How fin-de-siècle Paris became the locus for the most intense revival of
magical practices and doctrines since the Renaissance
- Examines the remarkable lives of occult practitioners Joséphin
Peladan, Papus, Stanislas de Guaïta, Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, Jules
Doinel, and others
- Reveals how occult activity deeply influenced many well-known
cultural movements, such as Symbolism, the Decadents, modern music, and
the "psychedelic 60s"
During Paris's Belle Époque (1871-1914), many cultural movements and
artistic styles flourished--Symbolism, Impressionism, Art Nouveau, the
Decadents--all of which profoundly shaped modern culture. Inseparable
from this cultural advancement was the explosion of occult activity
taking place in the City of Light at the same time.
Exploring the magical, artistic, and intellectual world of the Belle
Époque, Tobias Churton shows how a wide variety of Theosophists,
Rosicrucians, Martinists, Freemasons, Gnostics, and neo-Cathars called
fin-de-siècle Paris home. He examines the precise interplay of
occultists Joséphin Peladan, Papus, Stanislas de Guaïta, and founder of
the modern Gnostic Church Jules Doinel, along with lesser known figures
such as Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, Paul Sédir, Charles Barlet, Edmond
Bailly, Albert Jounet, Abbé Lacuria, and Lady Caithness. He reveals how
the work of many masters of modern culture such as composers Claude
Debussy and Erik Satie, writers Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire,
and painters Georges Seurat and Alphonse Osbert bear signs of immersion
in the esoteric circles that were thriving in Paris at the time. The
author demonstrates how the creative hermetic ferment that animated the
City of Light in the decades leading up to World War I remains an
enduring presence and powerful influence today. Where, he asks, would
Aleister Crowley and all the magicians of today be without the Parisian
source of so much creativity in this field?
Conveying the living energy of Paris in this richly artistic period of
history, Churton brings into full perspective the characters,
personalities, and forces that made Paris a global magnet and which
allowed later cultural movements, such as the "psychedelic 60s," to rise
from the ashes of post-war Europe.
