University of Algiers II MII Lit and Civ

English Department
BenarriouaAniss
English Literature
Supervisor: Mrs. Saoudi

The Occult (Esotericism, Gnosticism and Mysticism) of Edgar Allan Poe

Topic: A Pantheist Study of Edgar Allan Poe's Mesmeric

Revelation, Morella and Power of Words

Research Question: To what extent was Edgar Allan Poe

Pantheistic in his works and how can we use the occult to study the
spirituality behind the supernatural elements used in his works.

Theory: Archetypal Analysis (Carl Jung)

Unity of Effect (Edgar Allan Poe)
 Index
Acknowledgements
Entrée

Chapter I: Interlude (From Baltimore to Eureka)

1. Chapters summary
2. Discovering Poe
3. Poe's Theology and Eureka

Chapter II: The Theories and Philosophies (Forevermore and Afterwards) 10

1. Poe's Eureka and the oneness

2. Carl Jung Archetypes and the self
3. Pantheism: The oneness and the self
4. The Occult
a- The Esotericism
b- The Gnosticism
c- The Mysticism

Chapter III: The Analysis (Oncemore and onwards) 20

1. The Esotericism in The Power of Words

2. The Mysticism in Morella
a. Plot Summary
b. Fate of Individual Identity After Death
c. Theological Morality
d. The Baptism

3. The Gnosticism in Fall of the House of Usher

Chapter IV: The Spiritual Revelations (Nevermore and Heavenwards) 10

1. Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism

2. The Heartbeat of God is in the Pen
3. Poe’s Mysticism and the Problem of Evil
4. Artistic Sensitivity and the Plot of God
5. Adieu
 Agnito
Acknowledgement

"To the few who love me and whom I love"

Eureka

I'd like to offer my most august warm gratitudes to Imene Ghebach, my fellow literary scholar
and the one who offered her most knowledgeable mind to my studies, and dragged me from
delinquency, from my first year in 2016 to today's thesis. Thank you most kindly, thank you
sincerely.

To my literary teachers who believed in my feather and celebrated my long scorned alienation,
they go as it follows but they do not follow (I ordered them chronologically for the sake of
amenity): Lady Lakrouf, Lamara, Ghris, Saichi, Zenadji, Doctor Bezzazi, and to each teacher
who gasped a bright word, your candid words were availed heartedly, your literary courses
were rejoiced in fortune not in twain.

As today I had put my aim heavenwards, and was godly blessed with literary Algerian genes,
to my Mother daughter of the casbah teacher and headmaster of the mysticism, and my stoic
father of Soustara who taught me the firmness of the wise men. Your Son of Algiers will
remain strong, firm, independent and humble to our citizenry.

To my Sole object of inspiration, the non-detested town, praised in my lines, raped in the name
of the divine, My Mother Algiers, and her Sons, her sins and her seeds. The Vaudevillian Vox
populi that came from psychedelia with love. The literary trilogy that will render me soul
eternally vividly.

