Prof. Dr. Ehler Voss (University of Bremen): Magic Tipping Points. On Deceptions and Detections

Prof. Dr. Ehler Voss, University of Bremen

“Magic Tipping Points. On Deceptions and Detections.”

Start: 2021-05-04, 18:00 CEST

Location: Zoom 

Mentalists often speak of tipping points that occur during their practice. These are events in which something unexpected happens, that is inexplicable at first glance and seems like a small miracle. Most of them interpret such events as coincidence, even if they do not always reveal this to the audience, but some also interpret these unexpected events as actual paranormal phenomena, or they deliberately leave the decision in suspense. In the 19th century, European and American entertainment magicians and cultural anthropologists, in a process of mutual mirroring, tried to transform such ambiguities into unambiguity through establishing the asymmetrical distinction between stage magic and occult magic, the former being perceived as modern and secular because it explicitly admits to the skilful and science-based production of illusions, and the latter as primitive and religious because it either believes that it manipulates or pretends to manipulate forces (for good or evil) that are not scientifically approved and thus usually claimed to be supernatural. Therefore, stage magicians usually dismiss all the phenomena people often experience in altered states of consciousness as deceit or self-deceit, and many stage magicians derive from the distinction between stage magic and occult magic a moral duty to publicly expose people who practice occult, i.e. "real" magic. Based on anthropological fieldwork in California among skeptics and parapsychologists who perform as mentalists, this presentation explores the controversies and paradoxes that result from the attempts to purify magic from its ambiguities.

Please register by mail at sekretariat@lit.gess.ethz.ch

Registration is mandatory for participants.

Event website: lit.ethz.ch/occultism

The lecture series is organized by Chloë Sugden, Jonas Stähelin and Prof. Dr. Andreas Kilcher as part of the SNSF project, "Scientification and Aestheticization of 'Esotericism' in the long 19th century".

FURTHER INFO ON THE LECTURE SERIES: 

Aesthetic and Scientific Epistemologies of the Occult in the XIX Century

ETH Online Lecture Series, Spring 2021

We invite you to the Spring 2021 edition of our ongoing lecture series, as we continue our enquiry into aesthetic and scientific epistemologies of the occult during the long nineteenth century. On Tuesday evenings in May, through our second online series, we present approaches to the subject that combine methodologies drawn from art history, religious studies, media theory, anthropology and science studies. In our first lecture, anthropologist, Ehler Voss will take a look at the opposing views of two Californian magicians by relating them to nineteenth-century debates surrounding the credibility of magical practices. In the second lecture, with an approach similarly grounded in religious anthropology, Erin Yerby will investigate the role of the body as medium in the American Spiritualist tradition, which she contextualizes within broader Protestant-inflected iconoclastic tradition. In our third lecture, art historian, Victoria Ferentinou will explore the influence of esoteric discourses on artistic theory and practice of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her focus will be on the painting and theory of the Greek symbolist, Frixos Aristeus (1879-1951). Finally, in the fourth lecture, historian of religion, Marco Pasi will consider the presence of occult-related themes in the oeuvre of the late contemporary artist, Chiara Fumai (1978-2017).

Please register by mail at sekretariat@lit.gess.ethz.ch

Registration is mandatory for participants.

Event website: lit.ethz.ch/occultism

Program:

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Prof. Dr. Ehler Voss, University of Bremen

“Magic Tipping Points. On Deceptions and Detections.”

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Dr. Erin Yerby, Rice University

“The Body as Spectral Shape: Spiritualist Mediumship and Anglo-American Iconoclasm.”

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Prof. Dr. Victoria Ferentinou, University of Ioannina

“‘Colours are Things’: The Visionary Art of Frixos Aristeus.”

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Prof. Dr. Marco Pasi, University of Amsterdam

“‘Witchcraft with Capital W’: The Magical Art of Chiara Fumai.”

The lecture series is organized by Chloë Sugden, Jonas Stähelin and Andreas Kilcher as part of the SNSF project "Scientification and Aestheticization of 'Esotericism' in the long 19th century".