Mediality on Trial: Testing and Contesting Trance and other Media Techniques

Open Access Published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2020

Mediality on Trial

Testing and Contesting Trance and other Media Techniques

Edited by: Ehler Voss

Volume 2 in the series Okkulte Moderne

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110416411

Overview
Contents

About this book

This volume addresses controversies connected to the testing of the capacities and potentials of mediums. Today we commonly　associate the term "medium" with the technical communication between transmitters and receivers. Yet this term likewise applies to　those who cooperate with agencies that exceed the presumed domain of the material world. Insofar as one presumes a division　between distinctly opposed categories of religion and the secular, technical media tend to be associated with the secular and human　(trance) mediums tend to be associated with religion after 1900. This volume concerns the ways in which the term　medium still marks an overlapping of – and thus problematizes – the aforementioned division between religion and the secular, the　personal and the technological.

The term medium carries with it a seed of doubt that is itself inseparable from investment in the medium's power: insofar as they　communicate with an "other" realm, mediums offer the hope and promise of new possibilities and improved efficiency, and thus of a　better life; yet they have simultaneously been under suspicion of altering (or even inventing) the messages they communicate. It is due　to this combination of promise and suspicion that "mediumism" has tended to evoke scientific, religious, and moral controversies. Thus,　we can speak of a "mediumistic trial" – that is, a process in which a medium is put to the test concerning its potentials and　trustworthiness. Around 1800, experts were asked if a modern secular institution would be capable of inspiring, domesticating or　excluding trance mediumship. This question has stayed with us ever since, and the answers have remained inconclusive. That is why　the past and present of mediumship may be asked to elucidate each other.

Author / Editor information

Voss Ehler, Universität Siegen

Daniel C. Barber, Pace University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Introduction
The Mediumistic Trial. Testing and Contesting the Thresholds of Agency, Consciousness, and Technology Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	3
Mediumistic Trials of the Long 19th Century
The Therapeutic Mediologies of Animal Magnetism Karl Baier Open Access Download PDF	33
Quite as Powerful. The Mediumistic Controversy in the 19th Century Erhard Schüttpelz and Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	67
A Case of Quasi-Certainty. William James and the Making of the Subliminal Mind Janny Li Open Access Download PDF	78
Educating the Mediums. Albert von Schrenck-Notzing’s Work of Purification on Spiritualism Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	106
‘S. W.’ and C. G. Jung: From Mediumship to Analytical Psychology Sonu Shamdasani Open Access Download PDF	121
Mediumistic Trials of the Short 20th Century
The Braunau Trance Mediums and their Spiritualist Circle Between the Two World Wars. A Local Study Ulrich Linse Open Access Download PDF	145
Passing the Examination. The Mediumistic Trial and its Double in the Writings of Jeanne Favret-Saada Erhard Schüttpelz and Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	209
The Angel in the Machine. Divining Legal Authorship in Channelled and Computer-Generated Works Andrew Ventimiglia Open Access Download PDF	236
The Return of the Controversy. Testing Psychics in the 1970s and its Consequences for German Parapsychology Anna Lux Open Access Download PDF	261
Clairvoyance for the Security of the Republic. Gerard Croiset and the Search for Hanns Martin Schleyer (1977) Uwe Schellinger Open Access Download PDF	284
California Dreamin’. The Invention of Modern Western Shamanism as a Mediumistic Trial of the 20th Century Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	315
Mediators of Trance. María Sabina – Gordon Wasson – Bruce Conner Ilka Becker Open Access Download PDF	339
Psychic Spies. Cold War Science and the Military-Occult Complex Anthony Enns Open Access Download PDF	370
Mediumistic Trials of the 21st Century
The Magus of Silicon Valley. Immortality, Apocalypse, and God Making in Ray Kurzweil’s Transhumanism Egil Asprem Open Access Download PDF	397
Fighting the Fakers and Fooling the Fighters. Skeptics between Triumph and Agony, or: The Birth of the Skeptical Movement from the Spirit of Magic Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	413
Mediating Spirits. Sensation, Form and the Body in American Spiritualism Erin Yerby Open Access Download PDF	432
Mediating “Mystery”. Pentecostalism, the Media, and the Social Production of Hope and Suspicion in the Brazilian Crime Debate Carly Machado and Raquel Sant’Ana Open Access Download PDF	475
“It Is Easier to Stay Out than Get Out”. A Sweat Lodge Ritual, the Entangled Ethnographer on Trial, and Irony as a Stance for Anthropological Analysis Mirko Uhlig Open Access Download PDF	496
Shamanism on Trial. Acting in a Hall of Mirrors Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	513
“I know . . . but still.” Popular Photography and the Mediation of Luck in Japan Heike Behrend Open Access Download PDF	538
Burdens of Proof. Obeah, Petroleum Geology, and its Mediums in Trinidad J. Brent Crosson Open Access Download PDF	552
Sufi Practices, the Masters’ Role and the Media of Legitimacy. On the Coincidence of Technical Media and Sufi Mediums Rukiye Canlı Open Access Download PDF	576
Purity’s Perils. Race, Republicanism, and Relevance of Magic in Contemporary France Graham M. Jones Open Access Download PDF	605
Epilogue
“I Believe in Science Now!” Skeptics Between Hope, Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas Ehler Voss Open Access Download PDF	627
List of Contributors Open Access Download PDF	637
Name Index Open Access Download PDF	643
Place Index Open Access Download PDF	655

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Oldenbourg
Pages
- Front matter: 9
- Main content: 657
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 30

eBook

Published: September 21, 2020
ISBN: 9783110416411

Hardcover

Published: September 21, 2020
ISBN: 9783110416367