DOCSLIB.ORG

Contemporary Esotericism

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Contemporary Esotericism CHAPTER 10 HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, HIDDEN POWERS ESOTERICISM AND CONSPIRACY CULTURE Asbjørn Dyrendal !e relation between esotericism and conspiracy theory takes many forms. However, the scholarly literature has focused mainly on conspiracy theories about esoteric societies. !is is understandable. Lea"ng through the literature of conspiracy culture one may often be struck by the prominence given to eso- teric societies in these alternative versions of history. Many websites of con- spiracy theory pay an enormous amount of attention to “occult” groups, some imaginary, others well known. Seemingly small and powerless societies like the Ordo Templi Orientis may be presented as the polar opposite. Societies long defunct according to academic historiography may be presented as driv- ing forces in history, the crowning example being the Bavarian secret society Illuminati, theories about which have grown only more expansive since the order’s demise in the 1780s.1 Such theories are often viewed as quaint expressions of fundamentalist out- rage against unorthodox and largely unknown expressions of religion. !ey may, however, be related to more than fundamentalisms and become anything but quaint. Both recently, such as during the Satanism scare, and more dis- tantly, in the aftermath of the French Revolution,2 conspiratorial versions of history and society have acquired prominence. In such cases fear and outrage may reach the level of moral panic. !ese occasions of collective action have “mainstreamed” certain theories for a limited period of time, and have sparked both public and academic interest in conspiracy theories about esoteric soci- eties. !is is why we know so much, relatively speaking, about them. Collective action and mainstreaming have been less prominent in a corre- spondingly less researched phenomenon: varieties of belief in, and use of, con- spiracy theories in esoteric movements. But if “esotericism” is the construct of 1. See e.g. Sørensen, Den Store Sammensvergelsen. 2. E.g. John M. Roberts, !e Mythology of the Secret Societies. 200 HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, HIDDEN POWERS a “Grand Polemical Narrative”3 we should, perhaps, consider that the polemi- cal construction of otherness might be reciprocal.4 !eir common rejection by the mainstream may lead those de"ned as Other by a self-proclaimed ortho- doxy to de"ne their ties to each other and their emically constructed histori- cal forebears as close.5 !ey may also project a similar kind of otherness onto their preferred opponents, e#ectively demonizing the mainstream as much as any discourse of the more powerful. !at such polemical narratives may take the form of conspiracy theory has already been considered with regard to some examples from esoteric groups. !e presence of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in far-right esoteric move- ments is, for instance, well known.6 Here, however, I will show further exam- ples of conspiracy theory in esoteric societies, with three largely di#erent usages; in anthroposophy, Satanism and Discordianism. As we shall see in these examples, conspiracy theories about secret, esoteric societies crop up even within the esoteric discourse on conspiracy. It should come as no surprise that some “esotericists”, when believing in conspiracies, may also ground them in esoteric discourse. We should perhaps try to delve deeper, into the less easily seen. So in order to assuage the thirst for esoteric knowledge, I shall attempt a tentative answer to a discussion I have had with one of the editors of the present volume: may conspiracy theories in themselves qualify for membership in contemporary esoteric discourse in any useful manner? Does relating them to each other help us understand anything better? In order to delve into this issue, I look next at two examples of conspiracy discourse written by recognized spokespersons within conspiracy culture. To assist in the venture of examining whether conspiracy discourse itself is also usefully considered as esoteric discourse, I will look at the examples through the lens of three interrelated topics that follow closely on my chosen de"nitions of conspiracy theory and esoteric discourse (below): notions of history, agency and knowledge. !e "rst topic raises questions related to conspiracy theories as apocalyptic mythologies of evil, and their construction of secret societies in history. Revealing secret history brings us to the nature of knowledge, how it is constructed and what its function is in these mythologies. Hidden knowledge about secret agents who are more e#ective than those seen, also brings in the question of agency, and how secret knowledge may make it more powerful. !ese topics should, hopefully, be a good starting point for considering con- spiracy theories both about esoteric movements and in esoteric discourse, and 3. Hanegraaf, “Forbidden Knowledge”. 4. E.g. Hammer, “Contested Diviners”. !is reciprocity is implied by Hanegraa# and others as well, but it is rarely explicitly addressed. 5. Cf. Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy. 6. E.g. Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun; Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right; Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy. 201 ASBJØRN DYRENDAL a promising set of questions for re$ecting on whether considering conspiracy theory as esoteric discourse is useful. CONSPIRACY THEORY, CONSPIRACY CULTURE AND ESOTERICISM Conspiracy theory is, in common parlance, a denigratory label indicating that a theory about the causes of an event or phenomenon, among other things, (i) involves a deliberate conspiracy, (ii) is fanciful and (iii) commits glaring errors of fact and/or reasoning. !ese connotations are so pervasive that they cannot be overlooked, so I shall instead make use of them. In this context, “conspiracy theory” is taken to mean theories involving consciously plotting cabals, theo- ries that are, in regard to extant knowledge, fanciful, and which make use of what is, from an academic perspective, specious reasoning, factually unlikely, or simply wrong. !e latter is also an implication of Michael Barkun’s scheme of classifying conspiracy theories as “stigmatized knowledge”.7 Taken together, these elements focus on the notion of explicitly intentional agency in conspir- acy theory, and on the importance of claims to hidden, “esoteric” knowledge stigmatized by mainstream society’s ”Grand Polemical Narratives” to hide the truth. !e consciously plotting cabal mark out what constitutes “conspiracy the- ory” from a broader family of narratives about hidden forces limiting human agency and subverting our quest for knowledge. !is broader family is what is usually meant by “conspiracy culture”.8 In this article I subscribe to a narrower understanding of conspiracy culture to delimit the milieu and discourses sur- rounding conspiracy theorists understood as “spokespersons”. I only rarely draw on narratives not involving deliberate conspiracy, and then only as back- ground or comparison. With regard to what may count as esoteric, I take a broad stance in$uenced by, among others, Kocku von Stuckrad’s focus on “the esoteric” as discursive strategy9 and Christopher Partridge’s concept of occulture.10 For the purposes here, I follow von Stuckrad’s delimitation of esoteric discourse: What makes a discourse esoteric is the rhetoric of hidden truth, which can be unveiled in a speci"c way and established contrary to other interpretations of the universe and history – often that of the institutionalised majority.11 7. Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy. 8. E.g. Knight, Conspiracy Culture; Knight, Conspiracy Nation. 9. E.g. von Stuckrad, Western Esotericism. 10. Partridge, !e Re-enchantment of the West. See also Chapter 6 of this volume. 11. Von Stuckrad, Western Esotericism, 10. 202 HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, HIDDEN POWERS We may note that by including opposition to “the institutionalised majority”, this way of viewing esoteric discourse foreshadows the possibility that re"ected polemical narratives may be used by those forced into the domain of rejected knowledge. As Wouter Hanegraa# notes with regard to the mainstream, iden- tity construction depends on “simultaneously constructing an ‘other’ who rep- resents whatever we do not want to be”.12 !is works the other way around as well, and demonizing the “other” can strengthen identity when social bonds are loose.13 When interest in content also overlaps, we may "nd a broader occulture in a more sociological sense of “amorphous networks”14 clustering – at least for a while – around certain ideas. !e ideas circulating in, from and to a broader “alternative” mainstream is what Partridge terms occulture: a “reser- voir of ideas, beliefs, practices, and symbols”15 related to “arcane and restricted knowledge”16 from a broad spectrum of sources. Unlike Campbell’s focus on a monist nature of the mystical religion he termed the cultic milieu, Partridge’s occulture includes the dualist. !e ideas constituting dark occulture, to which conspiracy theory belongs, are thus a phase of, or subscene within, the broader “occultic” milieu. As we shall see next, conspiracy thinking is also a far from uncommon element in esoteric discourse. CONSPIRACY THEORY AMONG ESOTERIC SPOKESPERSONS !e examples below are drawn from three fairly di#erent representatives of esoteric discourse, all of which are at least at one order removed from the right-wing esotericism most often tied to conspiracism: Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy; Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan; and the Discordian movement represented by Principia Discordia and the Illuminatus! trilogy. !ey di#er: Steiner is an important and recognized representative of esoteric discourse; LaVey combines “secularized esotericism” with a less rec- ognized “esotericized secularism”;17 and the Discordian movement is least eas- ily placed, being perhaps the most unorganized representative of a “chaotic” stream within neopaganism. Discordianism started as a mock religion, and became more of a serious joke as it developed in many di#erent directions.18 It is the branch of chaotic thought where conspiracy theory is most prominent, albeit in a surprising manner resonating with several others.19 12. Hanegraa#, “Trouble with Images”, 109. 13. See e.g. Dyrendal, “Sykdomsindustrien”. 14. Partridge, !e Re-enchantment of the West, vol.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 4.1.2 Chronology of False Religions/Heresies of Satan (App.)
    The Need for Teaching the Eschatological Gospel of Both Comings of Jesus Christ in the 21st Century . 4.1.2 Chronology of False Religions/Heresies of Satan 0(app. 4,000 BC) 0 (app.) -- The Fall (Original Sin) of Humanity in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3) 75 (app.) -- Cain murders Abel and is cursed (Gen 4:1-16) 475 (app.) -- Lamech (descendent of Cain) murders 2 men & from his two wives (1st polygamist) & 4 kids came “human knowledge” vs. godly knowledge (Gen 4:20-24) 1,000 (3,000 BC) 1500 (app.) -- Angels marry women and procreate giants (Gen 6:1-8) 1656 (2344 BC) -- Flood wipes out sinful man on earth (only Noah & Family survive--Gen 7-8) 1757 (app.) -- Nimrod/Tower of Babel (Gen 11)—Nimrod & wife, Semiramis (from Ham, cursed son of Noah), establish Babylonian Mysteries Cults, Witchcraft/Pantheism (app.) = approximate Chronology of False Religions/Heresies of Satan (cont.) 2000 (2000 BC) 2000 (app.) -- Babylonian Mysteries Cult False Religion begins to spread over the entire earth (Becomes Baal and Ishtar/Ashteroth worship in Canaan) 2600-4400 -- Persians, Indians, Greeks, and Romans worship the god Mithras (1400 BC-400 AD) 2980 (app.) -- Sun god (Ra) and animal worship in Egypt (Egypt descended from Ham) 3,000 (1,000 BC) 3000 (app.) -- Sun worship and Animism established in India/Humanism in China 3278 (722 BC) -- Israel (Samaria) exiled to Assyria (resettled by Assyrian Mysteries cult/Judaism mixed races and religion, became the Samaritans) 3395 (605 BC) -- Beginning of Judah to exile in Babylon 3412 (588 BC) -- Taoism in China/Zoroastrianism
    [Show full text]
  • Transgressive Representations: Satanic Ritual Abuse, Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, and First Transmission Danielle Kirby
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The University of Sydney: Sydney eScholarship Journals... Transgressive Representations: Satanic Ritual Abuse, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, and First Transmission Danielle Kirby Introduction Articulating the acceptable and unacceptable limits of representation is an unquestionably fraught undertaking. In this issue, Norman Simms astutely states that when it comes to the artistic the very notion of representation suffers “epistemological and aesthetic problems,” limited by the fact that art and literature are “in essence duplicitous, acts of imitation and products of deceit.”1 Late Western modernity provides ample illustration of the often-contentious nature of representation, with recent events supplying a surfeit of examples where normative limits of representation have been uncomfortably transgressed, often generating public outcry and claims of wrongdoing. This article explores one such instance, the 1992 broadcast of an episode of the Channel 4 programme Dispatches, entitled „Beyond Belief,‟ in the United Kingdom. Now, twenty years after the fact, this episode and its broader context provide a fascinating, if disturbing, view into an extraordinary, though somewhat predictable, series of events. Taking the inherent ambiguity posed by the notion of the limits of representation as a starting point, this article will address the incident through a framework of transgression, seeking to articulate some of the varying ways in which such limits were breached, exceeded, and redefined. Beyond Belief On 19 February 1992, the UK television programme Dispatches aired an episode entitled „Beyond Belief.‟2 The episode purported to provide evidence Danielle Kirby is a Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.
    [Show full text]
  • Satanism in Finland Satanism in Finland
    474 Hjelm Chapter 59 Satanism in Finland Satanism in Finland Titus Hjelm Satanism entered the Finnish public consciousness in the mid-1980s. Per- haps not surprisingly, the first people who were interested in and concerned about Satanism were Pentecostalist Christians, namely the Finnish preacher/ prophet Leo Meller. Meller’s book Rock (1986) “exposed” the “satanic” content of contemporary rock and Heavy Metal music, very much in line with the con- temporary discussions in the USA. Although little discussed in the mainstream media at the time, Meller’s role set an example for later religious commenta- tors who posed and were received as experts on Satanism. Whereas the public attention generated by Meller and others denouncing the “satanic” popular culture of the times was regarded more or less sceptically or even with mild amusement in the media, Satanism acquired a more sinister image in the early 1990s with the church burnings and homicides connected to Satanists in Norway. Mainstream newspapers discussed the possibility of satanic cults in Finland and some murders were linked − no matter how tenu- ously − to an allegedly satanic motivation (Hjelm 2005a). The reality of Satanism was finally “proven” in the public eye when some people, namely the Finnish rock singer Kauko Röyhkä, publicly professed to be practising Satanists. Finnish Satanism in the Early 1990s Some anti-Satanist commentators (such as the abovementioned Leo Meller) have suggested that satanic ritual groups existed in Finland already in the 1970s, but this allegation hardly stands the test of critical scrutiny. There may, however, have been magical/occult groups or individuals in Finland at that time, but there is no knowledge of explicitly satanic involvement by any of these.
