Magic in History. Magic in the Modern World : : Strategies of Repression and Legitimization / / ed. by Randall Styers, Edward Bever.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn State University Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• MitwirkendeR: Asprem, Egil,; Bever, Edward,; Davis, Erik,; Goodwin, Megan,; Harms, Dan,; Jortner, Adam,; Láng, Benedek,; Styers, Randall,
• HerausgeberIn: Bever, Edward,; Styers, Randall,
• Place / Publishing House: University Park, PA : : Penn State University Press, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Magic in History
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (216 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; Introduction --; Part 1: Magic and the Making of Modernity --; Chapter 1 Bad Habits, or How Superstition Disappeared in the Modern World --; Chapter 2 Descartes’s Dreams, the Neuropsychology of Disbelief, and the Making of the Modern Self --; Chapter 3 Why Magic Cannot Be Falsifi ed by Experiments --; Chapter 4 Witches as Liars: Witchcraft and Civilization in the Early American Republic --; Part 2: Magic in Modernity --; Chapter 5 Loagaeth, q consibra a caosg: The Contested Arena of Modern Enochian Angel Magic --; Chapter 6 Babalon Launching: Jack Parsons, Rocketry, and the “Method of Science” --; Chapter 7 Manning the High Seat: Seiðr as Self- Making in Contemporary Norse Neopaganisms --; Chapter 8 Reviving Dead Names: Strategies of Legitimization in the Necronomicon of Simon and the Dark Aesthetic --; Selected Bibliography --; List of Contributors --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780271079899; 9783110745238
• DOI: 10.1515/9780271079899?locatt=mode:legacy
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: ed. by Randall Styers, Edward Bever.

This collection of essays considers the place of magic in the modern world, first by exploring the ways in which modernity has been defined in explicit opposition to magic and superstition, and then by illuminating how modern proponents of magic have worked to legitimize their practices through an overt embrace of evolving forms such as esotericism and supernaturalism.Taking a two-track approach, this book explores the complex dynamics of the construction of the modern self and its relation to the modern preoccupation with magic. Essays examine how modern “rational” consciousness is generated and maintained and how proponents of both magical and scientific traditions rationalize evidence to fit accepted orthodoxy. This book also describes how people unsatisfied with the norms of modern subjectivity embrace various forms of magic—and the methods these modern practitioners use to legitimate magic in the modern world.A compelling assessment of magic from the early modern period to today, Magic in the Modern World shows how, despite the dominant culture’s emphatic denial of their validity, older forms of magic persist and develop while new forms of magic continue to emerge.In addition to the editors, contributors include Egil Asprem, Erik Davis, Megan Goodwin, Dan Harms, Adam Jortner, and Benedek Láng.