1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910790357403321

Autore

Gunn Joshua

Titolo

Modern Occult Rhetoric [[electronic resource] ] : Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Tuscaloosa, : University of Alabama Press, 2010

ISBN

0-8173-8541-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (372 p.)

Collana

Albma Rhetoric Cult & Soc Crit

Disciplina

130.14

130/.1/4

Soggetti

Language and languages

Mass media

Mass media -- History -- 20th century

Occultism -- History -- 20th century

Occultism - Social aspects

Popular culture - History - 20th century

Popular culture -- History -- 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I: Esoterica; 1. What Is the Occult?; Interlude: Erasing the Grooves: On Cold Feet; 2. Toward an Occult Poetics; Interlude: Mysteries of the Unknown; 3. H. P. Blavatsky and the Magic of Esoteric Language; 4. On Textual Occultism; Part II: Exoterica; Interlude: Re-membering Crowley; 5. Aleister Crowley and the Hermeneutic of Authority; Interlude: On Stolen Letters and Lettered Secrets; 6. The Death of the Modern Magus: "The Masses" and Irony's Other; 7. Prime-Time Satanism: Stock Footage and the Death of Modern Occultism

8. The Allegory of The Ninth GateEpilogue: The Fool's Yapping Cur; Appendix 1: Scholarship on Occultism; Appendix 2: Aleister Crowley's The Book of the Law; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

A broadly interdisciplinary study of the pervasive secrecy in America cultural, political, and religious discourse.  The occult has traditionally been understood as the study of secrets of the practice of mysticism or magic. This book broadens our understanding of the occult by treating



it as a rhetorical phenomenon tied to language and symbols and more central to American culture than is commonly assumed.  Joshua Gunn approaches the occult as an idiom, examining the ways in which acts of textual criticism and interpretation are occultic in nature, as evident in prac