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The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900-1939
Challenges the conventional view of a “disenchanted” and secular modernity, and recovers the complex relation that exists between science, religion, and esotericism in the modern world.
Max Weber famously characterized the ongoing process of intellectualization and rationalization that separates the natural world from the divine (by excluding magic and value from the realm of science, and reason and fact from the realm of religion) as the “disenchantment of the world.” Egil Asprem argues for a conceptual shift in how we view this key narrative of modernity. Instead of a sociohistorical process of disenchantment that produces increasingly rational minds, Asprem maintains that the continued presence of “magic” and “enchantment” in people’s everyday experience of the world created an intellectual problem for those few who were socialized to believe that nature should contain no such incalculable mysteries. Drawing on a wide range of early twentieth-century primary sources from theoretical physics, occultism, embryology, radioactivity, psychical research, and other fields, Asprem casts the intellectual life of high modernity as a synchronic struggle across conspicuously different fields that shared surprisingly similar intellectual problems about value, meaning, and the limits of knowledge.
“ The Problem of Disenchantment is, in its entirety, extraordinarily well researched, argued, and written—representing at once the most complete and nuanced treatment of the notion of disenchantment within this network of scientific, religious, philosophical, and esoteric discourses and currents.” — Nova Religio
Max Weber famously characterized the ongoing process of intellectualization and rationalization that separates the natural world from the divine (by excluding magic and value from the realm of science, and reason and fact from the realm of religion) as the “disenchantment of the world.” Egil Asprem argues for a conceptual shift in how we view this key narrative of modernity. Instead of a sociohistorical process of disenchantment that produces increasingly rational minds, Asprem maintains that the continued presence of “magic” and “enchantment” in people’s everyday experience of the world created an intellectual problem for those few who were socialized to believe that nature should contain no such incalculable mysteries. Drawing on a wide range of early twentieth-century primary sources from theoretical physics, occultism, embryology, radioactivity, psychical research, and other fields, Asprem casts the intellectual life of high modernity as a synchronic struggle across conspicuously different fields that shared surprisingly similar intellectual problems about value, meaning, and the limits of knowledge.
“ The Problem of Disenchantment is, in its entirety, extraordinarily well researched, argued, and written—representing at once the most complete and nuanced treatment of the notion of disenchantment within this network of scientific, religious, philosophical, and esoteric discourses and currents.” — Nova Religio
646 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2014
About the author
Egil Asprem
17 books5 followersEgil Asprem, Ph.D. (History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, University of Amsterdam, 2012; M.A., Religious Studies, U. Amsterdam, 2008; B.A., Religious Studies & Philiosphy, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 2006), is Professor in the History of Religions within the Department of Ethnology at Stockholm University, with a focus on western esotericism, new religious movements and alternative spritiualities, and the cognitive science of religion. He is editor-in-chief of Aries, a Member of the Board of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), and with Kennet Granholm co-founder and coordinator of Contemporary Esotericism Research Network (ContERN).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 24, 2015
This is an important application of discourse analysis to the idea of science as a profession, showing how the specter of a mechanical universe -- "disenchantment" -- engendered a variety of responses over the period 1900-1939. Within this "problem history" lie discussions of the sociology of science, esotericism, and parapsychology, and this book should be required reading for anything further that people may wish to publish about those topics over this period. The power of the interdisciplinary connections being made is particularly notable.
The author favors science as a method for talking about the humanities, but the book is extremely scholarly and unbiased, and should be good food for thought for people of any persuasion interested in how "disenchantment" has been handled as a problem. This is really a top rate book and will probably become, alongside Joscelyn Godwin's Theosophical Enlightenment, a key to understanding this aspect of the 19th century, just as Hans Blumenberg and Charles Taylor are key to understanding early modernity.
The author favors science as a method for talking about the humanities, but the book is extremely scholarly and unbiased, and should be good food for thought for people of any persuasion interested in how "disenchantment" has been handled as a problem. This is really a top rate book and will probably become, alongside Joscelyn Godwin's Theosophical Enlightenment, a key to understanding this aspect of the 19th century, just as Hans Blumenberg and Charles Taylor are key to understanding early modernity.
June 2, 2023
以韦伯提出的「世界祛魅」的观点为主线，梳理了近代以来，神学、神秘学和科学的发展，最让人惊喜的是作者说明了历史的局限性，让读者意识到在面对各种历史的时候应该多个心眼。收获还蛮大的，由表到里，层层剥开，祛魅是什么？科学在近代是如何建构的？神秘学这个概念又是怎么来的？神秘学在近代有哪些流派，他们做了什么，引起了哪些争议？……
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews