By Psyche | July 30, 2008
John Dee’s Occultism: Magical Exaltation Through Powerful Signs, by Gyorgy Szonyi
State University of New York Press (SUNY), 0791462234, 362 pp. (incl. notes, bibliographies and index), 2004
In John Dee’s Occultism Szyoni argues that, contrary to popular sentiment, Dee’s interest in occultism was not separate from his scientific investigations, but a logical extension of his philosophical studies.
The book is arranged Continue reading »
Popularity: 3%
By Psyche | July 29, 2008
By Psyche | July 28, 2008
Based at the University of London, The Harry Price Library of Magical Literature is under threat due to budget cuts to the university’s grant for its specialist library.
John Fielden, who heads Chems, the consultancy carrying out the review, admits that selling off collections including Price’s is under consideration. Other options include splitting up the library to free up space for renting, or closing it down altogether.
- Independent.co.uk, “Magical library may vanish“
The collection contains some 13,000 items and as such is the largest of its kind in Britain. It includes Continue reading »
Popularity: unranked
By Psyche | July 25, 2008
A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern, by Corinna Treitel
John Hopkins University Press, 0801878128, 366 pp. (incl. appendices, notes, bibliography and index), 2004
A Science for the Soul explores German occultism between the 1870s and 1940s, largely focusing on parapsychology, séances, mediumism, Theosophy and the spiritualist movement, their popularization, and what effects this had on the larger German culture.
Treitel opens with a look at how occultism brought science and the psyche together, helping to facilitate “the blossoming of psychological modernism circa 1900″, which she writes has been “largely ignored or underplayed in accounts of the era”. Continue reading »
Popularity: 18%
By Psyche | July 23, 2008
The Galloway Chronicles, an occult blog which tags itself as an “occult resource of extremely limited appeal”, is running a (fairly informal, from what I can see) contest for the 2008 Sexiest Occultist Alive (or dead).
The contest, billed as “the most important beauty contest since the judgement of Paris”, is described as follows:
This annual contest, normally held exclusively on the astral plane, has been moved to the blogosphere per orders of Dr. Dee, who is trying to make room on his back lawn for events of what he calls “greater occult significance.”
Plutonica.net officially nominates Kara Rae Garland, better known to occultists as Soror Ceilede, for the newly coveted title of Sexiest Occultist Alive (or dead). Continue reading »
Popularity: 2%
