Occulture: the Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward

Description

Explores the role of magic and the occult in art and culture from ancient times to today • Examines key figures behind esoteric cultural developments, such as Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner • Explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture • Reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end and offers strategies to rekindle intuitive creativity Art, magic, and the occult have been intimately linked since our prehistoric ancestors created the first cave paintings some 50,000 years ago. As civilizations developed, these esoteric forces continued to drive culture forward, both visibly and behind the scenes, from the Hermetic ideas of the Renaissance, to the ethereal worlds of 19th century Symbolism, to the occult interests of the Surrealists. In this deep exploration of... Foreword by Gary Lachman 1 Contra Contra Means Pro 2 Splendor Solis Lebensreform and Sexual Vitalism in Germany 3 Abstraction Made Concrete The Occultural Methods and Mutations of Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth 4 Over the Moon and Back Again 5 Pokemon Go Away 6 What Remains for the Future? An Initial Attempt at a Comparison between Aleister Crowley and Rudolf Steiner 7 Paul Bowles Expat Magic 8 Tangible Evanescence 9 Anton LaVey, Magical Innovator 10 Carl Jung, Mythmaker 11 The Imaginative Libido 12 Formulating the Desired Some Similarities between Ritual Magic and the Psychoanalytic Process 13 Zine und Zeit 14 The Mega Golem Is Alive and Well 15 Sexual-Dynamic Polarity as a Magical Formula Aleister Crowley's Views on Gender and Transcendence 16 The Economy of Magic There's No Free Lunch or Free Magical Success 17 The Magic of Dreams Made Real 18 Collective Mysticism It's Probably a Myth 19 Challenging Inertia and Entropy 20 Memes or Schemes 21 Intuition as a State of Grace Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index