James Webb (historian)
James Charles Napier Webb (13 January 1946 – 9 May 1980) was a Scottish historian and biographer. He was born in Edinburgh, and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is remembered primarily for his books The Harmonious Circle, The Occult Underground (originally titled Flight from Reason), and The Occult Establishment.
Life and career
In 1980 his important biography of
Webb's theories of Gurdjieff's identity as a Russian foreign agent in Central Asia,[5] and theories on where he actually travelled before 1917, are considered controversial points in The Harmonious Circle.
Webb's work challenges theories of
groups and writers on literature, philosophy and politics.Webb was generally ignored in his lifetime, but with the increasing rise of New Age spirituality in later years, his work now seems increasingly prescient. After increasing mental health difficulties, Webb committed suicide in 1980.
His major works The Occult Underground and The Occult Establishment were translated into German and published in 2009 and 2008 respectively.
Trinity College established the "James Webb Prize for the History of Ideas" in his memory.[6][7]
Influence
Webb's work has been recognised as a precursor to the academic study of
Historian
Webb's notion of "rejected knowledge" was influential on the work of Hanegraaff.[10]
Selected works
- Flight from Reason (1971) MacDonald & Co., London ISBN 0-356-03634-0
- 2nd ed.: The Occult Underground (1974) Open Court Publishing. ISBN 0-8126-9073-7
- 2nd ed.: The Occult Underground (1974) Open Court Publishing.
- The Occult Establishment: The Dawn of the New Age and The Occult Establishment (1976) Open Court Publishing. ISBN 0-87548-434-4
- The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers (1980) Putnam Publishing. ISBN 0-399-11465-3
- Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen: Politik, Kultur und Okkultismus im 20. Jahrhundert – German translation of The Occult Establishment (2008) Marix Verlag. ISBN 978-3865391520
References
- ^ Rosemary Dinnage, "The Great Mystifier", The New York Review of Books, 23 October 1980. [1]
- ^ P. T. Mistlberger, "The Three Dangerous Magi: Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley", 2010, pages 327 & 397.
- ^ Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, "Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study", Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pages 15 & 17.
- ^ K. Paul Johnson, "Initiates of Theosophical Masters", State University of New York Press, 1995, p140.
- ISBN 978-0835608572
- ^ Gary Lachman, "The Damned: the strange death of James Webb" Archived 22 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Trinity College, History Subject Notes Archived 7 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (2012). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 355.
- ^ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (1985). The Occult Roots of Nazism: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany 1890–1935. Aquarian Press. p. 225.
- ^ Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (2012). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 221.
Further reading
- John Robert Colombo, Colin Wilson, ISBN 1-896308-56-2
External links
- An Appreciation of James Webb, by Joyce Collin-Smith at the Wayback Machine (archived 25 October 2007)
- Gary Lachman, The Damned: the strange death of James Webb, Fortean Times, September 2001.