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Introduction
This new issue of Esoterica features as its lead article John
Richards’s extensive and groundbreaking analysis of Appalachian
folk magic in relation to Protestant Christianity. A professor at
West Virginia State University, Richards, in “Folk Magic and
Protestant Christianity in Appalachia,” not only surveys the
literature in the field, and the primary forms of folk magic in the
Appalachian region, but also offers a compelling and innovative
thesis about folk magic as intimately bound up with regional forms
of American Christianity.
Yet this is not the only important new article in this issue. In
“The Dionysian Body: Esotericism in the Philosophy of Norman
O. Brown”, Melinda Weinstein offers the first full-length article on
this well-known scholar, showing how much Brown was indebted
to and drew on Western esoteric traditions. Despite Brown’s
reputation and influence as author of books including Life Against
Death and Love’s Body, this is the first article to analyze his work
in depth.
Still another innovative article is Eric G. Wilson’s “Hermetic
Melancholia and the Suffering of Androids,” in which he explores
themes very prevalent in contemporary films—the themes of
androids or puppets—and he reveals their hidden relationship to
Western esotericism, in particular to the work of philosopher and
magus Marsilio Ficino.
What’s more, in “Magical Dream Provocation in the Later
Middle Ages,” Frank Klaassen explores the complex topic of
medieval dream literature and its relationship to visions as well
as to dream divination as a form of medieval magical practices.
Finally, this issue also features book reviews, including Claire
Fanger on a new critical edition of the Sworn Book of Honorius,
and Arthur Versluis on Mark Sedgwick’s Against the Modern
World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the
Twentieth Century. This is one of our richest issues yet.
With this, its eighth volume, Esoterica is significantly changing
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