Occultism in a Global Perspective

269 Pages·2014·1.757 MB·English

by  Henrik Bogdan, Gordan Djurdjevic

OCCULTISM IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Approaches to New Religions
Series Editors: James R. Lewis, University of Tromsø
Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg
Editorial Board
Gordon Melton, Institute for the Study of American Religion
Ingvild Gilhus, University of Bergen
Wouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam
James T. Richardson, University of Nevada Reno
Steve Sutcliffe, Edinburgh University
Jo Pearson, University of Winchester
Massimo Introvigne, CESNUR
Published
Cults: A Reference Guide, 3rd edition
James R. Lewis
Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religions, Popular Narratives and Digital Cultures
Danielle Kirby
Occultism in a Global Perspective
Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic
OCCULTISM IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Edited by
Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic
First published in 2013 by Acumen
Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business
Editorial matter and selection © Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic, 2013
Individual contributions © contributors, 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
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.

Notices
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should
be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom
they have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors,
or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property
as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or
operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material
herein.
ISBN: 978-1-84465-716-2 (hardcover)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Typeset by JS Typesetting Ltd, Porthcawl, Mid Glamorgan.
CONTENTS
Contributors vii
1. Introduction: occultism in a global perspective 1
Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic
2. Locating the West: problematizing the Western in Western
esotericism and occultism 17
Kennet Granholm
3. The Magical Order of the Fraternitas Saturni 37
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 57
Per Faxneld
5. Hidden wisdom in the ill-ordered house: a short survey of
occultism in former Yugoslavia 79
Gordan Djurdjevic
6. Occultism and Christianity in twentieth-century Italy:
Tommaso Palamidessi’s Christian magic 101
Francesco Baroni
contents
7. Savitri Devi, Miguel Serrano and the global phenomenon of
esoteric Hitlerism 121
Arthur Versluis
8. Sexual magic and Gnosis in Colombia: tracing the influence
of G. I. Gurdjieff on Samael Aun Weor 135
PierLuigi Zoccatelli
9. Occultism in an Islamic context: the case of modern Turkey
from the nineteenth century to the present time 151
Thierry Zarcone
10. Reception of occultism in India: the case of the Holy Order
of Krishna 177
Henrik Bogdan
11. Transnational necromancy: W. B. Yeats, Izumi Kyôka and
neo-nô as occultic stagecraft 203
Emily Aoife Somers
12. An Australian original: Rosaleen Norton and her magical
cosmology 231
Nevill Drury
Index 255
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CONTRIBUTORS
Francesco Baroni is an Affiliated Fellow of the “Institut religions, cultures,
modernité” at University of Lausanne. He is the author of Tommaso Palamidessi
e l’Archeosofia (2011) and of numerous articles about Western esotericism and
new religious movements.
Henrik Bogdan is Associate Professor at the Department of Literature, History
of Ideas, and Religion at University of Gothenburg. In addition to numer-
ous articles and book chapters, Bogdan is the author of Western Esotericism
and Rituals of Initiation (2007), editor of Brother Curwen, Brother Crowley: A
Correspondence (2010), co-editor of Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism
(2012), Sexuality and New Religious Movements (forthcoming) and Handbook
on Freemasonry (forthcoming). He is the associate editor of The Pomegranate:
The Inter national Journal for Pagan Studies, and book reviews editor of Aries:
Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, as well as co-editor of the book
series “Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities”. He
is founder of the Scandinavian Network for the Academic Study of Western
Esotericism (SNASWE), and Board Member of the European Society for the
Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).
Gordan Djurdjevic teaches as a Sessional Instructor in the Department of
Humanities at Simon Fraser University (Canada). He is the author of Masters of
Magical Powers: The Nāth Yogis in the Light of Esoteric Notions (2008) and India
and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality on Modern Western
Occultism (forthcoming).
contributors
Nevill Drury is an independent historical researcher whose specialist interests
include modern Western magic, shamanism, transpersonal psychology and
visionary art. His most recent publications include The Varieties of Magical
Experience, co-authored with Dr Lynne Hume (2013); Dark Spirits: The Magical
Art of Rosaleen Norton and Austin Osman Spare (2012); Stealing Fire from
Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic (2011); Homage to Pan (2009); The
Dictionary of Magic (2005); and The New Age: The History of a Movement (2004).
He also edited the multi-authored Pathways in Modern Western Magic (2012).
Nevill received his PhD from the University of Newcastle, Australia, in 2008
for a dissertation on the visionary art and magical beliefs of Rosaleen Norton.
He has worked as an international art book publisher, lecturer and magazine
editor and his books have been published in twenty-six countries and nineteen
languages. Website: www.nevilldrury.com. 
Per Faxneld is Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of the History
of Religions, Stockholm University. Faxneld is the author of Mörkrets apos-
tlar: Satanism i äldre tid (2006), co-editor of Förborgade tecken: Esoterism i
litteraturen (2010) and The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity (2012). He has
published several articles and book chapters on the early history of Satanism,
esotericism in literature (as well as the role of literature in esotericism) and the
construction of tradition in Satanic groups. His dissertation focuses on “Satanic
feminism” (the motif of Satan as the liberator of woman) in nineteenth-century
culture.
Kennet Granholm is Docent in Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi
University and Assistant Professor in History of Religions at Stockholm Uni-
versity. He has written numerous articles on contemporary esotericism, new reli-
gions, and religion and popular culture. He is the author of Dark Enlightenment:
The Historical, Sociological, and Discursive Contexts of Contemporary Esoteric
Magic (forthcoming), the co-editor of Contemporary Esotericism (2013), and
the editor of Perspektiv på esoterisk nyandlighet (2009). He is co-director of
the Scandinavian Network for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism
(SNASWE), and the Contemporary Esotericism Research Network (ContERN).
Hans Thomas Hakl is an independent scholar, co-editor of Gnostika and
foreign correspondent of Politica Hermetica. He has written numerous articles
on occultism and contemporary magic. He is the author of Der verborgene
Geist von Eranos – Unbekannte Begegnungen von Wissenschaft und Esoterik
(2001), translated into English as Eranos: An Alternative Intellectual History of
the Twentieth Century (2013).
Emily Aoife Somers is currently a lecturer in the English Department at
the University of British Columbia. She recently completed a postdoctoral
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contributors
fellowship, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada. She has published numerous articles on modernism, translation, and
intercultural negotiations of artistic traditions. Her first monograph, Ancestral
Recall: The Celtic Twilight and Japanese Modernism, is currently being revised
for publication.
Arthur Versluis is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies and Professor
in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University. Among his books
are American Gurus (2013), Esotericism, Religion, and Politics (2012), Magic and
Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esotericism (2007), Restoring Paradise:
Esoteric Transmission through Literature and Art (2004), The Esoteric Origins
of the American Renaissance (2001), Wisdom’s Children: A Christian Esoteric
Tradition (1999) and American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions (1993).
He is the founding president of the Association for the Study of Esotericism
and editor of JSR: Journal for the Study of Radicalism.
Thierry Zarcone is Senior Researcher (Directeur de Recherches) at the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris (Groupe Société Religion Laïcité).
His areas of expertise include the history of Sufi lineages, Islamized shamanism,
Political Islam and secret societies in the Turko-Iranian region. He is the author
of Mystiques, philosophes et francs-maçons en Islam (1993), Secret et Sociétés
secrètes en islam (2002), La Turquie moderne et l’islam (2004), La Turquie. De
l’Empire ottoman à la République d’Atatürk (2005), Les Derviches tourneurs.
Histoire, doctrines et pratiques (with E. Feuillebois and A. Ambrosio, 2006),
Sufi Pilgrims from Central Asia and India in Jerusalem (2009), Le Soufisme, voie
mystique de l’islam (2009), Poétesses soufies de la confrérie bektachie (2010) and
Le Chamanism en Siberie et en Asie Centrale (with Charles Stépanoff, 2011). He
is also the editor of the Journal of the History of Sufism (Paris).
PierLuigi Zoccatelli is Deputy Director and Resident Scholar of CESNUR, the
Center for Studies on New Religions (Turin, Italy). In addition to numerous
articles and book chapters, published in eleven countries and seven languages,
he is the author – among other books – of Il New Age (1997) and Le Lièvre qui
rumine (1999), co-author of Hermétisme et emblématique du Christ dans la vie
et dans l’œuvre de Louis Charbonneau-Lassay (1996), Identità e identificazione
(2005) and Cinesi a Torino (2010), editor of Aleister Crowley: un mago a Cefalù
(1998), and co-director of Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (2013).
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