Reviews

frames it in return. I cannot say if this book will help religious minorities
hold on to their traditions, or whether it will sway any of the ‘‘narrow-
minded atheists and literalists’’ (xx) whom Russell fears increasingly
dominate religious discourse. I am quite sure, however, that so long as
they engage his assertions critically, readers will find their knowledge of
the marginalized religions described in this very accessible book thor-
oughly enriched. That fact alone makes it worthwhile reading for every-
one, scholar or novice, with an interest in the Middle East or identity
formation and cultural persistence.

Nathan J. Hardy, University of Chicago

The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse,

1900–1939. By Egil Asprem. Brill, 2014. xii +632 pages. $240.00 cloth;
ebook available.

In analyzing the discourses which comprise the esoteric currents and

new religious movements (NRMs) of the late nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries, one of the perennial issues examined by scholars is the
relationship between these discourses and what Max Weber famously
termed the ‘‘disenchantment of the world,’’ referring to a proposed
fundamental shift in ‘‘people’s epistemic attitudes towards the world’’ from
a position of enchantment to disenchantment. Egil Asprem’s The Problem
of Disenchantment approaches this eponymous problem through
Problemgeschichte (problem history), which is a methodological approach
to the histories of ideas and cultures characterized by context, situation,
and embodiment—facilitating the synchronic analysis of such problems
as they are situated, conceived of, and responded to throughout a num-
ber of distinct fields. In this way, the focus of Asprem’s work is the notion
of disenchantment as a problem which is situated amid the fields of
religion, science, philosophy, and esotericism (19). The author succeeds
in reframing the debate over Weber’s notion of disenchantment, effect-
ing a shift from the prior view of disenchantment (and any subsequent
re-enchantment) as a process, ‘‘towards a focus on disenchantment as
a cluster of intellectual problems’’ (28).
Asprem’s analysis of the problem of disenchantment is given shape
through three thematic sections following the introductory and meth-
odological first section. First, he engages in a lengthy treatment of the
theological underpinnings of the varieties of intersections between scien-
tific and religious currents in the early twentieth century. The bulk of this
theological discourse is classified by Asprem as ‘‘natural theology,’’ which
manifests in five distinct varieties throughout the period under investiga-
tion: ether metaphysics, psychic enchantment, theological emergentism,
modern alchemy, and quantum mysticism. Second, the author delves

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deeply into the histories of psychical research and parapsychology, explor-

ing the unique confluences between—primarily scientific and esoteric—
discursive complexes which manifested both in institutions such as the
Society for Psychical Research as well as the (brief) establishment of
parapsychology as a university discipline at such institutions as Stanford,
Harvard, and Duke. Third, The Problem of Disenchantment examines the
development of ‘‘esoteric epistemologies’’ within several of the primary
esoteric currents of the period, each of which is marked by the entangle-
ment of esoteric and scientific discourses. The specific case studies used
to develop this third section include a treatment of the ‘‘occult chemistry’’
proffered by second-wave members of the Theosophical Society, as well
as comparative analysis of the approaches towards non-discursive—
‘‘gnostic’’—epistemic modes in the works of Rudolf Steiner and Aleister
Crowley.
The Problem of Disenchantment is, in its entirety, extraordinarily well
researched, argued, and written—representing at once the most com-
plete and nuanced treatment of the notion of disenchantment within
this network of scientific, religious, philosophical, and esoteric dis-
courses and currents. The importance of Asprem’s work lies primarily
in the novel application of the Problemgeschichte methodology in refor-
mulating disenchantment as a problem central to cultural and intellec-
tual history in the West. Asprem’s transformation of the idea of
disenchantment from that of a monolithic process to a problem situated
at the center of a network of different specific situations, contexts, and
embodied forms effects a tremendous change in the understandings of
the entanglements between these discourses and currents within their
respective disciplines. This reframing is of critical importance in
Western esotericism in particular, owing to the fact that it facilitates a far
more accurate and coherent understanding both of esotericism’s place
within early twentieth century history, and of the very construct of ‘‘eso-
tericism’’ itself in terms of Wouter Hanegraaff and Kocku von Stuckrad’s
recent theoretical challenges to the field’s central term. Asprem’s work
contributes greatly to the dialogue between these respective mnemohis-
torical and discourse analytical approaches, advancing a view of ‘‘esoter-
icism’’ which powerfully argues for the bridging of these two seemingly
disparate avenues of approach.
As with any Brill book, the cost is prohibitive of private purchase,
but university libraries with holdings in the histories of late modern
esotericism, religion, or science will want to secure a copy, and an
ebook is available. Given the extent and importance of the conclusions
argued for in The Problem of Disenchantment, the book will likely appeal
to a wide range of scholars whose work deals with twentieth century
intellectual and cultural history. In particular, for scholars of religion
specializing in NRMs or esoteric currents, Asprem’s work will be
required reading, especially for those scholars exploring both the

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entangled religious and scientific discourses of the early twentieth

century and their genealogies.

Christopher A. Plaisance, University of Groningen

Brotherly Love: Freemasonry and Male Friendship in Enlightenment France. By

Kenneth Loiselle. Cornell University Press, 2014. 261 pages. $59.95
cloth; ebook available.

The concept of friendship—a social bond based on choice rather than

birth or position—has been the object of extensive anthropological, his-
torical, and philosophical research. In a new and original interpretation,
Kenneth Loiselle traces the rise of a modern notion of friendship during
the Enlightenment through a meticulously researched study of
eighteenth-century French Masonic lodges. Freemasonry was the largest
social organization in the decades leading up to the French Revolution.
Methodologically, Loiselle’s study spans the records and archives of hun-
dreds of lodges in Paris and across France, including ritual papers, lodge
minutes, formal speeches as well as private letters in order to document
both political and personal transformations in the meaning of friendship
over the course of a century. This formidable historiographic effort is
made richer by the ethnographic quality with which Loiselle breathes life
into his archival sources. Through vividly written accounts of theories,
feelings, and rituals of friendship, the book demonstrates that not only
did Masonic friendship lay the groundwork for revolutionary political
culture, but also ‘‘that the French Enlightenment was just as much an
Age of Sentiment as it was an Age of Reason’’ (17).
In chapters 1 and 2, we learn that friendship and fraternity were
concerns deliberated explicitly in lodges’ documents and rituals.
Freemasonry brought together men (and some women) from the bour-
geoisie and the aristocracy to forge social bonds based neither in familial
kinship nor in class obligations. Freemasons’ own normative theoriza-
tions about friendship depicted it as a utopian male homosocial bond
characterized by selflessness, mutuality, and disinterest. Unlike the
instrumental social relations commonly found in the ‘‘profane’’ world
of the Old Regime, the friendship to which Freemasons aspired was only
possible within a fraternity of equals who felt brotherly love for each
other. In order to actualize such lofty goals, lodges relied on elaborate
and formulaic esoteric rituals aimed at inducing in the initiated an
ontological transformation ‘‘that reshaped men into perfect friends’’
(80). Although the ritualized friendship of Freemasons was not always
realized in practice, as lodge records reveal plenty of internal conflicts
and disputes, Masonic friendship served nonetheless as an aspirational
model for the form of political sociality that came to characterize the

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