In a secular world dominated by science, rationality and empirical evidence, the realm of the esoteric and occult is immediately classified as being subaltern and irrational; relegated to the world of make believe along with UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, and the fairies at the bottom of the garden. An even more contemptuous suggestion to the logical Enlightened mind is the claim that art itself is a form of magical praxis with the power to affect, change, and shape the everyday world in which we live. This conceptual union of art and magic is, however, the foundation of the work of American filmmaker Kenneth Anger (b. 1927). In describing the objective of his creative work, Anger states that “making a movie is casting a spell”, claiming that he seeks to directly affect the realities of his audience through magic. Lauded as one of the most influential filmmakers of the New American Cinema, Anger’s work functions as an artistic magical ritual, fusing esoteric spirituality with experimental cinema to produce a new form of cinematic magical practice. This article will examine Anger’s final film, Lucifer Rising (1972), in an attempt to challenge traditional understandings of art and magic by reunifying the supposedly disparate concepts in its claim that art, as a form of magic, can and does affect real world change.

Includes my introduction

My Introduction

***NB: The published version of this paper concludes after Part IV. Part V will be incorporated into a separate article (now in progress).*** Despite its enduring popularity, theatrical magic remains all but ignored by art critics, art historians, and philosophers. This longstanding critical inattention is unfortunate, since magic seems to offer a unique and distinctively intellectual aesthetic experience, and reflection on magic raises a host of interesting philosophical and psychological questions. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to initiate a philosophical investigation of the experience of magic. The paper has five parts. Part one dispels two misconceptions about the nature of magic and discusses the special sort of depiction it requires. Parts two and three lay the groundwork for an account of the experience of magic in terms of Tamar Szabó Gendler's notion of “belief-discordant alief.” On this basis, part four presents an account of the experience of magic and connects it to both the Kantian mathematical sublime and Socratic aporia. Finally, part five introduces two new aesthetic paradoxes and resolves them by appeal, first, to Alison Gopnik’s work on the psychology of explanation, and second, to parallels between magic and horror and humor. The result is a philosophically rich account of the experience of magic that opens new avenues for inquiry with direct relevance to core issues in contemporary aesthetics.

Uncorrected proofs of chapter on "Contemporary Ritual Magic" for The Occult World (Routledge, 2014), edited by Christopher Partridge.