Magic and the Occult (Anthropology Of Religion)

Coming forth by Night

by Marco Pasi

Published in: Alexis Vaillant (ed.), Options with Nostrils, Rotterdam, Sternberg Press - Piet Zwart Institute, 2010, pp. 103-111.

Julies Evola, l'alchinia ed il tradizionalismo.

by marco pucciarini

This article aims to show that Julius Evola was the first to develop an organic idea that Alchemy is a type of spiritual realization.

The Medium on the Stage: Trance and Performance in Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism

by Simone Natale

Early Popular Visual Culture 9.3 (2011): 239-255

Free download in the Francis&Taylor site (only available for a limited time):
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/gqUsqrF3zfVir2srnGYS/full

While historians of spiritualism have been eager to focus on its political and social implications, less attention has... more While historians of spiritualism have been eager to focus on its political and social implications, less attention has been given to the fact that spirit communication was also a matter of visual spectacle. This article aims to analyse spiritualist séances as a form of spectacular entertainment. Relying on a wide array of spiritualist sources, it argues that séances were meant not only as moments of religious and scientific inquiry, but also as a brilliant amusement where theatrical effects embellished an exciting shared experience. The intermingling of religion and entertainment can thus be seen as one of the defining characteristics of the spiritualist experience. After sketching the history of the presence of spiritualist mediums on the stage and discussing the involvement of professionalism in mediumship, the article will then focus on the trance as a specific performance strategy. It will examine how the trance combined issues of automatism, theatricality and absorption, and contributed to the coexistence in spirit séances of spectacular features and claims of authenticity.

Secret Chiefs: Spirit Communication in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

by Leo Ruickbie

in Christopher M. Moreman (ed.), The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking with the Dead in America and Around the World (Praeger, forthcoming)

Vampire Autopsies

by Leo Ruickbie

Fortean Times, issue 288 (Special, 2012)

In the eighteenth century medical investigations of alleged vampires were conducted by military surgeons serving in... more In the eighteenth century medical investigations of alleged vampires were conducted by military surgeons serving in the Habsburg army in Serbia. Their reports seemed to confirm the existence of the vampire to the general astonishment of Europe. This article examines the context and impact of these reports before proposing an explanation for these remarkable findings.

Theses de magia

by Marco Pasi

Published in: Societas Magica Newsletter, 20 (Fall 2008), pp. 1-8.

The Seven Seals of Judeo-Islamic Magic: Possible Origins of the Symbols

by Lloyd Graham

First release: ePublication on Academia.edu, 15 April 2012.

The Seven Seals of medieval Islamic magic, which are believed to constitute the Greatest Name of God, also feature in... more The Seven Seals of medieval Islamic magic, which are believed to constitute the Greatest Name of God, also feature in Jewish Kabbalah from the same period. While many Seal symbols make sporadic appearances in early Islamic amulets bearing Kufic script, the source of the symbols and their eventual ordering remains a matter of legend. As this topic was first – and last – examined systematically by Dr. Hans Winkler in 1930, a wider-ranging and more modern review is long overdue. The present survey focuses on potential sources for the symbols rather than on their exegesis. It first examines the possibility that a precedent for the Seal series exists in an undecipherable “seven signs repeated seven times” inscribed on a Late Babylonian amulet. It then considers the possibility that the Seals’ origins lie in other cuneiform symbols from ancient Mesopotamia; in Egyptian hieroglyphs or scripts; in paleo-Hebrew characters or the letters of ancient South Arabian scripts; in Libyco-Berber or Tifinagh letters from North Africa; or in the symbol repertoire of Late Antique magic, including the highly potent seven Greek vowels. The review also explores the possibility that at least some of the symbols originated in numerological ciphers or religious emblems, canvassing sources as diverse as Indian Hinduism and Byzantine Christendom. The article concludes by considering the recent suggestion that the Seal series may have acquired its privileged status because its symbols reflect “shape archetypes” that are hard-wired into the human nervous system.

