scholarly journals Conceptualising magic in 1950s Germany

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tilman Hannemann
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
New Age ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Age Movement ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Public Areas ◽  
Health Discourse

In an effort to explore the gap between pre-war occultism and the New Age movement, this article examines the public areas of stage magic, folklore magic, and handbook magic between 1947 and 1960. It firstly investigates possible connections between stage performance and the implicit character of religious beliefs and combines these observations with the notion of magic in the field of parapsychology. Then the latter approach is put into the context of mental health discourse, scientific culture, and the metaphysics of nature. The field of handbook magic, finally, relates to public debates about rationality and superstition as an attempt to popularise and legitimise knowledge and techniques of twentieth-century ‘high magic’.

Jainism in Danger? Temple entry and the rhetoric of religion and reform in post-colonial India

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
MANISHA SETHI
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Open The Doors ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract A bitter debate broke out in the Digambar Jain community in the middle of the twentieth century following the passage of the Bombay Harijan Temple Entry Act in 1947, which continued until well after the promulgation of the Untouchability (Offences) Act 1955. These laws included Jains in the definition of ‘Hindu’, and thus threw open the doors of Jain temples to formerly Untouchable castes. In the eyes of its Jain opponents, this was a frontal and terrible assault on the integrity and sanctity of the Jain dharma. Those who called themselves reformists, on the other hand, insisted on the closeness between Jainism and Hinduism. Temple entry laws and the public debates over caste became occasions for the Jains not only to examine their distance—or closeness—to Hinduism, but also the relationship between their community and the state, which came to be imagined as predominantly Hindu. This article, by focusing on the Jains and this forgotten episode, hopes to illuminate the civilizational categories underlying state practices and the fraught relationship between nationalism and minorities.

Civilization and the Culture of Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Gaukroger
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cognitive Values ◽  
Culture Of Science ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
The Way

How does science, in the period from the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, come to have such a central place in Western culture? At issue in the consolidation of a scientific culture is the way in which all cognitive values, and subsequently many moral, political, and social ones, come to be modelled around scientific values, and Civilization and the Culture of Science explores how these values were shaped and how they began in turn to shape those of society. The book continues the trajectory of three earlier volumes, which traced key aspects of the legitimation of science and the establishment of a scientific culture up to the early decades of the nineteenth century. The core nineteenth- and twentieth-century development is that in which science comes to take centre stage in shaping ideas of civilization. A central question is the role played by projects to unify the sciences, showing how the motivation for these comes from outside. A crucial part of this process was a fundamental rethinking of the relations between science and ethics, economics, philosophy, and engineering. The developments here are not linear or one-dimensional, and five issues that have underpinned the transition to a scientific modernity are explored: changes in the understanding of civilization; the push to unify the sciences; the rise of the idea of the limits of scientific understanding; the ideas of ‘applied’ and ‘popular’ science; and the way in which the public was shaped in a scientific image.

scholarly journals Scientists to the streets. Science, politics and the public moving towards new osmoses

2002 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Castelfranchi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Standard Model ◽  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Semipermeable Membrane ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Standard Model

What may be defined as the "standard model" of the public communication of science began to develop in the second half of the nineteenth century, gained a clear structure (especially in an Anglo-Saxon context) in the first three decades of the twentieth century and dominated until the nineties. Roughly speaking, the model tends to describe science as a compact social (and epistemic) corpus, largely separated from the rest of society by a type of semipermeable membrane. That is, information and actions can flow freely from science to the rest of society (through the application of technologies and the spread of scientific culture, for instance), but much more limitedly in the opposite direction (through science politics or the influence of sociocultural events on science itself).

scholarly journals DO THE CLOUDS REALLY HAVE LIMITS?

10.28945/3555 ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Shane Collier
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Computing ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Financial Risk ◽  
New Age ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
New Age Movement ◽  
Attractive Option ◽  
Challenging Environment ◽  
Current Business

Shane Collier, founder of Consolidated Reality, LLC (CReal) considered this proposition as he contemplated a potential venture with Beyond the Psy (BtP) which involved moving high-value, sensitive content to the cloud. With an extensive technical and business background, he grew to appreciate the value of cloud computing, along with its impact on business. To be leveraged correctly, you had to do more than simply migrate your existing infrastructure to the Cloud, or build a traditional application as a Cloud based solution--you had to innovate. Moreover, to leverage the cloud globally, you had to understand culture and its impact on security. Beyond the Psy (BtP), founded more that twenty-five years before the time of the case, faced a challenging environment. Current business was excellent, exceeding two hundred and fifty million dollars annually, but was constrained by space, location, and staff. Closely aligned with the new age movement, competition was emerging everywhere. Though an established brand, BtP could be superseded by newer, more aggressive organizations, often with more flash than substance. How could BtP defend and expand its business while protecting its intellectual property? CReal put an attractive option on the desk of Dave Conseen, Director of Technology at BtP. The objective was to recreate, using cloud computing, the experience of attending a program at the organization’s physical facility. If done properly, BtP could become a billion-dollar a year operation. The proposed project presented a number of risks to both parties. Consolidated Reality, LLC was small; this project could only be achieved by drawing staff and resources from other opportunities. A failure could threaten the company. Counteracting these risks was the potential to expand globally, while providing self-funding for future expansion. For BtP, there was the obvious financial risk; however, that was the lesser risk. Of far greater concern was the fact that many of BtP’s clientele were high profile individuals whose participation at BtP, if leaked to the public, could end careers. In addition, BtP’s key assets were the propriety media and other program materials that would be distributed more broadly under the proposal. Internationally, both the concepts of privacy and ownership were subject to the interpretation of the cultures in which the programs were hosted. What would happen when these programs moved beyond U.S. jurisdiction?

