The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947 PDF
Preview The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947
Frontispiece The World card from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck used with permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc., Stamford, CT USA. c. 1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 Between 1875 and 1947, a period bookended, respectively, by the founding of the Theosophical Society and the death of notorious occultist celebrity Aleister Crowley, Britain experienced an unparalleled efflorescence of engagement with unusual occult schema and supernatural phenomena such as astral travel, ritual magic, and reincarnationism. Reflecting the signal array of responses by authors, artists, actors, impresarios and popular entertainers to questions of esoteric spirituality and belief, this interdisciplinary collection demonstrates the enormous interest in the occult during a time typically associated with the rise of secularization and scientific innovation. The contributors describe how the occult realm functions as a turbulent conceptual and affective space, shifting between poles of faith and doubt, the sacrosanct and the profane, the endemic and the exotic, the forensic and the fetishistic. Here, occultism emerges as a practice and epistemology that decisively shapes the literary enterprises of writers such as Dion Fortune and Arthur Machen, artists such as Pamela Colman Smith, and revivalists such as Rolf Gardiner. Christine C. Ferguson is Professor of English at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Andrew Radford is a lecturer in the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Among the Victorians and Modernists Edited by Dennis Denisoff This series publishes monographs and essay collections on literature, art, and culture in the context of the diverse aesthetic, political, social, technological, and scientific innovations that arose among the Victorians and Modernists. Viable topics include, but are not limited to, artistic and cultural debates and movements; influential figures and communities; and agitations and developments regarding subjects such as animals, commodification, decadence, degeneracy, democracy, desire, ecology, gender, nationalism, the paranormal, performance, public art, sex, socialism, spiritualities, transnationalism, and the urban. Studies that address continuities between the Victorians and Modernists are welcome. Work on recent responses to the periods such as Neo-Victorian novels, graphic novels, and film will also be considered. 1 Arthur O’Shaughnessy, A Pre-Raphaelite Poet in the British Museum Jordan Kistler 2 Dialectics of Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction Leila May 3 Louise Jopling Patricia de Montfort 4 Gender and the Intersubjective Sublime in Faulkner, Forster, Lawrence, and Woolf Erin K. Johns Speese 5 Victorian Sustainability in Literature and Culture Edited by Wendy Parkins 6 The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 Edited by Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 Edited by Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford The right of Christine Ferguson and Andrew Radford to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data CIP data has been applied for. ISBN: 978-1-4724-8698-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-16832-8 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Notes on contributors Introduction CHRISTINE FERGUSON Occulture beyond the metropole 1 Theosophy in Scotland: Oriental occultism and national identity MICHAEL SHAW 2 The everyday occult on stage: The plays of Lord Dunsany NICHOLAS DALY 3 “A very perfect form of discipline”: Rolf Gardiner, folk dance and occult landscapes CLARE BUTTON Occulting the public sphere 4 “Under a glamour”: Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and Neo- Theosophy JAKE POLLER 5 The Black Magic Bogeyman 1908–1935 NICK FREEMAN 6 Stemming the black tide of mud: Psychoanalysis and the occult periodical ELSA RICHARDSON Women’s Occulture 7 Egyptosophy in the British Museum: Florence Farr, the Egyptian Adept and the Ka CAROLINE TULLY 8 Pamela Colman Smith, symbolism and spiritual synaesthesia DENNIS DENISOFF 9 Anxieties of mystic influence: Dion Fortune’s The Winged Bull and Aleister Crowley ANDREW RADFORD Art, fiction and occult intermediation 10 Naturalists in Ghost Land: Victorian occultism and science fiction AREN ROUKEMA 11 Painting the masters in Britain: From Schmiechen to Scott MASSIMO INTROVIGNE 12 “Beating on your heart”: Occultism and neo-romanticism in the fiction of David Lindsay STEVEN J. SUTCLIFFE Bibliography Index
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