Moderne magische Praxis. Modelle – Techniken – Schulen

by Gerhard Mayer

published in "Grenzgebiete der Wissenschaft" GW 59 (2010) 2, 99-134

English Abstract:

Even in the enlightened 21st century there are people in secularized Western societies... more English Abstract:

Even in the enlightened 21st century there are people in secularized Western societies devoted to magic in an intensive and engaged manner as well as conducting magical practices and rituals. Although their motivations and approaches are diverse, most of them are following some few formative traditions and groups. The article gives an overview of different definitions and models of magic from an emic perspective, i. e. from the practitioner’s point of view. Furthermore, common techniques and procedural methods are described. Finally, the magical-occult movements and groups that are most important to contemporary magic in central European and Anglophone cultures are presented. In this way the reader shall be provided with a kind of map serving orientation and a better understanding of magic – a field which for many people is still somewhat occult.

Keywords:
Chaos magic
Crowley, Aleister
definitions of magic
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
magic orders
magic practices
models of magic
Western mystery schools
Thelema

Die Bedeutung von Tradition und Geheimnis für praktizierende Magier des 21. Jahrhunderts: Ergebnisse einer Interviewstudie

by Gerhard Mayer

published in "Aries", 2008, 8 (2), 117-138

This article addresses the question of the significance of tradition and secrecy for practicing magicians from various... more This article addresses the question of the significance of tradition and secrecy for practicing magicians from various occult groups of the twenty-first century. The observations are based upon the results of an interview study alongside an analysis of contemporary literature concerning the practice of magic. The significance which is attached to the ‘occult’ tradition, the transmission of esoteric knowledge and the figure of the person teaching this knowledge correlates very strongly with the spiritual alignment of the magical practice. This is especially pronounced among mystery schools which are oriented towards ‘white magic’. These concepts, however, play only a relatively marginal role. This is not true with  regard to aspects of secrets and secrecy. Although the distinct
influence of a postmodern relativisation can be ascertained here, there nevertheless remains understandable functions of secrecy in both theory and practice. One can no longer, however, take a social functionality of secrecy, which characterised the secret societies of the Enlightenment, as a starting point, as the cultural situation of the twenty-first  century has changed too much.

Keywords
functions of secrecy; magical practice; magical traditions; chaos magick; postmodernism; cultural
relativism; empirical field study

Download a preprint version:
http://www.igpp.de/german/eks/tradition_und_geheimnis_preprint.pdf

Coming Home or Drifting Away: Magical Practice in the Twenty-First Century—Ways of Adopting Heterodox Beliefs and Religious Worldviews

by Gerhard Mayer

co-authored with René Gründer; published in "Journal of Contemporary Religion", Vol 25: 3, pp. 395-418

ABSTRACT This article examines the process-related dynamics of becoming a magical
practitioner and an adherent of... more ABSTRACT This article examines the process-related dynamics of becoming a magical
practitioner and an adherent of a Neopagan group, respectively. It analyzes the relation of
the thesis of Interpretive Drift (Luhrmann) and the concept of Coming Home Experience,
which have a big impact on academic discussions and are often seen as mutually
contradictory. Using empirical data from two German interview studies with
contemporary magicians and German heathen (Asatru) groups, the article shows that
the two dynamics can form complementary elements of the process. In addition, it
emphasizes the importance of personal extraordinary experiences containing strong
subjective evidence which are mostly neglected. Taking individual biographical aspects
into account as well as different personal motivations, an immense variety of approaches
to alternative worldviews might become possible. Thus we come to the conclusion that
simple generalizations in characterizing the ‘pathway to magical beliefs and practices’ are
misleading.

