Description
Book SynopsisThe study of the ideas and practices associated with occultism is a rapidly growing branch of contemporary scholarship. However, most research has focused on English and French speaking areas and has not addressed the wider spread and significance of occultism.
Occultism in a Global Perspective presents a broad international overview. Essays range across the German magical order of the Fraternitas Saturni, esoteric Satanism in Denmark, sexual magic in Colombia and the reception of occultism in modern Turkey, India and the former Yugoslavia. As any other form of cultural practice, the occult is not isolated from its social, discursive, religious, and political environment. By studying occultism in its global context, the book offers insights into the reciprocal relationships that colour and shape regional occultism.
Trade Review“The book easily ranks as one of the significant contributions of the year.” – Heterodoxology blog
"A welcome and valuable addition to our knowledge about this wide-ranging subject … Occultism in a Global Perspective is a book of profound significance for anthropologists." – Anthropology Review Database
"A valuable set of studies of little known movements" – Magonia Review of Books
Table of Contents1. Introduction: Occultism in a Global Perspective, Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic
2. Locating the West: Problematizing the Western in Western Esotericism and Occultism, Kennet Granholm
3. The Magical Order of the Fraternitas Saturni, Hans Thomas Hakl
4. ‘In communication with the powers of darkness’: Satanism in turn-of-the-century Denmark, and its use as a legitimating device in present-day esotericism, Per Faxneld
5. Hidden Wisdom in the Ill-Ordered House: A Short Survey of Occultism in Former Yugoslavia, Gordan Djurdjevic
6. Occultism and Christianity in Twentieth Century Italy: Tommaso Palamidessi’s Christian Magic, Francesco Baroni
7. Savitri Devi, Miguel Serrano, and the Global Phenomenon of Esoteric Hitlerism, Arthur Versluis
8. Sexual Magic and Gnosis in Colombia: Tracing the Influence of G.I. Gurdjieff on Samael Aun Weor, PiereLuigi Zoccatelli
9. Occultism in an Islamic Context: The Case of Modern Turkey From the Nineteenth Century to the Present Time, Thierry Zarconne
10. Reception of Occultism in India: The Case of the Holy Order of Krishna, Henrik Bogdan
11. Transnational Necromancy: W. B. Yeats, Izumi Kyôka, and neo-nô as Occultic Stagecraft, Emily Somers
12. An Australian Original: Rosaleen Norton and her Magical Cosmology, Nevill Drury
