Esotericism, literature and counterculture

Conference and network for the Study of Esotericism and Literature.

Le Manuel du magicien contenant la Poule noire, le grand grimoire et la clavicule de Salomon avec l'indication des talismans, pactes et invocations infaillibles pour évoquer les Esprits terrestres, aériens et infernaux... versions collationnées sur les éditions originales... [Texte imprimé]

Publication : Paris : tous les libraires, (1895.)

Literature and esotericism have had a complex relationship over the centuries, and literary historians’ attitudes towards this subject are no less ambiguous. Some researchers have deliberately omitted the esoteric sources of many works, ignoring the interests and even the practices of the writers they studied. In contrast, others have sought to highlight the esoteric content of poetry and fiction. Such a dynamic is not surprising, given the general cultural place of esotericism, which is sometimes defined as the "wastebasket of rejected knowledge" of Western culture.

This sulphurous aura has, of course, fostered the attraction of many writers to esotericism, right up to the present day. From the dark romanticism of the first half of the 19th century to the beatniks and their reception of Eastern traditions, and even to the Soviet underground, the esoteric influences on countercultural forms of literature are well known subjets. Nevertheless, other forms of "counterculture", a notion considered here as a phenomenon of breaking with pre-established models, can offer new insights to researchers interested in these issues.

For this reason, ESOLIT has chosen Esotericism, Literature and Counterculture as the theme for its third international conference. Participants will be invited to discuss topics such as:

How the literary counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s worldwide was inspired by esotericism
How esoteric themes and practices influenced the poetic strategies of counterculture authors
What examples from previous periods can be defined as countercultural, and what role did esotericism play in them
How did literary critics and historians react to it
How does literary counterculture help us to better understand or redefine the concepts of esotericism, and perhaps vice versa

Keynote

Prof. Birgit Menzel

Members of the scientific committee

Tim Rudbøg (University of Copenhagen)
Nemanja Radulović (University of Belgrade)
Aaron French (University of Copenhagen)
Tom Fischer (École Pratique des Hautes Études)

All are welcome, free of charge, but please register here no later than 10 April.

“Esotericism, Literature and Counterculture,” the third annual conference of the Network for the Study of Esotericism and Literature (ESOLIT), is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Theosophy and Esotericism and the research project Twisting the Fabric of Space: On the Art and Politics of the Hidden at the University of Copenhagen.

Programme

Thursday 16 April

08:30	Welcome
08:50	Opening

Session 1. The Counterculture

Chair: Tim Rudbøg

09:00	Kasper Opstrup	Between Esoteric Surrealism and Moroccan Magic: Brion Gysin’s Occult Aesthetics and the Counterculture
09:25	William Redwood	William S. Burroughs: Anthropology of an Enigma
09:50	Gregg Harmston	The Case of CCRU and the Second Burroughs: Esoteric Counterculture, Mythos and Magical Writing
10:15	Salma Fallahi	The Hippie Survival Manual: When Cultivating One’s Psychic Garden is a Magical Act

10:40-11:00

Coffee break

Session 2. Comparative Approaches

Chair: Tom Fischer

11:00	Piero Latino	‘Siamo tutti in pericolo’ and ‘è inutile che io parli’: The Unheard Voice of Literature in the Epoch of Counterculture
11:25	Mozhdeh Sameti	Diegesis and Counterculture: Formal Uses of Esotericism in 1960s-1970s Theatre
11:50	Aaron French	Entanglements of Occultism and Modernism in Weird Fiction

12:15

Lunch

Keynote

13:15

Birgit Menzel

Literature, Esotericism, and Counterculture in Late and Post-Soviet Russia

Session 3. Counterculture and its Roots

Chair: Nemanja Radulović

14:15	Gísli Magnússon	From Lebensreform to Counterculture: The Esoteric Foundations and 1960s Reception of Hermann Hesse
14:40	Ivana Ryška Vajdová	Jung between Esotericism and Literature: The Formation of Twentieth-Century Countercultural Spirituality
15:05	Moritz Maurer	Glass Towers and Earth Temples: Esotericism, Sexuality, and Countercultural Literary Strategies in Wilhelmine Germany

15:30-15:55

Coffee break

Session 4. Counterculture as a Global Phenomenon

Chair: Aaron French

15:55	Tiina Mahlamäki	Esotericism and the Turku Underground Movement
16:20	Nemanja Radulović	Esoteric Sources of Serbian and Yugoslav 1970s Countercultural Poetry: Counterculture in Communism
16:45	Tim Rudbøg	A Bewitched Life: Fiction and Occult Practice
17:10	Nicole Bauer	Demonising the Occult: Contemporary Catholic Exorcism Literature and the Ambivalent Production of Esotericism

Announcements

17:30	Book presentation: Harald Toksværd will read excerpts from his novel God Will Know His Own (2026)
18:00	Reception

Friday 17 April

Session 5. Receptions and Legacies of Counterculture (I)

Chair: Kasper Opstrup

09:00	Véronique Campion-Vincent	Vincent Ravalec, A Counterculture French Author
09:25	Yijia Feng	Fiction as Esoteric Technology: Lovecraft, Counterculture, and the Production of Modern Esotericism
09:50	Dovydas Skarolskis	Occult Narration and Fractured Knowledge: Disco Elysium as Esoteric Countercultural Literature of Soviet Postcolonialism
10:15	Andrej Kapcar	Flesh Rewritten: Esoteric Posthumanism and Countercultural Body Politics in All Tomorrows and Warhammer 40.000

10:40-11:00

Coffee break

Session 6. Counterculture: Other Places, Other Times

Chair: Olivia Cejvan

11:00	Tom Fischer	A ‘Jules Verne of the Occult’: Gilbert Augustin-Thierry and his Récits de l’Occulte
11:25	Knut Graw	H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and the Question of Precession
11:50	Conner Habib	The Hidden Spirit in Horror: Horror Writers on the Esoteric in Their Own Words

12:15-13:15

Lunch

Session 7. Receptions and Legacies of Counterculture (II)

Chair: Ethan Doyle White

13:15	Adas Diržys	Counterculture or Counternature? Occult Ontologies in Contemporary Weird Fiction
13:40	Tancredi Marrone	Time Travel, Consciousness, and Conspiracy Theories in Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles
14:05	Gintautas Mažeikis	Literature and the Dark Enlightenment?
14:30	Idan Edut	The Case of the Jewish-Indian Tribe: The Adoption of an Esoteric Identity as a Countercultural Practice

14:55-15:15

Coffee break

Session 8. New Readings through Countercultural Lenses

Chair: Tiina Mahlamäki

15:15	Alexandra Nagel	Maria Penkala: Oscillating between Literature, Esotericism, and Counterculture
15:40	Jonathan Cahana-Blum	’Hosea was a Prophet of the Lord; but I speak not for the Lord, I speak for Gomer the Whore’: Susan Taubes’s Poetry as a Sacrament in a Jewish Gnostic Cult
16:05	Pénélope Szulka	The Church turned Prison, and the Prison turned Church: Redemptive Inversions in Sarah Kane’s Cleansed and Christopher Fry’s The Sleep of Prisoners