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Title The Mystical Life of Franz Kafka : Theosophy, Cabala, and the Modern Spiritual Revival
Published Oxford Scholarship Online 2011

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Description 1 online resource (224 pages)
Contents Cover; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. The Clairvoyant States of Franz Kafka; The Terror of Clairvoyance; The Unspeakable Yearning: Between Theosophy and "theosophy"; 2. Mystical Experience in Kafka's Early Prose; The Spirit Dialogues in the Diaries; "Unhappiness": The Postclairvoyant Crisis; The Magical Power of Sound and Occult Context; "Description of a Struggle," and Out-of-Body Experience; 3. Kafka's Meditation and Visualization; Vision and Theophany; The Role of Imagination in Mystical Experience ; 4. The Obsession with Dreams; Kafka and Freudian Dream Interpretation
To Touch the Inner Being: Dreams, Destiny, and Theosophy5. Kafka, the Afterlife, and Transmigration of Souls; Postmortal Perspective, Clairvoyance, and "The Bucket Rider"; Reincarnation in "The Bucket Rider" and Mystical Traditions; Hunter Gracchus and the Afterlife; Celestial Masters and Messengers in "The Hunter Gracchus"; 6. Cabala, Freemasons, and the Trials of Brother F.K.; Jewish Cabala and Gnosticism; Masonic Cabalism and Brother F.K.; The Building of the Temple; 7. The Mystical Life of Animals: Investigations of a Vegetarian
Vegetarianism and Animal Sacrifice: A Case of Mistaken TraditionThe Mystical Experience of a Dog; The Dog's Christological Interpretation of the Mystical Report; The Christianized Occult Context; Conclusion: The Mystical Life of Franz Kafka in Perspective; Notes; Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; V; W; Y; Z
Summary In a long-overlooked diary entry, Franz Kafka admitted to suffering from ''bouts of clairvoyance.'' These bouts of clairvoyance can be seen in his writing, in moments when the solid basis of human cognition totters, the dissolution of matter seems imminent, and objects are jarringly severed from physical referents. June O. Leavitt offers a fascinating examination of the mystical in Kafka's life and writings, showing that Kafka's understanding of the occult was not only a product of his own clairvoyant experiences but of the age in which he lived. Kafka lived during the modern Spiritual Revival, a powerful movement which resisted materialism, rejected the adulation of science and Darwin, and idealized clairvoyant modes of consciousness. Kafka's contemporaries - such theosophical ideologues as Madame H.P. Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and Dr. Rudolph Steiner - encouraged the counterculture to seek the true, spiritual essence of reality by inducing out-of-body experiences and producing visions of higher disembodied beings through meditative techniques. Leaders of the Spiritual Revival also called for the adoption of certain lifestyles, such as vegetarianism, in order to help transform consciousness and return humanity to its divine nature. Interweaving the occult discourse on clairvoyance, the divine nature of animal life, vegetarianism, the spiritual sources of dreams, and the eternal nature of the soul with Kafka's dream-chronicles, animal narratives, diaries, letters, and stories, Leavitt takes the reader on a journey through the texts of a great psychic writer and the fascinating epoch of the Spiritual Revival
Subject Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924 -- Criticism and interpretation
Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924 -- Knowledge -- Mysticism
Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924 -- Knowledge -- Cabala
SUBJECT Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924 fast
Subject Mysticism in literature.
Cabala in literature.
Cabala
Cabala in literature
Mysticism
Mysticism in literature
Genre/Form Electronic books
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 1283423219
9781283423212