The problem of disenchantment: scientific naturalism and esoteric discourse, 1900-1939.

Asprem, E. (2013). 

https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/2010817/117215_thesis.pdf

6. Five Schools of Natural Theology: Reconciling Science and Religion................................... 196
The Institutions of Natural Theology .......................................................................204

Five Schools of Natural Theology.........................................................................................................................205
I. Ether Metaphysics .............................................................................................................................................206
II. Psychic Enchantment .....................................................................................................................................224
III. Theologies of Emergence ................................................................................................232
IV. Modern Alchemy ..............................................................................................247
V. Quantum Mysticism.....................................................................................

The Theological Underpinnings of the New Natural Theologies: Panentheism and
Cosmotheism...........................................................................................................282

III. LABORATORIES OF ENCHANTMENT
7. Against Agnosticism: Psychical Research and the Naturalisation of the Supernatural. 292
The Agnosticism Controversy and the Epistemology of Scientific Naturalism ...............................295
Psychical Research as Open-Ended Naturalism............................................................................................302
Strategies of Naturalisation....................................................................................................................................311
Anti-Agnosticism and the Slippery Road to Psychic Enchantments ....................................................319
8. Laboratories of Enchantment: Parapsychology in Search of a Paradigm........................... 322
Three Generations of Psychical Research ........................................................................................................322
William James and the Failure of the First Generation ..............................................................................328
The Fragmentation of Psychical Research: The Second Generation....................................................332
The Statistical Turn: Quantitative Experimentalist Programmes in Psychical Research...........357
Enchantment and the Reign of Quantity...........................................................................................................378
9. Professionals Out of the Ordinary: How Parapsychology Became a University
Discipline...........................................................................................................................................................385
How to Become a Scientist When Your Field Does Not Exist..................................................................385
Against Agnostics, Sceptics, and Spiritualists: The Boundary-Work of a Conservative
Contrarian ......................................................................................................................................................................389
Reactionary Networks: How Psychical Research Can Save Western Civilisation (According
to W. McDougall).........................................................................................................................................................399
Professionals at Last: The Inauguration of the Rhine Era.........................................................................411
Enchantment in Old Dixie........................................................................................................................................422

IV. ESOTERIC EPISTEMOLOGIES
10. Esoteric Epistemologies...................................................................................................................... 428
Esotericism 3.0 and the Problem of Disenchantment.................................................................................428
Rejected Knowledge: Esotericism and Establishment ...............................................................................434
Worldviews: The Disenchantment of Esotericism? .....................................................................................439
Epistemology: Gnosis and the Expansion of Reason...................................................................................446
Esoteric Knowledge between Naturalisation and Disenchantment.....................................................457
11. The Problems of a Gnostic Science: The Case of Theosophy’s Occult Chemistry........... 460
Science and Higher Knowledge in First-Generation Theosophy ...........................................................464
Visions Beyond Sight: Occult Chemistry and the Problem of Representation.................................470
Science contra Gnosis: Conceptual Revolutions and the Stagnation of Theosophical Science.489
Conclusion .....................................................................................................................................................................496

12. Perceiving Higher Worlds: Two Perspectives ............................................................................ 498
A Comparative Approach to Higher Knowledge ...........................................................................................498
Two Careers in Occultism.............................................................................................502
Steiner: Philosopher, Theosophist, Anthroposophist ...........................................................................502
Crowley: Prophet of a New Aeon....................................................................................................................508
Comparative Gnosis: Geheimwissenschaft versus Scientific Illuminism.............................................517
“Occult Science”: Steiner’s Devotional Road to Higher Knowledge ................................................518
Scientific Illuminism: Crowley’s Sceptical Road to Higher Knowledge.........................................532
On Reverence, Scepticism, and Reason Unbound: Concluding Comparisons ..................................546
Conclusion: Disenchantment and Problemgeschichte .................................................................... 555
Bibliography................................................................................................................................................... 583

Summaries (English and Dutch) ............................................................................................................. 626