1st Edition

The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947

Edited By Christine Ferguson, Andrew Radford Copyright 2018
294 Pages
by Routledge

294 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

294 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

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,... Read more


Table of Contents



Christine Ferguson: Introduction



Occulture Beyond the Metropole 





Chapter 1: Michael Shaw, "Theosophy in Scotland: Oriental Occultism and National Identity"





Chapter 2: Nick Daly, "The Everyday Occult on Stage: The Play of Lord Dunsany"





Chapter 3: Clare Button, " ‘A very perfect form of discipline’: Rolf Gardiner, folk dance and occult landscapes"



Occulting the Public Sphere





Chapter 4: Jake Poller, " ‘Under a Glamour’: Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and Neo-Theosophy"





Chapter 5: Nick Freeman, "The Black Magic Bogeyman 1908-1935"





Chapter 6: Elsa Richardson, "Stemming the Black Tide of Mud: Psychoanalysis and the Occult Periodical, 1910-1924"



Women’s Occulture





Chapter 7: Caroline Tully, "Egyptosophy in the British Museum: Florence Farr, the Egyptian Adept and the Ka"



Chapter 8: Dennis Denisoff, "Occult Synaesthetics and Pamela Colman Smith’s The Green Sheaf"



Chapter 9: Andrew Radford, "Anxieties of Mystic Influence: Dion Fortune’s The Winged Bull and Aleister Crowley"



Art, Fiction and Occult Intermediation





Chapter 10: Aren Roukema, "Naturalists in Ghost Land: Victorian Occultism and Science Fiction"





Chapter 11: Massimo Introvigne, "Painting the Masters in Britain: From Schmiechen to Scott"





Chapter 12: Steven Sutcliffe, " ‘Beating on Your Heart’: The Novels of David Lindsay and the Cultic Milieu in the 1920s"

Biography

Christine C. Ferguson is Senior Lecturer in English in the School of Criticial Studies and Andrew Radford is Lecturer in English in the School of Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK.

"Ultimately, this is an important and well-assembled contribution that warrants wide reading among scholars of British esotericism, par-ticularly those specializing in Theosophy."

- Ethan Doyle White, University College London