Esotericism and Deviance

List of Figures


Notes on Contributors


Introduction Or, What We Talk about When We Talk about Deviance

  Manon Hedenborg White and Tim Rudbøg



Part 1

Theorizing Deviance

1 On the Social Organization of Rejected Knowledge Reassessing the Sociology of the Occult

  Egil Asprem



2 On the Concept of a Deviant Movement

  Olav Hammer



3 Disrupting Sanctified Deviance The Benefits of Boredom

  Jay Johnston



4 “The Judges of Normality Are Everywhere” Has Esotericism and the Ideas of H. P. Blavatsky’s Ever Been Normal?

  Tim Rudbøg



Part 2

Historical Cases

5 Constructions of Religious Deviance in the Greek and Roman Worlds

  Richard Gordon



6 The Deviance of Toz The Reception of Toz Graecus and Magical Works Attributed to Toz in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

  Lauri Ockenström



7 Forgotten Knowledge, Deviance and Esotericism The Eternally Burning Lamps of Fortunio Liceti

  Martin Mulsow



8 Strategic Deviance and Conflicting Loyalties The Spiritualist Interests of Bishop Ghenadie Petrescu (1836–1918)

  Ionuț Daniel Băncilă



9 Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Onomatodoxy (Imyaslavie) and Theological Flexibility in Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

  Konstantin Burmistrov



10 Vasily V. Nalimov – A Scientist, Philosopher and “Mystical Anarchist” from Komi

  Birgit Menzel



11 Haṭhayoga as “Black Magic” in Early Theosophy and Beyond

  Keith E. Cantú



12 Philology as an Epistemological Strategy to Claim Higher Knowledge Translational Endeavors within the Theosophical Society; A Case Study of Annie Besant’s Bhagavad-Gita

  Yves Mühlematter



13 “I Would Not Have Left Your Platform Had I Not Been Compelled” Annie Besant’s Exclusion from the National Secular Society (1891)

  Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière



14 Dismissing the Occult The Links between Esoteric Currents and French Homeopathic Medicine during the First Half of the Twentieth Century

  Léo Bernard



15 The Devil’s Popess The French Reception of Maria de Naglowska (1883–1936) in the Early 1930s

  Michele Olzi



16 Confessions of a Persian Opium Smoker Sadegh Hedayat, Esotericism, and The Blind Owl

  Kurosh Amoui



17 Fernando Pessoa’s Multiple Esoteric Deviances

  Fabio Mendia



Part 3

Concluding Remarks

18 Afterword Rejected Knowledge as a Liberal Art

  Joscelyn Godwin



  Editors’ Conclusion

  Manon Hedenborg White and Tim Rudbøg



Index