Lurking at the Threshold: Finding Enchantment Beyond Belief
The challenge of writing about the supernatural and the occult is that one is assumed either to be a believer or a debunker. Peter Bebergal examines how authentic states of enchantment can exist beyond the debate of true or false. Bebergal has learned that allowing ourselves to exist–if only momentarily–in a state of enchantment is a much more interesting place to be. In the ambiguous and the liminal deep wells of meaning can be found and is where the use of magic is an important tool to activate the imagination. Using music, film clips, and images, this course will reveal how at the threshold is the possibility of enchantment as a creative and psychological experience that is immune to religious fundamentalism and hardened atheism.
Bio
Peter Bebergal writes widely on the speculative and slightly fringe. He is the author most recently of Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural, Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll and is the editor of the sword and sorcery anthology Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of D&D. His essays have appeared in NewYorker.com, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement and Boing Boing. Bebergal studied religion and culture at Harvard Divinity School, and lives in Cambridge.
Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon
