Since Antiquity, the idea of the artist as a magician, trickster and powerful creator of new realities has established itself as a fertile idea in the discussion of image-making. The conjuring of illusions, the inherent link between the material and the spiritual and the wish to make the invisible visible are all part of this wider discourse. Visions of Enchantment looks at the fascinating intersections between esotericism and visual culture through a decidedly cross-cultural lens, with topics ranging from talismanic magic and the Renaissance exploration of alchemy, through to the role of magic in modern art and 20th century experimental film.00The essays offered in 'Visions of Enchantment: Occultism, Magic and Visual Culture' have been selected from papers presented at a major international conference at the University of Cambridge in 2014. It includes work by some of the leading scholars in Western Esotericism including Antoine Faivre, M.E. Warlick and Deanna Petherbridge. It attests to the vibrant role that magic and the occult play in cutting-edge research across a wide variety of the arts and humanities today.

Collage illustrations introduce the letters of the alphabet.

Close your eyes and take a Deep Breath. Do you hear that? Do you Feel that? It is what you have left after everything Bad Has Beaten you down and left you Abandoned. It is what you have left after you have been ripped at the Seams, Frayed and Falling Apart. Bleeding on your hands and Knees, Begging to be Noticed or saved subjecting yourself to a cage like a scared Animal. Pulse. The Journey Begins Now. Allow me to Assist you in making sense of it all so you can Reflect, Review, Renew, Revitalize and Rebuild. Make a Commitment. You want to Give Up and Give in ? STOP. I won't Let You. Your Life is As Beautiful as you Make it. It is My Life Mission to Assist and Support Beautifully Broken People into realizing that Being Alive isn't just about a Heart Beat and a Pulse. It is about getting to know yourself, Embracing and Fulfilling your Calling and True Purpose for your Life.

Rembrandt's famous painting of an anatomy lesson, the shrunken head of an Australian indigenous leader, an aerial view of Paris from a balloon: all are windows to enchantment, curiosities that illuminate something shadowy and forgotten lurking behind the neat facade of a rational world. In Curious Visions of Modernity, David Martin unpacks a collection of artifacts from the visual and historical archives of modernity, finding in each a slippage of scientific rationality--a repressed heterogeneity within the homogenized structures of post-Enlightenment knowledge. In doing so, he exposes modernity and its visual culture as haunted by precisely those things that rationality sought to expunge from the "enlightened" world: enchantment, magic, and wonderment. Martin traces the genealogies of what he considers three of the most distinct and historically immediate fields of modern visual culture: the collection, the body, and the mapping of spaces. In a narrative resembling the many-drawered curiosity cabinets of the Renaissance rather than the locked glass cases of the modern museum, he shows us a world renewed through the act of collecting the wondrous and aberrant objects of Creation; tortured and broken flesh rising from the dissecting tables of anatomy theaters to stalk the discourses of medical knowledge; and the spilling forth of a pictorializing geometry from the gilt frames of Renaissance panel paintings to venerate a panoptic god. Accounting for the visual disenchantment of modernity, Martin offers a curious vision of its reenchantment.

Face it until you make it. Get up. Work Hard. Fail. Do a little bit better. Fail again. Get back up. Repeat.Succeed! Claim what is Yours.#Own it!

'Disenchantment' has been a consistent trope in sociology since Weber's appropriation of the term nearly a century ago. In this work I argue that, in contrast to the standard modernization story, organizations have long been subject to countervailing forces other than that that of rationalization. This has been especially true in schools, institutions that exist at the intersection of the logics of bureaucracy, democracy and expressive youth cultures. In this dissertation I identify a uniquely contemporary organizational response to these tensions, one I associate with the notion of 're-enchantment.' I use this term to refer to reforms that identify emotional and intellectual alienation as the primary institutional problems to be overcome and find a solution in the reinvigoration of organizational practices with imagination, creativity, and collaboration. The result is a genre of reform that accepts the logic of standardized and rationalized outcomes but attempts to transform the process of achieving these goals by 're-enchanting' organizational experience with a sense of connectedness and creativity. In this dissertation I discuss small school reform generally, and a particular instance of it at Mill Town high specifically, as examples of organizational re-enchantment. More than just introducing new practices or structures, small school reform entails an effort to reshape the tactic and practical modes of coordination, what I call ways of being. These are social conventions that allow actors to coordinate with each other and their environment in a way that is grounded in a shared practical understanding of the proper ordering of people and things. In contrast to standard account that locate the barrier to change in the minds of organizational actors, utilizing a mixed-methods approach I show that much of the failure of the reform at Mill Town was not the result of beliefs, attitudes or values of teachers, but rather concerned the complexity of changing culturally disposed, and intersubjectively sustained, modes of coordination in the organization.

Enchantment and Gestalt Therapy is a personal exploration of Erving Polster’s remarkable career, the value of the Gestalt approach, and the power of enchantment in psychotherapy. Polster points ahead to a vision of a psychotherapy that includes the population as a whole rather than focusing on individuals, highlights common aspects of living, and focuses on creating an ethos for a shared understanding. The book outlines the six Gestalt therapy concepts that have formed the basis of Polster’s work and describes Life Focus Groups, with an emphasis on the communal relationship between tellers and listeners. Polster also describes the phenomenon of enchantment in psychotherapy in detail, with reference to his own experiences. This unique work is essential reading for Gestalt therapists, other professionals interested in Gestalt approaches, and readers looking for a deeper insight into community and connection. In the below link, Erving Polster speaks to Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb, the series editor of The Gestalt Therpay Book Series, about Enchantment and Gestalt Therapy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PVG9JgpTQQ&feature=youtu.be

A book of natural wonders, practical guidance and life-changing empowerment, by the author of the word-of-mouth bestseller If Women Rose Rooted. 'To live an enchanted life is to pick up the pieces of our bruised and battered psyches, and to offer them the nourishment they long for. It is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary. Above all, to live an enchanted life is to fall in love with the world all over again.' The enchanted life has nothing to do with escapism or magical thinking: it is founded on a vivid sense of belonging to a rich and many-layered world. It is creative, intuitive, imaginative. It thrives on work that has heart and meaning. It loves wild things, but returns to an enchanted home and garden. It respects the instinctive knowledge, ethical living and playfulness, and relishes story and art. Taking the inspiration and wisdom that can be derived from myth, fairy tales and folk culture, this book offers a set of practical and grounded tools for reclaiming enchantment in our lives, giving us a greater sense of meaning and of belonging to the world.