AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 309: FAKIRS AND FAKERS with RAPHAEL CORMACK / THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS, PT 3
This is the third ep in a series called The Spirit-Era & Its Aftermaths in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today, and in fact, being echoed by our own time.
The Spirit-Era is marked by performances of all kinds: stage magic, but also actual magic. Stage magic passing as real magic, real magic posing as trickery. There were the performances of spiritualism, of charismatic theologians, and of feats of incredible endurance. As in our own time, people had difficulty parsing what was real from what was illusion. And beyond this difficulty was the thrilling draw of ambiguity, and whatever power might be there, in the spot in between what was and what might be. This negative space, this open area of reality, affected people all over the world, including the Middle East.
These tensions are the themes of this installment in the series - on Fakirs & Fakers with DR. RAPHAEL CORMACK, author of the excellent book Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult, which focuses on two figures:
Performer-fakir, Tahra Bey, who achieved fame in the 1920s as a performer man of incredible talents and miracles; and Dr. Dahesh, Plstinian-born mystic and teacher, founder of Daheshism, which still has adherents today.
As Raphael says in this episode,
“Writing a history of the occult is writing a history of something that doesn’t quite fit into the box of history, even on its on terms.”
So how do we interpret the performance from the truth? And what does it mean to desire not just the miracle because it astounds us, but the lack of miracles because it allows us to be complacent?
This episode was so fun, and illuminating of esoteric life in the Middle East and beyond.
Listen via my profile link or your fav podcast platform.
#connerhabib #aewch #fakir #middleeast #arab #occult #esoteric #raphaelcormack #magician #tahrabey #drdahesh #daheshism
New! @raphaelcormack joins me to talk about his writing process and his new book, Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age (@w.w.norton )! What do you do when most of your sources are lying, or at least stretching the truth? And is that even the point? Link in bio!
🎙️Join us today at 4 PM UK time
The Occult and Holy Men in A New Age: MEMO in Conversation with Raphael Cormack
A new book 'Holy men of the Electromagnetic Age' aims to shake up how we see the history of new age spirituality. While we tend to associate seances, mind-reading, healing crystals, magic and spiritual sciences with a new age movement that sprang up in the West and which took some inspiration from India and the East in the 1960s, an entire global movement towards new age spirituality took off in the late 19th century and by the 1920s had reached a new height. A forgotten part of the new occult movement is the men of the Middle East that helped shape it. The wisdom of Egyptian holy men, the healers of Palestine and the fakirs of the Ottomans were highly sought after from clubs in New York to Paris. Eager young men and refugees sought to make their fortune in the West from performances that included mind reading and communing with the dead. They were seen as spiritual healers, who brought with them esoteric knowledge of the unseen world known to eastern wisdom, but forgotten by Western materialism. While the West was gripped by theosophy, the Middle East too experienced its own new age moment, where old assumptions were turned on their head. Joining us is the book's author Raphael Cormack.
Cormack is Assistant Professor of Arabic at Durham University. He is a writer, editor and translator. His first book, 'Midnight in Cairo', is a history of Cairo's early 20th century entertainment industry told from the perspective of its female stars. 'Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age' is his second book.
Special announcement: It has been quite a ride, MEMO Conversations was founded five-years ago and has been a core production for Middle East Monitor. Great guests, conversations and wonderful hosts have created a truly engaging product. Producer and host Usman Butt has been at the heart of running the show, however, the time has come for Usman to move on and we wish him the best of luck.
Link in bio🔗
Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age is coming out 11th March in the US and 20th March in the UK. Scroll right for a list of confirmed speaking dates with hopefully more to be added soon.
In 1926 the wrestler Miss Helen did a tour of Egypt, performing at the Agricultural-Industrial Exhibition. After this she said she was going to Europe to compete wit women and men. At one performance at the Kursaal theatre, a challenger emerged - an Egyptian wrestler called Farida - to wrestle her. But Miss Helen turned the challenge down. Does anyone know anything about these 1920s women. (The pictures are from al-Musawwar in 1926 digitized by the AUC rare books department).
