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Posts tagged ‘polarity’

  1. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Thermodynamic bodies – II

    “…there is no word in any language I know which is an exact synonym for vril. I should call it electricity, except that it comprehends in its manifold branches other forces of nature, to which, in our scientific nomenclature, differing names are assigned, such as magnetism, galvanism, &c. These people consider that in vril they have arrived at the unity in natural energetic agencies, which has been conjectured by many philosophers above ground…”
    Bulwer-Lytton, 1871, The Coming Race

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    November 23rd 2011

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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  2. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Thermodynamic bodies – I

    “Star and nerve-tissue are parts of the system-stellar and nervous forces are correlated. Nay more; sensation awakens thought and kindles emotion, so that this wondrous dynamic chain binds into living unity the realms of matter and mind through measureless amplitudes of space and time.”
    Edward Youmans, 1869, The Correlation and Conservation of Force

    This post will examine the arrival of thermodynamics in the nineteenth century and consider its wider cultural impact – in particular how it was used to reinforce gender regimes. Continue reading »

    June 12th 2011

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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  3. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and the spirited body – II

    In my last post in this series I examined the relationship between spiritualism and the rapid growth of communications technology in the nineteenth century. This time round, I’m going to focus on the notion of “female passivity” in terms of Spiritualism, and its relationship to wider cultural discourses of the period. Just as spiritualism took off at the same time as the rise of the telegraph, it also was contemporaneous with the growing tensions over women’s role and influence – the so-called “Woman Question”. Continue reading »

    December 12th 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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  4. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and the spirited body – I

    In the early part of the nineteenth century, electricity was thought to be the force most likely to prove the existence of the elan vitale or life force of Naturalphilosophie. Schelling, at the turn of the century, for example, proposed that heat, light, magnetism and electricity were all byproducts of a single universal life force. The arising of electrical models allowed polarities to be discovered within organisms – and between discrete classes of persons. Thus maleness or masculinity was assigned to the positive pole, and femininity to the negative. The gendering of electricity and energy continued in the nineteenth century, particularly in respect to medical theories and the notion of “nervous energy”, and the rise in popularity of Spiritualism. Continue reading »

    September 3rd 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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  5. Letter to a Young Gay Man on Celebrating Beltane

    You asked about how a gay person can celebrate Beltane, as it’s about fertility.

    It is such a standard image, no? Beltane being about the God and Goddess having sex or marrying. She in her long hair and coy long-legged femininity. He always tall, muscular, strong, looking conventionally masculine, holding her a loving embrace. I too attended rituals celebrating their happy union. And at midsummer, they stood together, a couple with their child, born from their Beltane coupling. Like you, I heard this described as fertility. And it did seem logical. Continue reading »

    July 31st 2010

    Posted by in Gender, Pagan, Queer

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  6. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and the body electric

    “In taste, in learning, wit or science,
    Still kindred souls demand alliance:
    Each in the other joys to find
    The image answering to his mind.
    But sparks electric only strike
    On souls electrical alike;
    The flash of intellect expires,
    Unless it meet congenial fires.”
    Hannah More, The Bas Blue 1786

    For this series of posts on the theme of polarity discourse, I’m going to focus on representations of polarity which make an appeal to forces – to electricity, magnetism, etc. Continue reading »

    June 3rd 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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  7. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Tradition

    When women want to escape from exploitation, they do not merely destroy a few “prejudices,” they disrupt the entire order of dominant values, economic, social, moral and sexual. They call into question all existing theory, all thought, all language, insamuch as these are monopolized by men and men alone. They challenge the very foundation of our social and cultural order….Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One

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    April 27th 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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  8. Occult gender regimes: the Yin-Yang binary

    We shouldn’t be surprised that contemporary occult representations of gender mirrors and reifies the binary oppositions of masculinity and femininity central to western culture. One aspect of this that does interest me is how appeals to non-western cultural concepts are deployed to further legitimise this regime. Continue reading »

    February 19th 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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