorbed by metaphysical quests, heterodox spiritual encounters, and occult experimentation?

In answering this question for the first time, The Place of Enchantment breaks new ground in its consideration of the role of occultism in British culture prior to World War I. Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and situating it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of the intellectual avant-garde. Carefully placing a serious engagement with esotericism squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality and consciousness, Owen demonstrates how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. She details such fascinating examples of occult practice as the sex magic of Aleister Crowley, the pharmacological experimentation of W. B. Yeats, and complex forms of astral clairvoyance as taught in secret and hierarchical magical societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Through a remarkable blend of theoretical discussion and intellectual history, Owen has produced a work that moves far beyond a consideration of occultists and their world. Bearing directly on our understanding of modernity, her conclusions will force us to rethink the place of the irrational in modern culture.

“An intelligent, well-argued and richly detailed work of cultural history that offers a substantial contribution to our understanding of Britain.”—Nick Freeman, Washington Times

Subjects: History, Body, Mind & Spirit, New Age / Body, Mind & Spirit, New Age, Europe - General, Parapsychology - General, Body, Mind & Spirit / Parapsychology, History / Europe / General,

Reviews:

Good overview
This is a fair to good overview of the people & the period, although I think Owens makes over much of her "women's rights" notions. It is well researched & footnoted. Owens could have done much more on the influence of the GD at the turn of the century.

Rational Spirit and the Modern
An exceptionally fine piece of work. Owen's use of sources is excellent - published and unpublished accounts of magickal workings and the documents of occult orders. Her understanding of magickal subjectivity and the reflexivity of modernism is very insightful. Her argument that occultism was central to the formation of modernity is brilliant - in opposition to the usual idea that modernism was opposed to spirituality.I'd reccommend reading Joy Dixon's fine "Divine Feminine", Judith Walkowitz' "City of Dreadful Delights" and Leon Surette's "Birth of Modernism" as well.

Post-modernist Reading of the fin-de-siecle Occult Movements
While some further elaboration on his theoretical background and how it is applied to his analysis would be welcome, I can't say I've found a better reading of this period in Occultism. The highlight is certainly the chapter on Aleister Crowley in the Desert which gives the reader the most succinct treatment of The Beast's career that one could ask for in 35 pages. Structurally, the book is divided well between chapters, enabling the scholar looking for a particular tidbit to access without having to read the other parts for context, although anyone interested in one of the chapters would be well rewarded to read all (if not simply for pleasure in Owen's excellent narrative and careful consideration of his subject).

Dave

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