James Webb (historian)

James Charles Napier Webb (born January 13, 1946 in Edinburgh , † May 8, 1980 at Durisdeer , Dumfries and Galloway , southern Scotland) was a British historian and cultural scientist . He is considered a pioneer in the historical consideration of occultism and its context in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Life

Webb's father was stationed in Germany as a soldier and, for reasons unknown, took his own life two weeks before the son was born. His mother remarried a short time later. This second marriage resulted in two daughters.

He attended Harrow School in London. During his school days he learned German, Russian and French. Before starting his studies in Cambridge , he spent six months with a Viennese family to improve his German language skills. During this time he became an opera lover.

He studied history and modern languages ​​at Trinity College , Cambridge . He was a brilliant student and won several awards. He graduated in 1967.

In 1965 he met Mary Thomas, the daughter of a Yorkshire surgeon who worked as a photographer for magazines. They were married in Camden in 1974 .

In 1967 he worked as a ghostwriter and became a school teacher at his old Harrow School in London and a trainee on British television. His whole passion was the study of the occult . Using the funds from his inheritance, he built up a rapidly growing private library.

For Richard Cavendish's 12-volume compilation Man, Myth & Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown. he wrote numerous articles. In 1971 his first book was published, entitled The Flight from Reason. Volume 1 of The Age of the Irrational , which was later revised in the USA under the title The Occult Underground: The 19th Flight from Reason. (La Salle Illinois 1974) was reprinted. In 1973 his second book The Occult Liberation was published as a sequel , which was reprinted in the USA under the title The Occult Establishment . In 1976 he completed work on his third and most important work, The Harmonious Circle. The Lives and Work of GI Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky and Their Followers , which was published by Putnam Verlag in New York in 1980 . It draws a detailed picture of the Russian-born spiritual teachers Georges I. Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky and the history of their Enneagram concept, which was later widely received, among other things, in the pastoral care of the Jesuit order .

In the late 1970s he was working on a fourth book about the Battle of Flodden Field in Northumberland, which was so devastating in Scottish history, on September 9, 1513 and its influence on Scottish Renaissance culture. He had already signed a contract for a fifth book, a study on Rudolf Steiner . However, these last two book projects could no longer be realized.

Since about 1969 he considered himself a non-fiction author, but found no livelihood as such. In the following years he worked as a publisher many times. As a series supervisor for the Arno Press in New York, he edited 33 volumes with facsimiles of classical texts on the history of occultism. Including books by MA Arwood, James Bonwick , Reuben Briggs Davenport , Carl du Prel , CH Hinton, Ethan Allen Hitchcock (whose interpretation of alchemy influenced C. G. Jung ), Carl Kiesewetter , William Stainton Moses , Allan Kardec , AP Sinnett, Vsevolod Solowjow and Karl Friedrich Zöllner . He was also responsible for the 34 volumes of the Perspectives in Psychical Research series (1976) for Arno Press . These included classic texts from parapsychological research by authors such as Hereward Carrington , John Edgar Cover T. Fukurai, Hans Driesch , Frederic WH Myers , Frank Podmore , Harry Price , Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick , Albert von Schrenck-Notzing and the history of spiritualism by Arthur Conan Doyle and many others. In addition, as editor he obtained around 65 volumes of historical and anthological publications in the fields of occultism, spiritualism , theosophy and parapsychology.

In 1976 the Webb couple moved from London back to Scotland, where they bought a former chapel near Durrisdeer and converted it into a home. After he had left his numerous friends in the south of England, he fell into social isolation in Scotland, in which no new professional prospects opened up for him. After a research fellowship and legacy ran out and his books failed to earn money, his life took a tragic turn. Although his books received good reviews, he could not find academic employment. At the urging of his wife, he finally took a job in an advertising agency. In this last phase of life he lost hope of being able to find enough time and money for his research and his book projects. He developed severe mental health problems with signs of schizophrenia and shot himself on May 8, 1980 at the age of 34.

reception

Webb was one of the first researchers to deal scientifically with the occult of the 19th century, knowing full well that the scientifically distant occupation with this topic, which was avoided by historical studies, could mean the end of his scientific career.

Webb continued the research of historian George Mosse , who examined the links between esoteric currents and politics over the past two centuries.

Webb's first two books that complement each other were reprinted several times, praised in appropriate specialist circles, but beyond a small circle only reached a special audience. Colin Wilson explained that Webb literally fell between the stools with his contemporaries because, on the one hand, the academic audience, especially the historians' guild, was not open to his topics, and, on the other, the occult scene, even if he as a readership did not focus on it his skeptical attitude remained at a distance, which is why he became an “insider tip”. His third book, The Harmonious Circle. The Lives and Work of GI Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky and Their Followers dealt with the followers of the Russian occultists, but was too critical for this "occult believer" target group in its composition and too academic in its presentation, which is why this work was initially only a small readership which included Colin Wilson, Ellic Howe and Francis King .

Webb is now considered a pioneer in the study of occultism and related areas of esotericism , and his two main works, The Occult Underground and The Occult Establishment , have been translated into German. The English religious scholar Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke examined in his dissertation published in 1982 the ariosophy and the occult roots of National Socialism, with particular reference to Webb's work, which was dedicated to certain aspects.

Fonts

• The Flight from Reason (= The Age of the Irrational. Volume 1). Macdonald & Co., London 1971, ISBN 0-356-03634-0 .
  • New edition as: The Occult Underground. Open Court, La Salle IL 1974, ISBN 0-912050-46-2 .
  • German: The escape from reason. Politics, Culture and Occultism in the 19th Century. Marix, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-213-8 .
• The Occult Establishment. Open Court, La Salle IL 1976, ISBN 0-912050-56-X .
  • German: The age of the irrational. Politics, Culture & Occultism in the 20th Century. Marix, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-86539-152-0 .
• The Harmonious Circle. The Lives and Work of GI Gurdjieff, PD Ouspensky, and Their Followers. Putnam Publishing, New York NY 1980, ISBN 0-399-11465-3 .

literature

• Marco Frenschkowski : James Webb and the epistemology of the irrational. In: James Webb: The Age of the Irrational. Politics, Culture & Occultism in the 20th Century. Marix, Wiesbaden 2008, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-86539-152-0 , p. 7ff.
• Marco Frenschkowski: Occult subcultures as an object of cultural studies research: James Webb (1946–1980). In: James Webb: The Escape from Reason. Politics, Culture and Occultism in the 19th Century. Marix, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-213-8 , pp. 7-33.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 13–15.
2. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, p. 13.
3. ↑ For life and work see Marco Frenschkowski : Occult subcultures as an object of cultural studies research: James Webb (1946–1980). Foreword to James Webb: The Flight from Reason. Wiesbaden 2009, pp. 7–33.
4. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, p. 15.
5. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. A foreword by Marco Frenschkowski in: James Webb: The Age of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 13-16.
6. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, p. 13.
7. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, p. 13.
8. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 14-15.
9. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 13–15.
10. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 13-14.
11. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 13-16.
12. ↑ Franz Wegener: Heinrich Himmler. German Spiritism, French Occultism and the Reichsführer SS . KFVR, Gladbeck 2004, ISBN 3-931300-15-3 , p. 24.
13. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, pp. 16-17.
14. ↑ James Webb and the Epistemology of the Irrational. Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 13-16.
15. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: The Occult Roots of National Socialism. marixverlag, 2004, p. 7.