The Place of Enchantment
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £7.00
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £7.00, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"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 "
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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
"
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
"
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
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
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Rational Spirit and the Modern
4 Jan 2005
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 8 people found the following review helpful
Good overview
8 Oct 2005
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.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
