Esotericism And Narrative The Occult Fiction Of Charles Williams

Author : Aren Roukema
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004369112
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Esotericism and Narrative: The Occult Fiction of Charles Williams written by Aren Roukema and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Esotericism and Narrative: The Occult Fiction of Charles Williams, Aren Roukema looks through the portal of Charles Williams’s fantastic fiction, analyzing the author’s narrative translations of ritual experiences with modern magic, kabbalah and spiritual alchemy.

Author : Karina Jakubowicz
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000359166
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Heresy and Borders in the Twentieth Century written by Karina Jakubowicz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-10 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the shifting and negotiated boundaries of religion, spirituality, and secular thinking in Britain and North America during the twentieth century. It contributes to a growing scholarship that problematises secularization theory, arguing that religion and spirituality increasingly took diverse new forms and identities, rather than simply being replaced by a monolithic secularity. The volume examines the way that thinkers, writers, and artists manipulated and reimagined orthodox belief systems in their work, using the notion of heresy to delineate the borders of what was considered socially and ethically acceptable. It includes topics such as psychospiritual approaches in medicine, countercultures and religious experience, and the function of blasphemy within supposedly secular politics. The book argues that heresy and heretical identities established fluid borderlands. These borderlands not only blur simple demarcations of the religious and secular in the twentieth century, but also infer new forms of heterodoxy through an exchange of ideas. This collection of essays offers a nuanced take on a topic that pervades the study of religion. It will be of great use to scholars of Heresy Studies, Religious Studies and Comparative Religion, Social Anthropology, History, Literature, Philosophy, and Cultural Studies.

Author : Charles Williams
Publisher : Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1552 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Сlassic Сollection of Charles Williams. Illustrated written by Charles Williams and published by Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing. This book was released on 2023-08-24 with total page 1552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology comprises a selection of works from the acclaimed author Charles Williams, showcasing his unique blend of metaphysical fiction and spiritual exploration. The collection features six captivating novels that delve into themes of war, mysticism, cosmic dimensions, and the interplay between good and evil. From the mystical battles depicted in "War in Heaven" to the metaphysical journeys of "Many Dimensions," and the symbolic power struggles in "The Place of the Lion," Williams weaves intricate narratives that challenge conventional perceptions of reality. "The Greater Trumps" offers a glimpse into the esoteric world of tarot cards, while "Shadows of Ecstasy" delves into the seductive allure of forbidden knowledge. Lastly, "Descent into Hell" delves into the depths of human consciousness and the consequences of selfish desires. Through prose that is both imaginative and thought-provoking, this collection presents a thoughtfully curated array of Charles Williams' timeless literary explorations into the enigmas of the human soul and the metaphysical universe. War in Heaven Many Dimensions The Place of the Lion The Greater Trumps Shadows of Ecstasy Descent into Hell

Author : Charles Williams
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 9780802812193
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book War in Heaven written by Charles Williams and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. This book was released on 1981 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Williams gives a contemporary setting to the traditional story of the Search for the Holy Grail. Examining the distinction between magic and religion, War in Heaven is an eerily disturbing book, one that graphically portrays a metaphysical journey through the shadowy crevices of the human mind.

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004466002
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration, and the Power of Imagination written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tying on case studies from late antiquity to the 21st century, this is the first volume that systematically explores the inter-relationship between fictional narratives about magic and the real-world ritual art of practicing magicians.

Author : Charles Williams
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1498294685
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Witchcraft written by Charles Williams and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-05-30 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "These pages must stand for what they are--a brief account of the history in Christian times of that perverted way of the soul which we call magic, or (on a lower level) witchcraft, and with the reaction against it. That they tend to deal more with the lower level than with any nobler dream is inevitable. The nobler idea of virtue mingled with power either worked itself out eventually as experimental science (but the extent to which experimental science was at any time denounced has probably been exaggerated), or it was kept carefully secluded in its own Rites (and to know these one would have had to share them), or it did in fact degenerate into base and disgusting evils (as I have here and there tried to suggest). No-one will derive any knowledge of initiation from this book; if he wishes to meet 'the tall, black man' or to find the proper method of using the Reversed Pentagram, he must rely on his own heart, which will, no doubt, be one way or other sufficient."--From the preface.

Author : Suzy Anger
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009100270
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Victorian Automata written by Suzy Anger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-31 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together a multidisciplinary group of scholars, this collection examines the Victorians' profound fascination with automata.