The Importance of Extraordinary Experiences for Adopting Heterodox Beliefs or an Alternative Religious Worldview

by Gerhard Mayer

Co-authored with René Gründer; published in "Journal of the Society for Psychical Research", 2011, Vol. 75.1., No 902, pp. 14-25

The importance of extraordinary experiences for the process of adopting a heterodox belief system or an alternative... more The importance of extraordinary experiences for the process of adopting a heterodox belief system or an alternative religious world view is often neglected in the existing research literature. Scholars of religion commonly lay stress on the process of religious conversion characterized by different stages. Extraordinary experiences are, thereby, included as potential internal catalysts (e.g. mystical experiences or near-death experiences), but only among others. The particular quality of the extraordinary experience remains largely unconsidered. In our paper, we emphasise the personal extraordinary experiences of strongly subjective evidence as an important factor in the process of becoming a magical practitioner and adopting a heterodox worldview. Our examination is based on the interview data of three field studies with neoshamans, contemporary magicians, and German heathen (Asatru), conducted in German-speaking countries. First, we outline different functions of extraordinary experiences regarding the process. Second, we reflect on the process of converting the personal extraordinary experience into a narration (framing). Finally, we propose to distinguish between two classes of extraordinary experiences, with regard to their function in the process of adopting a heterodox (religious) worldview. Furthermore we address the methodological problem regarding the possibility of the reconstruction of factual/objective 'paranormal' events as potential catalysts of extraordinary experiences. This gives rise to the question of the validity of narratively embedded and processed extraordinary experiences. In this context, the German differentiation between Erlebnis (experience in the sense of a pure individual impression) and Erfahrung (social form of experience, based on shared knowledge) seems to be a crucial distinction.

Magicians of the 21st Century. An Attempt at Dimensioning the Magician's Personality

by Gerhard Mayer

published in "Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft", 2009, 4(2), 176-206

This article presents findings of a field study of comtemporary magicians representing a large spectrum of magical... more This article presents findings of a field study of comtemporary magicians representing a large spectrum of magical disciplines. Eleven interviews were conducted in German-speaking countries, focusing on biographical embedding, experiential aspects, and world views. From this data, an attempt is made to describe the magician's personality. Five approaches and motivational structures guiding magical practice are identified, and five typified aspects of the magician are distinguished: the magician as artist, the magician as social utopian, the magician as scientist, the magician as "fully functioning person," and the magician as seeker of wisdom.

Artists as Shamans: A Critical and Historical Overview - and Some Friendly Advice to Scholars

by Denita Benyshek, MFA, MA

Presented at the 2011 Conference of the International Society for Shamanistic Researchers: Shamanism and its Arts, State Ethnographic Museum of Warsaw, Poland.

Oriental Kabbalah and the Parting of East and West in the Early Theosophical Society

by Marco Pasi

Published in: Boaz Hus, Marco Pasi, and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Kabbalah and Modernity: Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, Leiden - Boston, Brill, 2010, pp. 151-166.

Varieties of Magical Experience: Aleister Crowley's Views on Occult Practice

by Marco Pasi

Published in: Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, 6:2 (December 2011), pp. 123-162. To be reprinted in: Henrik Bogdan and Martin Starr (eds.), Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism. An Anthology of Critical Studies, Oxford, Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2012

Alaerian's Watchtower

by J. Alan Moore

Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition No. 20, Vol. 2. Vernal Equinox 2011
Issue title: "Adapting Tradition"

John Dee and Edward Kelley's Great Table, Part III - Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore

by Teresa Burns

"John Dee and Edward Kelley’s Great Table Part III: How Edward Kelley’s Visions Shaped Color, Directional, and Elemental Correspondences of the Watchtowers" by Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore. Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition No. 20, Vol. 2. Vernal Equinox 2011.

John Dee and Edward Kelley's Great Table, Part II - Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore

by Teresa Burns

"John Dee and Edward Kelley's Great Table, Part II (The Angelic Governors and Black Cross)" by Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore.
Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition No. 19, Vol. 2. Autumnal Equinox 2010

John Dee and Edward Kelley's Great Table Part I- Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore

by Teresa Burns

"John Dee and Edward Kelley’s Great Table (or, What’s This Grid For, Anyway?)" by Teresa Burns and J. Alan Moore. Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition No. 19, Vol. 2. Autumnal Equinox 2010

“Ouvi contar que outrora”: A misteriosa fotografia de um jogo de xadrez que nunca aconteceu

by Marco Pasi

Publicado no blog "Um Fernando Pessoa", junho 2009. Ver: http://blog.umfernandopessoa.com/2009/06/ouvi-contar-que-outrora-misteriosa.html