Exploratory sex magic. Experimentation with mind-altering drugs. Astral travel. Alchemy. Alex Owen's new book, The Place of Enchantment, situates these seemingly anachronistic practices squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality in a compelling demonstration of how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. By the end of the nineteenth century, Victorians sought 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 occultism in British culture prior to World War I. Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and placing it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of an intellectual avant-garde. 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 is far more than a social history of occultism. Her conclusions bear directly on understandings of modernity and force us to rethink the place of the irrational in modern culture.
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"Present in this book are a wonderfully rich cast of characters. It is splendid to have them rescued from the past. . . . This is a fascinating study. . . . It succeeds in making its point that British occultism is a significant part of the intellectual history of modernity."--Peter Stansky "H-Albion "
About the Author
Alex Owen is professor of history and gender studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of The Darkened Room, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
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In September 1898 two respectable Victorians met in a private house in London for the express purpose of traveling to the planets. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
In September 1898 two respectable Victorians met in a private house in London for the express purpose of traveling to the planets. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A much needed serious scholarly exploration of fin de siecle esotericism
17 Feb 2012
By L. Farrell
Format:Paperback
This is the first book I have encountered that seriously examines the intellectual, political and cultural influences and mileau of the practices and persons involved in the Golden Dawn and the esoteric movements at the beginning of the 20th Century. Alex Owen approaches the subject with erudition and places these movements within their context and traces the influence on the modernist conception of the self.
Be warned...this is no pot-boiler or pseudo-new age treatise on the Golden Dawn and occult but a thorough and engaging attempt to get beneath the skin of the people involved and their occult practices...fascinating...the account of Crowley in a later chapter is good and this book hopefully should set the standard for further works in this neglected and dismissed area that is over-due for critical review and evaluation. 4 stars as it took me a while to warm up to Alex Owen's approach to the subject but if you really are interested in a critical examination of these influential esoteric movements, whether Crowley, Blavatsky or the members of the Golden Dawn and their ritual magic that involved inducing OOBE's to travel the 'astral planes' dive in!!!
Be warned...this is no pot-boiler or pseudo-new age treatise on the Golden Dawn and occult but a thorough and engaging attempt to get beneath the skin of the people involved and their occult practices...fascinating...the account of Crowley in a later chapter is good and this book hopefully should set the standard for further works in this neglected and dismissed area that is over-due for critical review and evaluation. 4 stars as it took me a while to warm up to Alex Owen's approach to the subject but if you really are interested in a critical examination of these influential esoteric movements, whether Crowley, Blavatsky or the members of the Golden Dawn and their ritual magic that involved inducing OOBE's to travel the 'astral planes' dive in!!!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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5.0 out of 5 stars
2 reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rational Spirit and the Modern
4 Jan 2005
By Samuel E. Wagar
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
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.
3 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good overview
8 Oct 2005
By Mycroft
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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