Author : Charles Williams
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Many Dimensions written by Charles Williams and published by . This book was released on 2023-01-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Dimensions was the second of the novels of the supernatural by Charles Williams. The original publisher was Victor Gollancz Ltd. in 1931. Following Williams' death it was republished by Faber & Faber in 1947 in the UK and in 1949 by Pellegrini & Cudahy in the US. In 1952 it was issued in the Penguin Books green-covered Mystery & Crime series. The novel describes the occult results following acquisition of a stone from the diadem of King Solomon, exploring the themes of time travel, the nature of the universe, and the moral consequences of selfish motivation. "Nowhere is the intellectual quality of Williams' imagination more apparent than in Many Dimensions", Glen Cavaliero has remarked, but this has contributed to criticism of his performance in this novel. The female characters in his fiction are often unsatisfactorily realised because Williams is more focussed on the ideals they embody than on their personality. They therefore seem, as in the case of Chloe in Many Dimensions, "formulaic and superficial". In other ways too, Aren Roukema has pointed to how far "Williams' tendency to stretch symbolism and allegory to the point of didacticism" disrupts the novel's narrative continuity. In other respects, aspects of Williams' personal history have contributed to the story. Chloe herself is modelled on Phyllis Jones, his younger colleague at Oxford University Press, with whom he had an unconsummated love affair. This he transmutes into Chloe's otherwise inexplicable dependent relationship with Lord Arglay. Again, many of the esoteric ideas treated in Many Dimensions can be traced back to the earlier period, before he began writing his novels of the supernatural, when Williams' interest in the occult associated him with A. E. Waite's Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. In particular the phrase "the end of desire", used of close association with the Stone in the novel, can be traced to the Fellowship's ritual of attaining the higher self within, in which the adept repeats "I am that which I thought and the end of my desire is with me". Roukema comments that the word 'end' is given a deliberately double meaning and is understood differently depending on the spiritual development of the characters in the novel. It may mean cessation of desire, or else, as a goal, the fulfilment of desire. But in terms of the mystic union with the Stone that Chloe attains, its special meaning is also awareness of the primordial oneness of Creator and created, so that there is nothing outside that state to which one can become attached. In this way, by offering herself to the Stone, Chloe makes herself the channel through which the Stone can call back and reintegrate the divided Types whose meanings had been misinterpreted by their temporary possessors. ... The novel's "moral austerity" also derives from the more Eastern understanding in which actions are viewed as flowing from personal disposition, the consequences of which are mitigated neither by a special exercise of Divine Grace nor even Divine judgment. What happens to the characters is the direct and natural result of what their actions have already shown them to be. Cavaliero therefore perceives "the relation between predestination and free will" as being an allied theological theme explored by the book. (wikipedia.org)

Author : Charles Williams
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504006674
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shadows of Ecstasy written by Charles Williams and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A charismatic and immortal leader rises up out of Africa to violently alter humankind’s destiny There is great unrest on the African continent, and explosive uprisings that originated there are finding their way to Britain’s shores. A man named Nigel Considine, a charismatic leader who calls himself the High Executive, is raising a great army to conquer the world. Universal love is his stated goal, to be achieved through violence if necessary, and his dogma has unleashed a terrible backlash of brutality, prejudice, and hatred throughout so-called civilized London. But who is this immortal prophet-king whose words inflame the passions of untold thousands of disciples? Is he a power-hungry madman, as the unrepentant agnostic Sir Bernard Travers has flatly stated, or is he the Antichrist, as Travers’s dearest friend, the vicar Ian Caithness, believes? Perhaps the deathless Considine is the light of the age—indeed, of all ages: a saintly personage to be adored and followed without qualm or question, as the poet Roger Ingram is beginning to suspect. But be he master criminal or twisted genius, supernatural demon or savior reborn, the High Executive’s coming is destined to change the world. No twentieth-century author explored themes of faith, spirituality, and the supernatural with more verve and originality than the phenomenal Charles Williams, who along with colleagues C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield, was a member of the University of Oxford’s famed Inklings literary society. Blending fantasy adventure with breathtaking spiritual concepts, Williams’s acclaimed works, including Shadows of Ecstasy, are must-reads for any lover of intelligent, thought-provoking metaphysical fiction.

Author : Robert Collis
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190903376
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Initiating the Millennium written by Robert Collis and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-01-13 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Initiating the Millennium, Robert Collis and Natalie Bayer fill a substantial lacuna in the study of an initiatic society--known variously as the Illumin�s d'Avignon, the Avignon Society, the New Israel Society, and the Union--that flourished across Europe between 1779 and 1807. Based on hitherto neglected archival material, this study provides a wealth of fresh insights into a group that included members of various Christian confessions from countries spanning the length and breadth of the Continent. The founding members of this society forged a unique group that incorporated distinct strands of Western esotericism (particularly alchemy and arithmancy) within an all-pervading millenarian worldview. Collis and Bayer demonstrate that the doctrine of premillennialism--belief in the imminent advent of Christ's reign on Earth--soon came to constitute the raison d'�tre of the society. Using a chronological approach, the authors chart the machinations of the leading figures of the society (most notably the Polish gentleman Tadeusz Grabianka). They also examine the way in which the group reacted to and was impacted by the tumultuous events that rocked Europe during its twenty-eight years of existence. The result is a new understanding of the vital role played by the so-called Union within the wider millenarian and illuministic milieu at the close of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century.