File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2001/bhaskar.0101, message 91


Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 01:22:02 +0100
From: Jan Straathof <janstr-AT-chan.nl>
Subject: Re: BHA: Delivered up to the world 


hi Mervyn,

thanks for the excerpt from your paper, sounds very interesting,
hope it will be published, the issue is worth it !

yes, the phenomenon of occultism stays an attractive topic, not
only because it's an ur-old phenomenon that's still abundantly
flourishing today [from stockmarket astrology to web-based
shamanism] but also because its adherents and practioneers can
be found throughout all classes (and genders), although i don't
have a clear idea whether the occult intentions and practices
vary, or not, criss-cross these strata.

      one of the things that has always fascinated me are those
      occultist/esoteric sects in and around power-elites: e.g. in
      modern times, figures as Raspoetin in Tzarian Russia, Himmler
      and Hess in Nazi Germany, Nancy Reagan, and here in the
      Netherlands we have a queen-mother (Juliana) with clear and
      documented interests in the occult and one of her doughters
      (Irene) contends that she can communicate with trees (sic.)

but whence Adorno's attack on (fear for) occultism ?

his line of critique -as you excerpt nicely summarizes out- is
quite straight forward and runs roughly as follows: occultism is
at base a vulgar kind of spiritualist/idealist monism, deeply anti-
ratio and anti-materialism, implying the rejection of both objective
science and political democracy, and subsequently the whole
emancipatoric project of Enlightment philosophy; in this sense it
is both regressive and oppressive, leading to various forms of
alienation like conformism, defeatism, political apathy and
ultimately nihilism (i.e."not-being" is the "qualitas occulta"):
occultism is opium for/of the dummies of (late-)capitalism !

   [rephrased in DCR-lingo: the ideology of occultism is an
   irrealist ensemble, producing defencive shields and TINA
   formations, which in the end blocks off our (individual and
   collective) awareness and consciousness of a possible
   Eudaimonia]

--- all in all, the verdict seems clear: occultism is bad and should
be abolished !

but does this mean that the case is closed now and that this is all
that could be said ?

- what about the thought-provoking linkings between occultism,
erotica and art (e.g. in the cave paintings of Lascaux, Hieronymus
Bosch, Dali and Bataille) ?

- and isn't occultism (in its etymological sense of "kept in hiding")
a functional and natural response to the panoptical tendencies of
our modern society with all its reality TV and supersurveillant
techniques ? [thus occultism and esotericism as a healthy antidote
against, and escape from, total transparency ? ;-)]

- and from a basic CR perspective: the refutation of uccultism
is not only a matter of ideology critique a la Adorno, but also,
and even more so imho, a matter of the concrete scientific study
of (apparent) occult phenomena and the subsequent explanation,
or renouncement, of them in/on acceptable scientific terms: i mean,
to claim f.i. that "astral bodies are nonsense" only makes good
sense if you can scientifically proof that "astral bodies" are
*necessary impossible to exist*, and not because the believe in
them is in some from of regression or alienation: in the end a CRst
needs hard (empirical & conceptual) evidence !

and yes, you'r right, the soft-social sphere of the novella doesn't
offer us much, if any, "hard evidence" for that matter .....

yours,
Jan





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