21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Truth=Revelation + Reason + Tradition, September 24, 2004
This review is from: Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Paperback)
"Magic, Mystery, and Science" is a historical survey of the "occult" in Western culture. That includes things like numerology, astrology, cabala (of Madonna fame), alchemy, witches and witch-hunts, New Age, hypnosis, ESP, UFO's and alien abductions, Gnosticism, near-death experiences, Satan and demons, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The authors attempt as neutral an approach as possible to these ideas. They aren't debunking skeptics or gullible suckers. This book reminds me of Jeffrey Burton Russell's magnificent series of volumes on the devil. Those books were objective, informed, and thorough in intellectual, historical, and literary approaches. Like this book, they are also a lot of fun to read because the subject is so fascinating. "Magic, Mystery, and Science" is unusually accessible for a university press offering, and at 390 pages it doesn't feel rushed or incomplete although it covers hundreds of years of history.
The art on the cover neatly depicts the theme of the book. It's an old painting that depicts an alchemist in search of the "Philosopher's Stone" (a stone that heals, purifies and perfects anything it touches.) Instead, the alchemist accidentally discovers phosporus. Burton and Grandy perceive the occult as a "third stream" of knowledge in Western Culture, along with Greek rationalism and orthodox Judeo-Christianity. Science, religious faith and "magic" (some would use the word "intuition" instead) are three ways of apprehending the truth that are designed to be used in conjuction with each other. The authors spend a lot of time debunking the rigid naturalism that emerged out of the Enlightenment that reduced human beings in essence to biological robots helpless in the grip of natural forces. Practitioners of the occult were grasping for a way out of this trap. Burton and Grandy point out that in the Renaissance science and magic often went hand in hand together. Isaac Newton not only discovered gravity but was a determined if unsuccessful alchemist. Many thinkers considered reality as all of one piece and made no distinction between the natural and what was called (incorrectly) the supernatural. Thus the cover image of the alchemist who becomes a scientist almost in spite of himself.
The authors aren't propogandists for the occult. They include an absorbing chapter on Nazism and the occult and show how Hitler as a young man became obsessed with a mystical, sexually charged form of anti-Semitism that he transmitted like a virus to the whole German nation. They also painfully depict the stupid atrocites of the European witch-hunts. There's also some rather funny descriptions of the fakeries and con-artistry of 19th century American Spiritualists, all of whom turned out to be frauds. The authors can see clearly how such figures as Gurdjieff and Blavatsky could seem at once impressive and silly. The UFO phenomenon and Whitley Strieber also take a big hit from these guys.
But on the whole Burton and Grandy seem determined to clear some room in Western culture for revelation, for epiphany, for the possibility that humans can come to know some things about the natural order that science alone is too earthbound and clumsy to grasp. Late in the book the authors discuss quantum physics and how it has replaced stultifying "classical" materialism:
"So the hope of producing a comprehensive theory of the universe founders on the realization that we inevitably participate in nature: nature is a game that allows no spectators. We cannot sit in the audience and blithely take in the play; we are on the stage, deeply involved and unpredictably ratcheting up the world's complexity while attempting to understand it...it would appear that the smallest parts of nature are capable of timelessly registering faraway changes. Space and time, the great separating modalities of classical science, no longer seem so absolute." (page 326)
This is a good, interesting book.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice balance between science, occult, religion, November 14, 2005
This review is from: Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Paperback)
This book aims to show that science and the occult are not discrete, mutually exclusive categories of human understanding. Historically speaking, each has borrowed from the other, and so the view that science systematically dispels or discredits occult practices and attitudes is flawed, or at least less defensible than commonly assumed. Religion and/or spirituality inevitably plays into the mix as well. Perhaps the biggest point the authors make is that modern science is, in many ways, inhospitable to religious and occult belief. Not so much because of its skepticism, but because of its bleak characterization of physical reality. Of course this characterization has, in the 20th century, been challenged by science (primarily physics) itself, at least insofar as some people choose to interpret the science. But that brings us back to the earlier point that science, the occult, and spirituality never settle down into discrete, self-contained states. As Empedocles said long ago regarding the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water), they continually "run through" each other.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Occult Reading for the Non-Believer, February 7, 2007
This review is from: Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization (Paperback)
My eyes usually glaze over when someone starts to wax enthusiastic about a New Age or occult subject, so at first blush I was not eager to read this book. However, the authors won me over with their lively writing and observations about various occult movements throughout Western history. Kudos to the authors for cogent writing on a wide range of occult topics, from alchemy to gnosticism to spirit mediums, and for a witty, engaging, and thought-provoking tone throughout.
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