A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern

by Corinna Treitel

Germany's painful entry into the modern age elicited many conflicting emotions. Excitement and anxiety about the "disenchantment of the world" predominated, as Germans realized that the triumph of science and reason had made the nation materially powerful while impoverishing it spiritually. Eager to enchant their world anew, many Germans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries responded by turning to a variety of paranormal beliefs and practices―including Theosophy, astrology, psychical research, graphology, dowsing, and spirit healing. No mere fringe phenomenon, the German occult movement had a truly national presence, encompassing hundreds of clubs, businesses, institutes, and publishers providing and consuming occult goods and services. In A Science for the Soul , historian Corinna Treitel explores the appeal and significance of German occultism in all its varieties between the 1870s and the 1940s, locating its dynamism in the nation's struggle with modernization and the public's dissatisfaction with scientific materialism. Occultism, Treitel notes, served as a bridge between traditional religious beliefs and the values of an increasingly scientific, secular, and liberal society. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, Treitel describes the individuals and groups who participated in the occult movement, reconstructs their organizational history, and examines the economic and social factors responsible for their success. Building on this foundation, Treitel turns to the question of how Germans used the occult in three realms of Theosophy, where occult studies were used to achieve spiritual enlightenment; the arts, where occult states of consciousness fueled the creative process of avant-garde painters, writers, and dancers; and the applied sciences, where professionals in psychology, law enforcement, engineering, and medicine employed occult techniques to solve characteristic problems of modernity. In conclusion, Treitel considers the conflicting meanings occultism held for contemporaries by focusing on the anti-spiritualist campaigns mounted by the national press, the Protestant and Catholic Churches, local and national governments, and the Nazi regime, which after years of alternating between affinity and antipathy for occultism, finally crushed the movement by 1945. Throughout, A Science for the Soul examines German occultism in its broadest cultural setting as a key aspect of German modernism, offering new insights into how Germans met the challenge of pursuing meaningful lives in the modern age.

Genres: Occult, Nonfiction, History

Hardcover

First published March 9, 2004

Reviews

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book which focuses on the rise, allure, and intrigue of occultism. Many of the elements that this work deduces are deeply meshed into our culture. This work also looks at the cultural, social, economic, and political context.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost everyone is interested in the occult. This interest can range from skepticism and a desire to debunk various forms of clairvoyance and psychic phenomena, to government-funded research into applied occultism (mostly for war and espionage), all the way down to those at the other end of the spectrum who devote their lives to the search for some philosopher's stone/ultimate knowledge they hope to acquire by parsing esoterica ranging from astrological signs to the Kabbalah.

The place of the occult in German History is especially complex and thorny for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is Germany's much-discussed Sonderweg ("Special Path") by which (contra other Western European nations) the German society, civilization, and psyche both resisted the Enlightenment and plunged deeper into its meaning (and consequences). Probably going all the way back to Goethe, the borders between science and religion, the material and the metaphysical, vexed German thinkers, artists, scholars, and scientists for several generations, sometimes to the point of madness (and arguably to the point of genocide). The way the German occult supposedly dovetailed with Nazism also makes the subject a minefield, which, it must be said, Corrinna Treitel does her best to navigate.

You can see then, why Dr. Corrina Treitel has her work cut out for herself in "A Science for the Soul." She makes a concerted go of it, and while the book is intermittently brilliant (particularly in the final third) the work doesn't quite cohere as a whole. Some sections would make good scholarly articles; others would be good subjects for seminars and conferences. Taken in Toto, though, "A Science for the Soul" is unfocused, sometimes tedious, long-winded, and yes, boring.

How does one manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of what should be an inherently-exciting and fascinating maw of wonder? Part of the problem, I think, is that academics and scholars have so much fear of the stigma that comes with treating the occult, that they feel the need to underplay their own fascination (and wonder) with the subject, in order not to seem like one of the hapless rubes who takes this stuff seriously. The philosopher Colin Wilson, for example, is an object lesson in how quickly one can fall from grace with the beautiful people in intelligentsia when they go from something deemed serious (Existentialism in Wilson's case) to something not-quite-serious (the occult, in Wilson's case).

I don't blame Treitlel for her circumspect treading, but in those passages where I sensed her heeding the call of some stronger pull, one can see the chrysalis for a much more exciting book on the subject. Understand, it isn't skepticism that I protest (I'm a skeptic myself); it's just the dryness of what is perhaps the juiciest of all subjects for all of us, lay or professional. Still, kudos for trying to scale a heck of a mountain and maintaining her equipoise high up there in the strange stratosphere.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most beautifully written (but not overwritten) and well-researched books I have read in a long, long time. My new role model for my own writing.