My distant occultist Master David Tibet the current representative of the hermetic order of the
golden dawn, who taught me the magick of poetry, paintings, rock music and occult studies.
He did guide me to the conclusion shortly and his esoteric knowledge was of great aid to the
shaping of this dissertation.
 Entrée
I n this humble verbiage of a forgotten mileage on gothic tales from the victorian age. Thee
and me are going to unveil the magick of the lines and decipher the archetypes to assert the
occultic source of many supernatural and mystic aspects in three of Poe's most mystical stories.
For my own part, as a scholar of literature and an amateur novelist much inspired by Edgar
Allan Poe, I acknowledge from my young humble experience that the writing must at all cost
be motivated by a spiritual purpose before shaping the first word. I have chosen these three
stories for their intensity and richness in imageries, the spirituality speaks in volumes in these
tales. I, with the help of few remakrable scholars of the occult, had acquired the most
pantheistic elements to wisely build the unity of effect of this dissertation. However,
Pantheism is a wide concept and philosophy that can be found in various doctrines, From
sufism to taoism, going through the thelema and ancient egyptian religion, it mostly starts with
a reunion with the divine and the submission of the ego (Islam Nafs) to the cosmic creation,
this concept can be found in various doctrines of the occult. But for the sake of literary
accuracy, I am going to use the most western and american doctrines to stay not very distant
from to the zeitgeist of the victorian age.
The Gnosticism, the esotericism and the mysticism. These will be the triadic philosophies that
will get use close to the pantheism of the three stories that I have chosen. What these doctrines
have in common is the universal depiction of the Godhead creator, found in nature and in each
soul. The same theological view described by Poe in Eureka, and potentially the one that Carl
Jung mentioned brievly in his Red Book. In this view, not only we are measuring the extent of
the pantheism in his works, thus answering to half of the thesis question, we are also finding
the best philosophy that can unravel the mysticism behind Poe's works. In respect to poe's
theological views in Eureka, and carl jung's revelations in his Red Book. The aim of each
analytic chapter of the triadic stories is to assert the original esoteric source of the supernatural
elements used by Edgar Allan Poe.
My dissertation argues that an esoteric relationship between poe's tales and the occult existed
in the dark romantic movement. American authors modernized occult ideas from the ancient
teachings of Hermeticism and Gnosticism in their works, and these works in turn inspired
remarkable traditions in English Literature, reaching its appogée with Aleister Crowley's works
.“Occult Americans: Invisible Culture and the Literary Imagination” also displays a connecting
relation between ancient, esoteric ideas about the cosmos that were brought to America by the
first colonists, and the later 19th century occult emergence. Occult ideas were heavily present
when Enlightenment dawned in America, but only switched their terrain, and my dissertation
celebrates these literary magus of occultism in antebellum America.
In the last chapter, I will conclude this spiritual journey in literature with the spiritual
revelations asserted from the upcoming knowledge of the analysis. As we dive deep into the
occult through these tales. The Framework of this dissertation and the inductive method used
will perhaps help the young scholars of literature to amass ample spiritual foundations for the
shaping of their characters. Since most of the young scholars of my promo and my time, are
still in quest of themselves. Religion became a public duty, and a social class on who can boast
the most. Reading a book is a gigantic task to some of the advocates of these semblant of
academical studies, the debates in class are but a repetetive comedy of what we hear in the
streets, the shallow scratching of the surface and the illusion of the ego. Most of us had
forsaken the spirituality of things, whether in literature , music or in our way of life. In this
dissertation, no faith is superior to another. And each faith or doctrine contribute to one
purpose only, the evolution of the spiritual mind. And hopefully, the establishement of the
literary mind. The one that revere the sacredness of the word. As Mr Poe once revered the act
of creation in Poetry.
This dissertation will be written in respect of the Unity of Effect by Edgar Allan Poe, as I used
his Philosophy of Composition to shape my third book "Sins of Algiers". The positive
feedback that I recieved is but the fruit of Edgar Allan Poe's literary techniques to bring the
effect to the reader. And so the structure of the dissertation's chapter as enigmatic as it may
seem is the architecture of the foundation of this dissertation.
From The foundations of Eureka, the theology of carl jung, the archetypal analysis of the
dictions à visée spiritual, combining the knowledge of the esoterism and hermeticism and the
gnosticism we well assert the spiritual effect that Edgar Allan Poe wanted to cast as the sole
purpose of his writings, and how that enigmatic effect repeats itself continuously in his stories.
For the sake of divinity in literature, I have carefully chose a science-fiction tale "The Power of
Words", and two bereavements "Morella", "The Fall of the House of Usher".
It is impossible however to mention Poe without talking of his spiritual Magnum Opus, even
though his faith was a mystery and he was accused of heresy several times because of his
eccentric views on existence and the universe. He did display cosmic prophecies, on the theory
of everything, the big bang theory and even claimed the greatest spiritual discovery through
what he considered the greatest human discovery after Gravitation. Eureka ! a prose poem
written for those who feel rather than those who think.
I believe that after reading and understanding Eureka, we can easily assert the spirituality in
each verbiage of his. From Israfil to The Golden Bug. In each story I am going to study
various field of spiritual studies and philosophies in order to find out which is the most suitable
for the study of Poe's mysticism in his works. The reason why I have chosen these three
doctrine is because they're the most relevant in the study of western esoterism, whether in
literature or in the occult. Edgar Allan Poe has acknowledged that he is a christian.
Nevertheless, his christendom manifest itself in his work always and mostly through various
heretic ideals, mostly the same that derives from the gnostic teachings. Gnosticism which is the
doctrines considered heretic by the catholic church in the 3rd century. Even Poe acknowledge
the heresy of his ideas.

The chapters are arranged topically, and the texts with which each deals are those that
themselves foreground the particular issue under consideration. But this order should not be
regarded as an attempt to establish a taxonomy for Poe's texts-which would be to engage in an
activity that the texts themselves expose as a manifestation of interpretive blindness. To cite
one example: "Morella," here examined for the implications it bears on Poe's questioning of
"personal identity," could just as fruitfully have been discussed with "Fall of the house of
usher" and "The Power of Words" in the chapter that explores Poe's interrogation of the limits
of the romantic symbol. The topical organization is essentially functional: earlier chapters
explore the assumptions out of which subsequent readings develop.