The Problem of Disenchantment (Paperback)

Egil Asprem

ISBN 10: 1438469926 / ISBN 13: 9781438469928

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2018

About this Item

Paperback. 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. 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. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781438469928

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Problem of Disenchantment (Paperback)
• Publisher: State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1438469926
• ISBN 13: 9781438469928
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Egil Asprem is Associate Professor of History of Religions at the Department of Ethnology, History of Religions, and Gender Studies, Stockholm University, and the author of Arguing with Angels: Enochian Magic and Modern Occulture, also published by SUNY Press.