    [Show full text]
  • Handbook of Religious Beliefs and Practices
    STATE OF WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS HANDBOOK OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES 1987 FIRST REVISION 1995 SECOND REVISION 2004 THIRD REVISION 2011 FOURTH REVISION 2012 FIFTH REVISION 2013 HANDBOOK OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES INTRODUCTION The Department of Corrections acknowledges the inherent and constitutionally protected rights of incarcerated offenders to believe, express and exercise the religion of their choice. It is our intention that religious programs will promote positive values and moral practices to foster healthy relationships, especially within the families of those under our jurisdiction and within the communities to which they are returning. As a Department, we commit to providing religious as well as cultural opportunities for offenders within available resources, while maintaining facility security, safety, health and orderly operations. The Department will not endorse any religious faith or cultural group, but we will ensure that religious programming is consistent with the provisions of federal and state statutes, and will work hard with the Religious, Cultural and Faith Communities to ensure that the needs of the incarcerated community are fairly met. This desk manual has been prepared for use by chaplains, administrators and other staff of the Washington State Department of Corrections. It is not meant to be an exhaustive study of all religions. It does provide a brief background of most religions having participants housed in Washington prisons. This manual is intended to provide general guidelines, and define practice and procedure for Washington State Department of Corrections institutions. It is intended to be used in conjunction with Department policy. While it does not confer theological expertise, it will, provide correctional workers with the information necessary to respond too many of the religious concerns commonly encountered.
    [Show full text]
  • The Satanic Bible Anton Szandor Lavey
    Called “The Black Pope” by many of his followers, Anton LaVey began the road to High Priesthood of the Church of Satan when he was only 16 years old and an organ player in a carnival: “On Saturday night I would see men lusting after half‐naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing the organ for tent‐show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday night they’d be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. “I knew then that the Christian Church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man’s carnal nature will out!” From that time early in his life his path was clear. Finally, on the last night of April, 1966– Walpurgisnacht, the most important festival of the believers in witchcraft–LaVey shaved his head in the tradition of ancient executioners and announced the formation of The Church Of Satan. He had seen the need for a church that would recapture man’s body and his carnal desires as objects of celebration. “Since worship of fleshly things produces pleasure,” he said, “there would then be a temple of glorious indulgence. .” The Satanic Bible Anton Szandor LaVey For Diane Dedications To: Bernadino Logara, who knew the value of money Karl Haushofer, a teacher without a classroom Rasputin, who knew the magic of a child Sir Basil Zaharoff, a gentleman Cagliostro, a rogue Barnabas Saul, the link with Mount Lalesh Ragnar Redbeard, whose might is right William Mortensen, who looked .
    [Show full text]
  • Religious Sects and Cults: the Study of New Religious Movements in the United States
    For the personal use of teachers. Not for sale or redistribution. © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, 2011 Religious Sects and Cults: The Study of New Religious Movements in the United States Young Scholars in American Religion 2009-2011 Lynn S. Neal __________________________________________________________ Institutional Setting Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is a private, secular university with an undergraduate college dedicated to providing students with a liberal arts education. The student body numbers around 4500, many of whom graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class. The majority of these students are from the South (53 percent) and are affiliated with some branch of Christianity (Catholicism is the single largest denomination represented). However, in recent years, the college has been working hard to increase the racial, economic, regional, and religious diversity of the undergraduate population. Eliminating the SAT requirement and admitting students based on a more holistic approach has yielded some success in this regard. Students tend to be motivated and bright, involved and inquisitive. The challenge, for many, is balancing their academic interests and expectations with their various extracurricular commitments. Wake Forest upholds the teacher-scholar ideal for its professors, which demands excellence in both teaching and research. This encourages professors to develop their pedagogical skills, to consider connections between their teaching and research, and allows for smaller classroom sizes. The faculty/student ratio on campus is 11:1. My appointment is in the Religion Department where courses serve two primary purposes. First, our introductory courses fulfill a humanities requirement for the college.
