Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day.

1. Introduction: Conceptualizing Occult Modernism.- 2. A History of Research into Occult Modernist Literature.- Part I Artistic Practices.- 3. Visionary Mimesis and Occult Modernism in Literature and Art Around 1900.- 4. August Strindberg’s Art in Modernist and Occult Context.- 5. ‘Only Poets and Occultists Believe in Them Just Now’: Fairies and the Modernist Crisis of Authorship.- Part II Aesthetics.- 6. Return from Oblivion: Joséphin Péladan’s Literary Esotericism.- 7. Ghosts Before Breakfast: The Appetite for the Beyond in Early Avant-Garde Film.- 8. Marie Wilson and Nanos Valaoritis in Conversation: Surrealism, Imagetext, and Occult Aesthetics in Terre de Diamant.- Part III Occulture.- 9. Magic Art Between the Primitive and the Occult: Animal Sacrifice in Jan Švankmajer’s Drawer Fetishes.- 10. Retrogardism and Occulture in Håkan Sandell’s Poetry.

Many modernist and avant-garde artists and authors were fascinated by the occult movements of their day. This volume explores how Occultism came to shape modernist art, literature, and film. Individual chapters examine the presence and role of Occultism in the work of such modernist luminaries as Rainer Maria Rilke, August Strindberg, W.B. Yeats, Joséphin Péladan and the artist Jan Švankmaier, as well as in avant-garde film, post-war Greek Surrealism, and Scandinavian Retrogardism.  Combining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the field of Esotericism Studies with those of Literary Studies, Art History, and Cinema Studies, this volume provides in-depth and nuanced perspectives upon the relationship between Occultism and Modernism in the Western arts from the nineteenth century to the present day. 

“Since the 1990s, we have seen a growing historical awareness of the importance of occultism for the development of science, psychology, culture, and politics in Europe around 1900. The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema joins this interdisciplinary field of research and adds important insights to our understanding of the intrinsic ties between occultism and modern art.” (C.K.M. von Stuckrad, University of Groningen, Netherlands)“Too long spurned as a noxious miasma in danger of polluting studies of Modernism, the occult is illuminated in this transdisciplinary book as having infected Modernists as disparate as Hilma af Klint and Hans Richter with its esoteric knowledges, extrasensory practices and alternative concepts. Exploring August Strindberg’s occultist paintings and photographs, Håkan Sandell’s retrogardism, Jan Švankmajer’s Drawer Fetishes, British fairy paintings and Terre de Diamont of Marie Wilson and Nanos Valaoritis, it navigates a subterranean journey thatprofoundly fathoms the unconscious of Modernism.” (Fae Brauer, University of East London Centre for Cultural Studies Research, UK)