No:12 (2020)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://gupea-staging.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/80635

Western Esotericism and Literature

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Browsing No:12 (2020) by Subject "occultism"

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    From Chorazin to Carcosa. Fiction-Based Esotericism in the Black Pilgrimage of Jack Parsons and Cameron
    (LIR. journal, 2020) Hedenborg White, Manon
    Rocketeer, poet, and polyamorous proto-feminist, Jack Parsons (1914-1952) is one of the earliest and most legendary followers of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) and his religion Thelema in America. A precocious only child and avid sci-fi reader, Parsons made vital contributions to the American space programme, and was briefly regarded by Crowley as a potential successor. However, Parsons’ romantic side, keen imagination, and tendency to be seduced by literary fiction was a source of friction between the two men. Parsons drew freely on gothic horror as well as pulp and sci-fi literature in articulating his personal magical universe. In 1946, he undertook the ‘Babalon Working’: a series of magical operations aimed at manifesting the goddess Babalon on earth as a sort of Thelemic messiah. This paper will explore the importance of literature for Parsons’ magical worldview and experimentation, focusing on three key works: Crowley’s Moonchild, Jack Williamson’s Darker Than You Think, and M.R. James’ short story »Count Magnus«.
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    Gustav Meyrink’s The Golem. A Sensationalist Shlock Novel or an Esoteric Vision of the World?
    (LIR. journal, 2020) Wistrand, Sten
    Gustav Meyrink lived in a time when the interest in spiritism, theo sophy and occult phenomena was widespread. He joined about every esoteric society available, attended séances, ex pe rimented with diets and drugs, and practiced alchemy and yoga. But he also, in a way, was a sceptic. In some circles, he still has a reputation as a man with deep insights in the true nature of being and has even been seen as a man with prophetic gifts. Controversial in his lifetime, his reputation as an author is still disputable. Jorge Luis Borges praised his works, while Ernst Pawel, in his Kafka-biography, dismisses The Golem as »a shlock novel«. In The Golem Meyrink transforms the Prague legends of Rabbi Loew’s creature of clay into a book of esoteric wisdom putting into play Kabbalistic and alchemist thinking, tarot cards and metempsychosis. The novel also has been both referred to, and rejected, as a story of horror or Gothic fiction, and described as purely fantastic. I would like to discriminate between effect and function and maintain that Meyrink takes advantage of Gothic effects in order to convey his spiritual vision of the world. That aside, it is reasonable to argue that his foremost interest, as an author of fiction, was to tell us a good and interesting story. For that reason you might also question if his references to esoteric traditions are to be taken wholly seriously or rather are to be seen as motifs in the hands of a quite self-indulgent novelist.