Esotericism, Art, and Imagination

by Arthur Versluis (Editor), Lee Irwin (Editor), John Richards (Editor)

Overview

Esotericism, Art, and Imagination is a uniquely wide-ranging collection of articles by scholars in the field of Western esotericism, focusing on themes of poetry, drama, film, literature, and art. Included here are articles illuminating such diverse topics as the Gnostic fiction of Philip Pullman, alchemical images, the Tarot, surrealism, esoteric films, and much more. This collection reveals the richness and complexity of the intersections between esotericism, artistic creators, and their works. Authors include Joscelyn Godwin, Cathy Gutierrez, M. E. Warlick, Eric Wilson, and many others. The first in a series of volumes on Western esotericism, this book emerged from international academic conferences held by the Association for the Study of Esotericism (www.aseweb.org).
Edited by Arthur Versluis, Lee Irwin, John Richards, and Melinda Weinstein

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596500235
Publisher:	New Cultures Press
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Series:	Studies in Esotericism , #1
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	602,635
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

Arthur Versluis is Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Michigan State University. He is author of numerous books, including Magic and Mysticism, The New Inquisitions, Restoring Paradise, The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance, Wisdom’s Children, and American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions. He has published articles on topics ranging from comparative federalism to Christian esotericism. Editor of the journal Esoterica, he is also co-editor of JSR: Journal for the Study of Radicalism.

Lee Irwin is Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He has studied world religions intensively, with an emphasis on Native American religions, Western esotericism, transpersonal psychology, and contemporary spirituality—particularly in the area of dreams and visions. Among his many published works are: The Dream Seekers: Native American Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains, Visionary Worlds, The Making and Unmaking of Reality, Awakening to Spirit: On Life, Illumination, and Being, and Alchemy of Soul: The Art of Spiritual Transformation.

John D. Richards is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at West Virginia State University.

Melinda Weinstein is Associate Professor and Chair of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Communication at Lawrence Technological University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
John Richards and Arthur Versluis...vii

Esoteric Theaters
Theater and Initiation: Euripides' Bacchae
Melinda Weinstein ...5

Esoteric Cinema
Eric G. Wilson...23

Hex and the City:
Texts for Occult Performance in Late Capitalism
Lance Gharavi...47

Esoteric Art
Philosophic Mercury:
Evolution of the Alchemical Feminine
M. E. Warlick...67

Le Jeu de Marseille:
The Breton Tarot as Jeu de Hasard
Giovanna Costantini...91

The Esoteric Art of Cecil Collins
Arthur Versluis...113

Esoteric Poetry
William Blake, George Cumberland,
and the Visionary Art of Exotic Erotica
Marsha Keith Schuchard...125

Vladimir Solovyov's Poems of Wisdom, Mystery, and Love
George M. Young...145



Mirror, Mask and Anti-self:
Forces of Literary Creation in Dion Fortune and W. B. Yeats
Claire Fanger...161

Esoteric Fiction
Esotericism without Religion:
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials
Joscelyn Godwin...185

"Knowing In Terms of Togetherness":
D. H. Lawrence and Esotericism
Glenn Alexander Magee...203

Faux Catholic:The History of a Gothic Subgenre from Monk Lewis to Dan Brown
Victoria Nelson...225

Esoteric Photography
Dark Materials:
The Chemical Wedding of Photography and the Esoteric
Chris Webster...251

A Mirror with a Memory:
Spirit Photography and the Future of Ghosts
Cathy Gutierrez...267

Esoteric Gardens
Enlightenment and Freemasonry in Eighteenth-century Venice:
The Hermeticism of Querini's Garden at Altichiero
Patrizia Granziera ...281

Advent Garden and the Waldorf Imagination:
Esotericism, Ritual, and Childhood
Sarah W. Whedon...303

About the Editors...319

Index...321