scholarly journals NEW SPIRITUAL MOVEMENT: Menelisik Visi Transformatif Komunitas Lia Eden sebagai Embrio Lahirnya New Age di Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Mohammad Takdir
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
New Age ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Spiritual Power ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Age Movement ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spiritual Movement

<p class="Iabstrak"><strong>Abstract:</strong> <em>This research aims to explain the phenomenon of Lia Eden community which is a new spiritual movement in the dynamics of religious life in Indonesia. Some points to be described in this research are related with a background of the birth and development of the Lia Eden community, teaching, and transformative vision in the public sphere. This research is a case study of the Lia Eden community that became of the New Age movement in the wake of belief in formal religions that considered failure in overcoming the modern human crisis. This research shows that Lia Eden community is a new spiritual movement </em><em>who tried to awaken a spirit of all religions so that able to overcome of a social problem in society. This movement is not ambitions to establish a new religious institution with a strict and doctrinal organization, but effort to transmit spiritual power at the individual level to become a reflection of the mystical movement that brought changes to human life.</em></p><strong>Abstrak:</strong> Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan fenomena komunitas Lia Eden yang merupakan gerakan spiritualitas baru dalam dinamika kehidupan beragama di Indonesia. Beberapa poin yang ingin dijabarkan dalam penelitian ini adalah berkaitan dengan latar belakang kelahiran dan perkembangan komunitas Lia Eden, ajaran, dan visi transformatifnya dalam ruang publik. Penelitian ini merupakan studi kasus dari komunitas Lia Eden yang menjadi bagian dari Gerakan Zaman Baru (<em>New Age Movement</em>) di tengah memudarnya kepercayaan terhadap agama formal yang dianggap gagal dalam mengatasi krisis kemanusian modern. Penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa komunitas Lia Eden merupakan gerakan spiritualitas baru yang berupaya membangkitkan roh dari semua agama agar berperan dalam mengatasi masalah sosial di masyarakat. Gerakan ini tidak berambisi untuk mendirikan institusi baru yang bersifat keagamaan dengan organisasi yang ketat dan bersifat doktrinal, melainkan berupaya untuk men­transmisikan kekuatan spiritual pada level individu hingga menjadi cerminan dari gerakan mistik yang membawa perubahan bagi kehidupan manusia.

scholarly journals Irish Cursing and the Art of Magic, 1750–2018*

2020 ◽  
Vol 247 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-149
Author(s):  
Thomas Waters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Age ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Modern History ◽  
New Age Movement ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Knowledge Practice ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Abstract Fairies, leprechauns, banshees, witches, holy wells and rural remedies. Historic Ireland is famous for its superstitions, magic and ‘alternative beliefs’. Yet we should not ignore what was once the most widespread Irish magic of all: cursing. A righteous occult attack, a dark prayer for terrible pains to blight evildoers, cursing was unnervingly common from ancient times until the mid-twentieth century. This article explores its neglected modern history, since the late 1700s, by carefully scrutinizing the Irish style of cursing, relating it to wider social and economic conditions, and making comparisons with maledictions elsewhere. Irish imprecations can be analysed using familiar academic categories such as belief, ritual, symbolism, tradition and discourse. However, by repurposing an older way of thinking about magic, I argue that historic Irish cursing is best understood as an art, because it required knowledge, practice, wit, skill and composure. Intimidating, cathartic and virtuoso: cursing mingled gruesome yet poetic phrases with ostentatious rites, in the name of supernatural justice. It had many applications but was particularly valuable to Ireland’s marginalized people, fighting over food, religion, politics, land and family loyalties. Cursing rapidly faded from the mid-twentieth century and, unlike other forms of occultism, was not revived by the post 1970s ‘New Age’ movement. Its unusual history underlines three wider points: (i) magic can usefully thrive in modern societies, figuring in the most vital areas of life; (ii) different types of magic have distinct chronologies; (iii) the most psychologically powerful forms of magic are subtle arts that deserve our (begrudging) respect.

The Unruly Emotions of the Execution Crowd and its Critics in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century France

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Shaya
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
New Age ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
The Public ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Execution ◽  
Late Nineteenth

From the 1860s to the 1910s, a host of commentators sounded off on the degraded spectacle of the public execution in France. They had little to say about the violence of capital punishment as such. The problem that haunted them was the crowd that gathered around the guillotine. In these years the execution crowd was a mystery and an obsession, the object of literary surveillance, parliamentary inquiry, scientific study, and journalistic examination. These commentators saw a crowd without dignity, a crowd full of unhealthy emotions, a crowd of morbid curiosity and misplaced revelry. Who was this crowd? What emotions did its participants feel at the spectacle of punishment? And what can this story tell us about the public execution – or, more generally, the public – in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France? The outcry over the execution crowd reveals more about the commentators than about the crowd. The guiding emotions of these commentators had little to do with empathy, civilization or distaste for violent punishment; they had everything to do with disgust for the crowd on the streets and fears of the public in a new age of mass culture.

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