The Problem of Disenchantment by Egil Asprem

The Problem of Disenchantment by Egil Asprem

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.

Egil Asprem is Research Fellow at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam and author of Arguing with Angels: Enochian Magic and Modern Occulture. Kennet Granholm is Docent and Assistant Professor in History of Religions at Stockholm University and author of Embracing the Dark: The Magic of Dragon Rouge - Its Practice in Dark Magic and Meaning Making.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781438469928
ISBN 10	1438469926
Title	The Problem of Disenchantment
Author	Egil Asprem
Series	Suny Series In Western Esoteric Traditions
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	State University of New York Press
Year published	2018-06-01
Number of pages	646
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.