    [Show full text]
  • Blavatsky the Satanist: Luciferianism in Theosophy, and Its Feminist Implications
    Blavatsky the Satanist: Luciferianism in Theosophy, and its Feminist Implications PER FAXNELD Stockholm University Abstract H. P. Blavatsky’s influential The Secret Doctrine (1888), one of the foundation texts of Theosophy, contains chapters propagating an unembarrassed Satanism. Theosophical sympathy for the Devil also extended to the name of their journal Lucifer, and discussions conducted in it. To Blavatsky, Satan is a cultural hero akin to Pro- metheus. According to her reinterpretation of the Christian myth of the Fall in Genesis 3, Satan in the shape of the serpent brings gnosis and liberates mankind. The present article situates these ideas in a wider nineteenth-century context, where some poets and socialist thinkers held similar ideas and a counter-hegemonic reading of the Fall had far-reaching feminist implications. Additionally, influences on Blavatsky from French occultism and research on Gnosticism are discussed, and the instrumental value of Satanist shock tactics is con- sidered. The article concludes that esoteric ideas cannot be viewed in isolation from politics and the world at large. Rather, they should be analyzed both as part of a religious cosmology and as having strategic polemical and didactic functions related to political debates, or, at the very least, carrying potential entailments for the latter. Keywords: Theosophy, Blavatsky, Satanism, Feminism, Socialism, Ro- manticism. In September 1875, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) co-founded the Theosophical society in New York City. Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), lawyer and journalist, was elected its first president. Blavatsky, however, became the chief ideologist, drawing authority from the com- munications concerning esoteric matters she claimed to receive from the mysterious ‘Mahatmas’ (or ‘Masters’).
    [Show full text]
  • The Devil's Music
    religions Article The Devil’s Music: Satanism and Christian Rhetoric in the Lyrics of the Swedish Heavy Metal Band Ghost P.C.J.M. (Jarell) Paulissen Department of Biblical Sciences and Church History, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands; [email protected] Abstract: This paper is an inquiry into a contemporary heavy metal band from Sweden called Ghost. Ghost released its first studio album in 2010 and, while there is some discussion as to what their genre is exactly, they immediately became a rising star in the metal scene. Yet what is of particular interest from a storytelling point of view, especially with regard to theological answers to philosophical questions in popular culture, is that the band presents itself as a satanic version of the Catholic Church through their stage act and lyrics. This made me curious whether they are trying to convey a message and, if yes, what that message might be. For the present paper, I have focused on the latter by performing a non-exhaustive textual analysis of the lyrics in a selection of songs from each of the four studio albums released so far. Ghost turns Christian liturgy on its head by utilizing devout language that is normally reserved for God and Christ to describe Satan and the Antichrist, a strategy I have called the ”satanification” of Christian doctrine, and in doing so their songs evoke imagery of a satanic faith community at prayer. The band then uses this radical inversion of traditional Christian themes to criticize certain elements of society, especially those aspects they associate with organized religion.
    [Show full text]
  • Researching New Religious Movements
    Researching New Religious Movements ‘The most important “first” that this book achieves is its bold questioning of the whole intellectual apparatus of the sociology of religion as it has been applied to the understanding of the new religious movements. I am confident that Elisabeth Arweck’s study will quickly become required reading in the sociology of new religious movements.’ Professor David Martin, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics, University of London ‘Powerful and original . it succeeds triumphantly in being at the same time an important, high-quality academic study and a book for our times.’ Professor David Marsland, Professorial Research Fellow in Sociology, University of Buckingham New religious movements such as Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Unification Church (Moonies) are now well established in mainstream cul- tural consciousness. However, responses to these ‘cult’ groups still tend to be overwhelmingly negative, characterized by the furious reactions that they evoke from majority interests. Modern societies need to learn how to respond to such movements and how to interpret their benefits and dangers. Researching New Religious Movements provides a fresh look at the history and development of ‘anti-cult’ groups and the response of main- stream churches to these new movements. In this unique reception study, Elisabeth Arweck traces the path of scholarship of new religious move- ments, exploring the development of research in this growing field. She con- siders academic and media interventions on both sides, with special emphasis on the problems of objectivity inherent in terminologies of ‘sects’, ‘cults’, and ‘brainwashing’. Ideal for students and researchers, this much- needed book takes the debate over new religious movements to a more sophisticated level.
    [Show full text]
  • The Proliferation of Post-Modern Religiosity in the Late Sixties
    MARCO TOTI The Proliferation of Post-Modern Religiosity in the Late Sixties The Case of ‘The Process Church of the Final Judgement’: from Psychoanalysis as Therapy to Psychoanalysis as Theology he sixties may be considered as a true turning point in the history of the West. It may be correctly stated that the counterculture ‘revo- Tlution’,1 which has characterized Western civilization since the sixties, gave rise to further (and crucial, especially from a religious perspec- tive) acceleration of what has been called ‘post-modernity’,2 the most important character of which is the revaluation of the ‘religious’ and the detachment of the category of ‘sacred’—the divinity being generally considered as ‘impersonal’ and in terms of ‘energy’—from traditional religions. The student rebellion first took root in the 1950s, when signs in literature, the cinema, comics, the theatre and music all bore witness in some embryonic way to the ‘end of innocence’ and the beginning of a new age in the US (especially in light of the fact that these products of new mass culture were meant for the younger generation, as well as of the irresolvable conflict between young people and adults). It was at that point that the cultural hero took on the form of a defeated rebel, amid deeply-rooted nostalgia over the certainty that something essen- tial had been lost—a ‘primordial America’, to which one feels attracted with infantile amazement, not exactly knowing how to find it again if not by means of a search for intensity, purity, immediacy and meaning (not ‘happiness’, which the American dream had already guaranteed in the public imagination in previous years).
    [Show full text]
  • Lucifer Over Luxor: Archaeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger’S Magick Lantern Cycle
    Doyle White, E 2016 Lucifer Over Luxor: Archaeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle. Present Pasts, 7(1): 2, pp. 1–10, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/pp.73 RESEARCH PAPER Lucifer Over Luxor: Archaeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle Ethan Doyle White* One of the great figureheads of American experimental cinema, Kenneth Anger (b.1927), is internationally renowned for his pioneering work, recognisable for its blend of homoerotica, popular and classical music, and dark, symbolist imagery. A follower of Thelema, the religion of infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), Anger’s work is imbued with occult themes and undercurrents rarely comprehen- sible to the non-initiated viewer. In exploring these esoteric ideas, Anger makes use of archaeology and heritage in his short filmsEaux d’Artifice (1953) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954–66), as well as in the lost films The Love That Whirls (1949) and Thelema Abbey (1955), which utilize such disparate elements as Aztec human sacrifice and putative Renaissance Satanism. However, this theme only reaches its apex in Lucifer Rising (1980), an exploration of Thelemic theology filmed at such sites as Avebury, Luxor, and Karnak, which reflects and propagates the Thelemic view of the past—an ‘alternative archaeology’ rooted in Crowley’s own fascination with Egyptomania. This paper seeks to explore Anger’s use of the past and place it in its proper context of twentieth-century Western esotericism. Kenneth Anger (b.1927) is one of the foremost figures of through the transformation of individual consciousness American experimental cinema, an artist who produced via artistic mediums (Hughes 2011: 12).
    [Show full text]
  • What Is Magic to the Laveyan-Satanist Ideal Type?: a Content-Analysis of the Satanic Bible's Descriptions of Magic
    Ursinus College Digital Commons @ Ursinus College Anthropology Summer Fellows Student Research 7-22-2016 What is Magic to the LaVeyan-Satanist Ideal Type?: A Content-Analysis of the Satanic Bible’s Descriptions of Magic Carter E. Timon Ursinus College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/anth_sum Part of the New Religious Movements Commons, and the Other Anthropology Commons Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits oy u. Recommended Citation Timon, Carter E., "What is Magic to the LaVeyan-Satanist Ideal Type?: A Content-Analysis of the Satanic Bible’s Descriptions of Magic" (2016). Anthropology Summer Fellows. 1. https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/anth_sum/1 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at Digital Commons @ Ursinus College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology Summer Fellows by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Ursinus College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WHAT IS MAGIC TO THE LAVEYAN-SATANIST IDEAL TYPE? A CONTENT-ANALYSIS OF THE SATANIC BIBLE’S DESCRIPTIONS OF MAGIC Carter Timon Abstract In 1966 Anton Szandor LaVey founded the Church of Satan (CoS) in California, and by 1969 published The Satanic Bible (1969). While many believe that the use of magic has declined in the Western world, LaVeyan Satanism according to The Satanic Bible actively includes magic while embracing rationalist philosophy. Satanism is an understudied New Religious Movement (NRM) and little is understood about its core tenets and practices. This paper uses content analysis of The Satanic Bible to understand how LaVey originally presents the workings of Satanic magic to his Western audience.
    [Show full text]