Books in the Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism series

The Armenian-born mystic, philosopher, and spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) is an enigmatic figure, the subject of a great deal of interest and speculation, but not easily fitting into any of the common categories of "esoteric," "occult," or "New Age." Scholars have for the most part passed over in silence the contemplative exercises presented in Gurdjieff's writings. Although Gurdjieff had intended them to be confidential, some of the most importantexercises were published posthumously in 1950 and in 1975. Arguing that an understanding of these exercises is necessary to fully appreciate Gurdjieff's contribution to modern esotericism, Joseph Azize offers the first complete study of the exercises and their theoretical foundation.

What is it Like to be Dead? offers the first full account of the modern genealogy of "near-death experiences," focusing on the functions of these experiences in the religious field of Western modernity. Emerging as autobiographical narratives, they were used in Christian, esoteric, and spiritist-occult traditions as substantial proof for the survival of death, or the claim that the soul is able to leave the body. Now widely disseminated, they serve functionsranging from reassurance that religious experience is still possible to evidence for the transcultural validity of afterlife beliefs.

Ebenezer Sibly was a quack doctor, plagiarist, and masonic ritualist in late eighteenth-century London; his brother Manoah was a respectable accountant and pastor who ministered to his congregation without pay for fifty years. Drawing on such sources as ratebooks and pollbooks, personal letters and published sermons, burial registers and horoscopes, Susan Sommers has woven together an engaging microhistory that offers useful revisions to existing scholarly accountsof brothers Ebenezer and Manoah, while locating the entire Sibly family in the esoteric byways of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

What do Scientologists themselves have to say about Scientology? Based on six years of interviews, fieldwork, and research conducted among members of the Church of Scientology, this groundbreaking work examines features of the new religion's history, theology, and praxis in ways that move discussion beyond apostate-driven and expose accounts.

In Recycled Lives, Julie Chajes explores the rebirth doctrines of the controversial occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), matriarch of Theosophy. Examining her teachings in detail, Chajes places them in the context of multiple dimensions of nineteenth-century intellectual and cultural life.

In the conventional dichotomy of chaste, pure Madonna and libidinous whore, the former has usually been viewed as the ideal form of femininity. However, there is a modern religious movement in which the negative stereotype of the harlot is inverted and exalted. The Eloquent Blood focuses on the changing construction of femininity and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon. A central deity in Thelema, the religion founded by thenotorious British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), Babalon is based on Crowley''s favorable reinterpretation of the biblical Whore of Babylon, and is associated with liberated female sexuality and the spiritual ideal of passionate union with existence.Analyzing historical and contemporary written sources, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in the Anglo-American esoteric milieu, the study traces interpretations of Babalon from the works of Crowley and some of his key disciples—including the rocket scientist John "Jack" Whiteside Parsons, and the enigmatic British occultist Kenneth Grant—until the present. From the 1990s onwards, this study shows, female and LGBTQ esotericists have challenged historical interpretations ofBabalon, drawing on feminist and queer thought and conceptualizing femininity in new ways. Tracing the trajectory of a particular gendered symbol from the fin-de-siècle until today, Manon Hedenborg White explores the changing role of women in Western esotericism, and shows how evolving constructions of gender have shaped the development of esotericism. Combining research on historical and contemporary Western esotericism with feminist and queer theory, the book sheds new light on the ways in which esoteric movements and systems of thought have developed over time in relation topolitical movements.

The essays in Imagining the East explore how Theosophists during the formative period imagined the religions and cultures of the East. The authors examine the relationship of such representations to orientalism, the history of ideas, politics, and culture at large and discuss how these esoteric or theosophical representations mirrored conditions and values current in nineteenth-century mainstream intellectual culture. The essays also look at how the earlyTheosophical Society's representations of the East differed from mainstream 'orientalism' and how the Theosophical Society's mission in India was distinct from that of British colonialism and Christian missionaries.