A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern
A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern
复制标题
灵魂的科学：神秘主义与德国现代的起源
作者：
C. Treitel
德国痛苦地进入现代，引发了许多矛盾的情绪。当德国人意识到科学和理性的胜利使这个国家在物质上强大的同时，却使它在精神上变得贫瘠时，对“世界的幻灭”的兴奋和焦虑占据了主导地位。19世纪末和20世纪初，许多德国人渴望重新让他们的世界着迷，于是转向各种超自然的信仰和实践——包括神智学、占星术、心理研究、笔迹学、占卜和精神治疗。这不仅仅是一个边缘现象，德国的神秘运动在全国范围内确实存在，包括数百个俱乐部、企业、研究所和提供和消费神秘物品和服务的出版商。在《心灵的科学》一书中，历史学家Corinna Treitel探讨了19世纪70年代至40年代德国神秘主义的魅力和意义，将其活力定位于国家与现代化的斗争和公众对科学唯物主义的不满。特雷特尔指出，神秘主义在传统宗教信仰和日益科学、世俗和自由的社会价值观之间起着桥梁的作用。利用大量的档案资料，Treitel描述了参与神秘运动的个人和团体，重建了他们的组织历史，并研究了导致他们成功的经济和社会因素。在此基础上，Treitel转向了德国人如何在三个实践领域使用神秘学的问题：神智学，在那里神秘学研究被用来实现精神启蒙；艺术，神秘的意识状态推动了先锋派画家、作家和舞蹈家的创作过程；在应用科学领域，心理学、执法、工程学和医学领域的专业人士采用神秘技术来解决现代性的典型问题。最后，Treitel通过关注由国家媒体、新教和天主教会、地方和国家政府以及纳粹政权发起的反通灵运动，考虑了神秘主义对同时代人的冲突意义，纳粹政权在多年对神秘主义的喜爱和反感之间交替，最终在1945年粉碎了这一运动。贯穿全书，《灵魂的科学》将德国神秘主义作为德国现代主义的一个关键方面，在其最广泛的文化背景下进行考察，为德国人如何在现代追求有意义的生活的挑战提供了新的见解。
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 practice: 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.