Table Of ContentFictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of Imagination
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Fictional Practice: Magic,
Narration, and the Power
of Imagination
Edited by
Bernd- Christian Otto and Dirk Johannsen
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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Cover illustration: Plan physique / Plan astral by Louis Delfosse, published in: Papus [Gérard Encausse].
1906 [1893]. Traité élémentaire de magie pratique. Paris: Bibliothèque Chacornac.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Otto, Bernd- Christian, editor. | Johannsen, Dirk, editor.
Title: Fictional practice : magic, narration, and the power of imagination/
edited by Bernd- Christian Otto and Dirk Johannsen.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2021. | Series: Aries book series,
1871- 1405 ; 30 | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Summary: "To what extent were practitioners of magic inspired by
fictional accounts of their art? In how far did the daunting narratives
surrounding legendary magicians such as Theophilus of Adana, Cyprianus
of Antioch, Johann Georg Faust or Agrippa of Nettesheim rely on
real- world events or practices? Fourteen original case studies present
material from late antiquity to the twenty- first century and explore
these questions in a systematic manner. By coining the notion of
'fictional practice', the editors discuss the emergence of novel,
imaginative types of magic from the nineteenth century onwards when
fiction and practice came to be more and more intertwined or even fully
amalgamated. This is the first comparative study that systematically
relates fiction and practice in the history of magic"– Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: lccn 2021031638 (print) | lccn 2021031639 (ebook) |
isbn 9789004465992 (hardback) | isbn 9789004466005 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Magic– History. | Magic in literature– History. |
Literature and morals. | Magic– Case studies.
Classification: lcc BF1589 .F53 2021 (print) | lcc BF1589 (ebook) |
ddc 133.4/ 309– dc23
lc record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/ 2021031638
lc ebook record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/ 2021031639
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/b rill- typeface.
issn 1871- 1405
isbn 978- 90- 04- 46599- 2 (hardback)
isbn 978- 90- 04- 46600- 5 (e- book)
Copyright 2021 by Bernd- Christian Otto and Dirk Johannsen. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden,
The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress.
Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for
re- use and/ or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com.
This book is printed on acid- free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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Contents
L ist of Figures vii
N otes on Contributors viii
Introduction 1
Bernd- Christian Otto and Dirk Johannsen
1 M agic as Pollution: Fictional Blasphemies and Ritual Realities in the
Roman Period (1st cen. bce– 4th cen. ce) 21
Kyle Fraser
2 T he Medieval Anti- Faust: Stories, Rituals, and Self- Representations in the
Flowers of Heavenly Teaching 43
Claire Fanger
3 E nchantment and Anger in Medieval Icelandic Literature and Later
Folklore 68
Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir
4 N arratives of the Witch, the Magician, and the Devil in Early Modern
Grimoires 91
Owen Davies
5 W hen Ritual Texts Become Legendary: Practice and Fiction in Nordic
Folklore 110
Ane Ohrvik
6 M agic and Literary Imagination in H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophy 133
Marco Frenschkowski
7 T he Emergence of Fictional Practice in the Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn: W.B. Yeats’ Talismanic Poetry 174
Dirk Johannsen
8 “ My Life in a Love Cult”: Tantra, Orientalism, and Sex Magic in Early
Twentieth- Century Fiction 202
Hugh B. Urban
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vi Contents
9 D rawing Down the Moon: From Classical Greece to Modern
Wicca? 222
Ethan Doyle White
10 D rinking from Hecate’s Fountain: Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies
and the Fusion Between Literature and Practiced Magic 244
Christian Giudice
11 I f One Knows Where to Look, Fiction is Magic: Reading Fictional Texts
as Manuals of Magic in Post- Soviet Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus 261
Kateryna Zorya
12 “ Cthulhu Gnosis”: Monstrosity, Selfhood, and Secular Re- Enchantment
in Lovecraftian Occultural Practice 289
Justin Woodman
13 A Magickal School in the Twenty- First Century: The Grey School of
Wizardry and Its Prehistory 314
Carole M. Cusack
14 F ictional Practice from Antiquity to Today 334
Bernd- Christian Otto
Person Index 367
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Figures
7.1 F irst stanza of The Song of Wandering Aengus (1897), as added to Florence
Farr’s 1907 note to Speaking to the Psaltery. 191
8.1 Cover image for Marian Dockerill (1928), My Life in a Love Cult: A Warning to All
Young Girls, Dunellen: Better Publishing Company. Public Domain. 214
10.1 “lam,” by Aleister Crowley. 1918. Private Collection. 253
12.1 L ovecraftian Glyph used by the Haunters of the Dark in magical dreamwork
and visualisation practices for accessing the mytho- fictional worlds of the
Cthulhu Mythos. Private Collection. 298
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Notes on Contributors
Carole M. Cusack
is Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Studies in Religion at
the University of Sydney, Australia. She teaches and researches primarily on
new religious movements, contemporary religious trends, and methodology in
the study of religion. She has published widely in scholarly journals and edited
volumes. Her books include Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith
(2010), The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (2011) and (with
Katharine Buljan), Anime, Religion and Spirituality: Profane and Sacred Worlds
in Contemporary Japan (2015). She edits the journals Literature & Aesthetics
and (with Rachelle Scott) Fieldwork in Religion.
Owen Davies
is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire. UK. He has
published widely on the history of witchcraft, magic, ghosts, and popular
medicine.
