Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in ...

502 The Journal of American Culture Volume 29, Number 4 December 2006read books describing them, and in this volume hebrings most of the gargantuan together. There is,for example, the two-story outhouse which nodoubt resulted from the folklore of the sameaccommodation—or did the folklore result fromthe reality? Anyway, for the two-story accommodationas folklore, see my article ‘‘The Seat ofDemocracy: The Privy Humor of Chic Sale,’’Journal of American Culture 3, Fall 1980, 409–16.But perhaps the greatest revelation is the origin of‘‘I think; therefore, I Spam.’’ Of course Descartescame along and rewrote the useful observation tohis own purposes. But we must give credit wherecredit is due. And this book deserves a lot ofcredit. It is devoted to the gargantuan. Undoubtedlythe author will turn next to the tiny. Anyonewanting to help out should get in touch with himat ericdregni@yahoo.com.—Ray B. BrowneRay & Pat Browne Popular Culture LibraryBowling Green State UniversityModern Occult Rhetoric:Mass Media and the Drama ofSecrecy in theTwentieth Century(Rhetoric, Culture, and SocialCritique Series)Joshua Gunn, Tuscaloosa, AL: University ofAlabama Press, 2005.How many taboos can a scholar violate beforebeing permanently assigned to publishing limbo?Judging from this book, quite a few! JoshuaGunn, assistant professor of communicationstudies at the University of Texas–Austin, treatsthe seldom analyzed (because disreputable) territoryof the occult, typically understood to includephenomena such as fortune telling, astrology,black magic, Satanism, and channeling dead spirits.He wishes to show how ‘‘individuals use language. . . secrets, creating groups of insiders and outsiders’’(xv). Gunn reveals that his investigationwas launched by a ‘‘smugly’’ framed insult tossedat him in a graduate seminar; another studentpublicly chastised him for his ignorance of ‘‘Lacanon desire’’ (235). Perhaps reflecting the emotionalsting of that classroom humiliation, he risksoffense to many respectable colleagues in a firstchapter that begins with a babbling satire of theFrench postmodern stars, Deleuze and Guattari.Such a ruse momentarily suggests his sympathywith Alan Sokal, who hoaxed the journalSocial Texts a decade ago with famously ‘‘fashionablenonsense.’’ But after this deliberate linking ofoccultism’s obscurity with that of postmoderncritical discourse, he goes on to offer a qualifiedapologia for both. While he does not defend thetruth claims of either, he argues instead for thelegitimacy of their shared purpose—to disclosepreviously unknown truths conveyed throughlanguage that is by necessity exploratory. As heworks out parallels between the popular and thescholarly occult, Gunn develops a subtle, originalanalysis that helps us understand ‘‘the poetics ofobscurity’’ and how it functions to create appreciativeaudiences.In addition to this philosophical strand focusedon meaning, the argument of the book is framedhistorically, encompassing ancient origins of theoccult tradition, its suppression by the earlyChristian church, its revival during the Renaissance,and its period of greatest vitality in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries when thechurch’s social authority to forbid what it called‘‘magic’’ declined.For the American aspect of Gunn’s analysis,principal figures covered are H. P. Blavatsky,Aleister Crowley, and Anton LaVey. And just asthe spiritual authority of the church diminished,Gunn sees a downward path from a period ofearnest seeking after secrets to a period of occult

Book Reviews503commodification dominated by scary imagesrather than esoteric language.Blavatsky was a world traveler from Ukrainewho, in 1875, formed the Theosophical Society inNew York; she circulated as a spiritualist celebritywho commanded special insights and powersbased upon her study of assorted world religions.The Society still exists today and her works suchas Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine(1888), although denounced by some of hercontemporaries as ‘‘rubbish,’’ are still in printtoday, remaining important to the theosophicalstrand of New Age religions. Her rhetorical style,which was repetitive, list-laden with citations, andfilled with imported terms (especially fromSanskrit), helped Blavatsky cultivate the aura ofauthority among her devoted, though oftenbemuddled followers. Her justification for thepeculiar language was that it could transport herreaders to the theologically ‘‘ineffable,’’ the morethan-ordinaryspiritual reality that lay beyond thereferences of definite, ordinary, or scientificlanguage. It was the promised access to secrecy,despite the obscurity, that held her readers.Aleister Crowley was a sojourner of a differentkind. An Englishman of independent means, hepresented himself variously as the revealer ofsecrets from ancient Egyptian gods and as asatanic prankster who encouraged witchcraft,child sacrifice, and complete sexual freedom. InGunn’s reading, Crowley encouraged his readersto make a kind of erotic fetish of their experiencein reading The Book of the Law (1904; Appendix2 reproduces the full text). Continuing withscholarly analogues, Gunn sees Crowley’s selfstyling as master of text-with-secrets in relation tothe academic star system, with its ‘‘masters ofinterpretation’’ who carry the pretense of perceivingthe meaning of important texts directly,without the taint of preconceptions. This tendencyis identified in the older New Criticismmovement and the newer ‘‘intrinsic criticism’’stance in the field of rhetorical studies. Yetanother dimension of Crowley’s performancewas an antithetical irony toward himself as expertand, even worse for his reputation, participationin pranks reported in the popular American andBritish press as openly criminal or sacrilegious.Crowley’s attitudes and behavior could surviveamong a quietly anarchic elite but were fiercelydenounced when more widely known. Withoutthe trappings of Crowley’s ‘‘wickedest man in theworld’’ label, America’s hermeneutic elite has alsosuffered in the exposures of postmodern vocabularyand political stances to popular scrutiny.Anton LaVey represents the low point in theevolution of the search for and dissemination ofsecrets. In Gunn’s accounting, LaVey is morepublicist and marketeer than inquirer. His Churchof Satan (founded in 1966) and Satanic Bible(1969) are really about demystification and theassertion of a secular life orientation. The book,which remains in print, was cobbled togetherfrom diverse sources (including Crowley) andthus lacks any kind of rhetorical or philosophicalcoherence. LaVey most succeeded in staging‘‘Prince of Darkness’’ images that were repeatedlyconsumed and repeated by Oprah Winfrey,Geraldo Rivera, and other pulp journalisticvenues that magnified the impression of satanicritualism in America. LaVey himself did notbelieve in Satan as a spiritual reality any morethan he believed in a Christian God. Gunn’sanalysis of how the imagery became the substanceof alarmist journalism is enlightening, as is hisdiscussion of the Polanski films Rosemary’s Baby(1968) and The Ninth Gate (1999).This book is a worthy addition to a universitylibrary. Its muscular, abstract arguments on manypoints make it a difficult slog for many undergraduates.But it is a rewarding book for anyonewho wants to think about the deep appeals ofobscure language and the challenges of interpretationposed by it.—John Shelton LawrenceEmeritus, Morningside College