Religious Studies Review • VOLUME 33 • NUMBER 1
Sociology and Anthropology of
Religion
THE RE-ENCHANTMENT OF THE WEST, VOL-
UME 2: ALTERNATIVE SPIRITUALITIES, SACRA-
LIZATION, POPULAR CULTURE AND OCCULTURE.
By Christopher Partridge. New York: T & T Clarke Interna-
tional, 2005. Pp. 480. $89.99, ISBN 978-0-567-04133-3.
In the second volume of his engaging and informative
The Re-Enchantment of the West, Partridge continues his
convincing rebuttal of the “secularization thesis” and his
heartened defense of popular alternative spirituality
against accusations of individualism and superficiality.
Conceding the decline of traditional religion, Partridge
redirects attention to the blooming field of what he, draw-
ing on Campbell and Troeltsch, coins as “occulture”: the
dynamic array of alternative spiritual ideas, practices, and
methodologies, which is both fertilized and disseminated
by popular culture and bears witness to the extraordinary
confluence of secularization and sacralization occurring in
modern culture. At the heart of this is the “subjective
turn”: the rejection of duties, obligations, and external
authority in favor of the privileging of the self as the locus
of meaning and value. Where critics find self-indulgence,
inauthenticity, and appropriation, Partridge unearths indi-
vidual responsibility, sincerity, and creative “bricolage” as
he traverses through the increasingly populated land-
scapes of holistic healing, ecology, paganism, and the more
exotic terrains of cyberspirituality, the sacralization of psy-
chedelics, UFOism, and demonology, arriving finally at the
“eschatological re-enchantment” of apocalypticism, millen-
nialism, and millenarianism. Along the way, we are treated
to detailed case studies, and sociological and historical con-
textualization, as Partridge successfully endeavors to pro-
vide both breadth and detail of analysis. Even those
unconvinced by his sympathetic reading will surely be
intrigued by the fascinating panoply of alternative spiritu-
ality detailed here. Well written, persuasive, and cogently
argued, these volumes are destined to become set texts in
undergraduate- and graduate-level courses, cementing Par-
tridge’s stature as a leading authority on contemporary
alternative spirituality.
Ann Gleig
Rice University
WESTERN ESOTERICISM: A BRIEF HISTORY OF
SECRET KNOWLEDGE. By Kocku von Stuckrad. Trans-
lated by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. London: Equinox, 2005.
Pp. 256. $28.95, ISBN 978-1-84553-034-1.
Professor at the Institute for the History of Hermetic
Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, Von Stuckrad is
one of the most respected figures in the rich and blossoming
field of Western Esotericism. In this concise, erudite, and
fascinating book, he departs from A. Faivre’s influential
definition of esotericism to advance a model based on three
• JANUARY 2007
insights derived from an analysis of a European history of
religion—namely that religious pluralism has been a stan-
dard feature of Western culture since antiquity, that the
interplay between different cultural systems, such as reli-
gion, science, philosophy, and art, has strongly influenced
religious truth claims, and that the key to understanding
Western esotericism is the concept of competing methods for
attaining “real” or absolute knowledge. This new analytic
hermeneutic shifts focus from “esotericism” as a coherent or
clearly identifiable tradition to “the esoteric” as an “element
of discourse” in European history, thereby demonstrating the
inseparability of religion and science, of Christianity and
paganism, and of reason and superstition within Western
culture. Noting both continuities and discontinuities, Von
Stuckrad charts esoteric discourse from the ancient world to
the present (post)modern “New Age,” devoting chapters to
the Kabbalah, the Renaissance and the birth of modern eso-
tericism, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the institu-
tionalization of esotericism in secret societies such as
Rosicrucians and the Freemasons, and the influence of the
Theosophical Society on contemporary esotericism. Impres-
sive in breadth, analysis, and clarity, this text is an excellent
introduction to Western Esotericism and a welcome addition
to any undergraduate or graduate syllabus. Highly
recommended.
Ann Gleig
Rice University
Gender Studies
RELIGION & SEXUALITY: PASSIONATE DEBATES.
Edited by C. K. Robertson. New York: Peter Lang Publishing,
2005. Pp. 255. $29.95, ISBN 0-8204-7424-X.
Robertson has selected a collection of essays that is an
important resource in the conversation on religion and sex-
uality. The text argues that a variety of perspectives on
sexuality and religion, indeed “passionate debates” on the
subject, have the potential to dislodge the sense of comfort
that is associated with hearing only perspectives that rein-
force one’s position on this volatile issue. The editor hopes
that with this discomfort will come an openness to new
understandings. With this goal in mind, the text includes
essays that are clearly confessional and polemic in nature.
This is a strength and weakness of the text. On the one hand,
the diversity of perspectives certainly has the potential to
achieve the goal of broadening the reader’s horizon. On the
other hand, confessional approaches seem more doctrinally
apologetic than broader methods that offer a greater possi-
bility of understanding human beings in new ways. Along
those same lines, while the contributors to this volume may
represent diverse voices, the object of analysis was almost
exclusively sexuality and Christianity. Essays such as the
ones that explored sexuality in religious cinema and homo-
eroticism in men with narcissistic mothers made the collec-
tion a particularly worthwhile read. Students of sexuality
and religion, anthropologists, scholars of gender and
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