Ethan Doyle White
PhD is an independent scholar based in England. A historian and archae-
ologist, Doyle White’s research interests include religion in early medieval
England, modern Paganism, and related forms of occultism. He is the author
of Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft (2016) and
co- editor of Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (2019). Other published
research projects have dealt with such topics as the Pagan use of archaeologi-
cal monuments, the revived worship of the god Antinous, and the influence of
occultism on the music of David Bowie.
Claire Fanger
is Associate Professor of Religion at Rice University in Texas. She studies Latin
Christianity in the later Middle Ages with a research focus on individual and
communal practices for the formation of knowledge, ranging from the knowl-
edge developed within the university curriculum to varied disciplines of mag-
ical knowledge, to cultivated dreams and other practices leading to visionary
knowledge of God. Her books include Rewriting Magic and, with Nicholas
Watson, a Latin edition of John of Morigny’s Flowers of Heavenly Teaching.
She is working on an English translation of this text also in collaboration with
Watson.
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Notes on Contributors ix
Kyle Fraser
(PhD Cambridge) is an Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of
King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. A scholar of ancient esoteri-
cism, his research focuses on Hellenistic and Greco-E gyptian magic, alchemy,
and related esoteric currents. On the alchemical side, he has a special interest
in Zosimos of Panopolis and the complementarity of the esoteric and scien-
tific dimensions of alchemy: see, most recently, “Distilling Nature’s Secrets: The
Sacred Art of Alchemy,” in The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in
the Classical World (2018). His work on magic explores the Greco-E gyptian
magical papyri and the professionalisation of magical practice in the Roman
imperial period: see “Roman Antiquity,” in The Cambridge History of Magic
and Witchcraft in the West (2015).
Christian Giudice
is an independent researcher, focusing, among other subjects, on
Traditionalism, fin de siècle occultism in France and Italy, the development
of post- Crowley Thelema, and the link between cinema and occultism. He
holds a ba in Literae Humaniores from Oxford University, an ma in Western
Esotericism from Exeter University, and a PhD in Religious Studies with a focus
on Western Esotericism from Gothenburg University. He has recently co- edited
a special issue of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism dedicated to
the figure of g.i. Gurdjieff with Professor Carole Cusack, and his most recent
contribution is an article on Aleister Crowley and the British Decadents, in yet
another a special issue of Aries dedicated to Crowley. His PhD dissertation,
Occult Imperium: Arturo Reghini and the Anti- modern Revolution in xx Century
Italy will be published in the Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism series by
Oxford University Press in 2021.
Marco Frenschkowski
is Professor (chair) of New Testament Studies and Graeco- Roman religion at
Leipzig University (Germany). He has published on early Christianity, religions
in late antiquity (up to the beginnings of Islam), magic both in antiquity and in
modern times, new religious movements, interreligious dialogue, library his-
tory, and also on imaginative fiction and the fantastic in the arts. He has been
a regular contributor to the Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, rgg,
Enzyklopädie des Märchens and many other encyclopedias.
Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir
is a professor of medieval Icelandic literature at the Faculty of Icelandic
and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland. Her research
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x Notes on Contributors
interests focus on Old Norse literature, Manuscript studies, Fornaldarsögur
Norðurlanda, Folk tales, Ballads and rímur, the History of dance and the History
of magic. Her publications include numerous articles, e.g. „The Narrative Role
of Magic in the Fornaldarsögur“ in arv 70, 2015, „Of Wavering Flames and
Fires: Northern Lights in Icelandic Sources“ in arv 75, 2019, and „Arthurian
Legend in Rímur and Ballads“ in Late Arthurian Tradition in Europe (La matière
arthurienne tardive en Europe, 1270– 1530), 2020.
Dirk Johannsen
is Professor of Cultural History at the Department of Culture Studies and
Oriental Languages (ikos), University of Oslo. His research focuses on nar-
rative cultures, literature and popular religion in the nineteenth century, cog-
nitive approaches, and trolls. His recent publications include the co- edited
Narrative Cultures and the Aesthetics of Religion (Brill 2020) and the co- edited
Numen issue on Reframing Pilgrimage in Northern Europe (2020).
Ane Ohrvik
Ph.D is an Associate Professor in Cultural History at the University of Oslo,
Norway. Her specialization is the history of knowledge in early modern Europe
and contemporary pilgrimage in Northern Europe and include publications
on topics relating to magic and witchcraft, history of medicine, rituals, book
history, heritage, and folk religion. Her most recent publications include
Medicine, Magic and Art in Early Modern Norway by Palgrave Macmillan, 2018,
and Reframing Pilgrimage in Northern Europe (co- edited volume of Numen)
from 2020. Her next book will be Witchcraft in Norway published by Routledge.
Bernd- Christian Otto
is Senior Research Fellow at the International Consortium for Research
in the Humanities at the University of Erlangen- Nuremburg. His research
focuses on the history of magic, where he combines different methodolo-
gies such as conceptual history, discourse analysis, social theory, and ritual
studies. His recent publications include the co- written monograph Magical
Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe: The Clandestine Trade in Illegal Book
Collections (Palgrave MacMillan 2017) and the co- edited anthology Religious
Individualisation: Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives (De
Gruyter 2019).
Hugh B. Urban
is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at the
Ohio State University in the United States. He is the author of numerous books,
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