Dion Fortune | Heterodoxology

A good year for magic (research)

Occultists Franz Bardon and Dion Fortune are the subject of a recent book by Maia Daw.

The first half of 2012 has been a great year for research on modern Western ritual magic. I have already mentioned the publication of my own book, Arguing with Angels, which deals with that obscure system of angel magic known as “Enochian”. I have also mentioned the forthcoming thesis workshop on magic, co-hosted by the ESSWE and the Chair for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents here in Amsterdam. There are however a couple of other publications that have appeared so far this year as well, which I have been meaning to mention for a while. Let’s get to it.

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on June 24, 2012 at 7:46 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Arguing with Angels, Aries, Dion Fortune, Dragon Rouge, ESSWE, ESSWE thesis workshop, Franz Bardon, gender and esotericism, Goetia, Gregory Tillett, Hans Thomas Hakl, Henrik Bogdan, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Hugh Urban, Jeffrey Kripal, Jesper Aagaard Petersen, Julius Evola, Kennet Granholm, Left-Hand Path, Maia Daw, O.T.O., sexual magic, Theosophical Society, Traditionalism, UR-group, Wicca, Wouter Hanegraaff

On “Scientific Illuminism” and the Psychologisation of Magic

There is a post up at the tyromanteia blog, which offers a nice criticism of my article on Aleister Crowley’s negotiation of magic with science and psychology (“Magic Naturalized?”, published in Aries back in 2008). Tyromanteia draws on the work of Alex Owen (which I briefly reviewed last year) to place three 20th century magicians, Crowley, Israel Regardie, and Dion Fortune, within a broader “crisis of subjectivity” and a process of psychologisation. In this connection, the author finds opportunity to deal with my criticism of the “psychologisation thesis” on the survival of magic. I largely performed this criticism on the basis of Crowley, arguing that in this case, an attempted naturalisation of magic is more important than psychologisation. To this, Tyromanteia objects that Crowley largely anticipated the psychological and even psychotherapeutic interpretations which Regardie and Fortune later emphasised in their teachings. As I think this criticism points out an ambiguity in the original article, I will take this opportunity to make a brief response.