1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460036803321

Autore

Lehrich Christopher I

Titolo

The occult mind [[electronic resource] ] : magic in theory and practice / / Christopher I. Lehrich

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2007

ISBN

0-8014-6225-8

0-8014-6054-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (264 p.)

Disciplina

133.4/3

Soggetti

Magic

Occultism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- 1. Ægypt -- 2. The Ley of the Land -- 3. The Theater of Hieroglyphs -- 4. The Magic Museum -- 5. Tarocco and Fugue -- 6. De(mon)construction -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

"Given the historical orientation of philosophy, is it unreasonable to suggest a wider cast of the net into the deep waters of magic? By encountering magical thought as theory, we come to a new understanding of a thought that looks back at us from a funhouse mirror."-from The Occult Mind Divination, like many critical modes, involves reading signs, and magic, more generally, can be seen as a kind of criticism that takes the universe-seen and unseen, known and unknowable-as its text. In The Occult Mind, Christopher I. Lehrich explores the history of magic in Western thought, suggesting a bold new understanding of the claims made about the power of various belief systems.In closely interlinked essays on such disparate topics as ley lines, the Tarot, the Corpus Hermeticum, writing and ritual in magical practice, and early attempts to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics, Lehrich treats magic and its parts as an intellectual object that requires interpretive zeal on the part of readers/observers. Drawing illuminating parallels between the practice of magic and more



recent interpretive systems-structuralism, deconstruction, semiotics-Lehrich deftly suggests that the specter of magic haunts all such attempts to grasp the character of knowledge. Offering a radical new approach to the nature and value of occult thought, Lehrich's brilliantly conceived and executed book posits magic as a mode of theory that is intrinsically subversive of normative conceptions of reason and truth. In elucidating the deep parallels between occult thought and academic discourse, Lehrich demonstrates that sixteenth-century occult philosophy often touched on issues that have become central to philosophical discourse only in the past fifty years.