Spirit Matters explores the heterodox and unorthodox religions and spiritualities that arose in Victorian Britain as a result of the faltering of Christian faith in the face of modernity, the rise of the truth-telling authority of science, and the first full exposure of the West to non-Christian religions. J. Jeffrey Franklin investigates the diversity of ways that spiritual seekers struggled to maintain faith or to create new faiths by reconciling elements of the Judeo-Christian heritage with Spiritualism, Buddhism, occultism, and scientific naturalism. Spirit Matters covers a range of scenarios from the Victorian hearth and the state-Church altar to the frontiers of empire in Buddhist countries and Egyptian crypts. Franklin reveals how this diversity of elements provided the materials for the formation of new hybrid religions and the emergence in the 20th century of New Age spiritualities.

Franklin investigates a broad spectrum of experiences through a series of representative case studies that together trace the development of unorthodox religious and spiritual discourses. The ideas and events discussed by Franklin through these case studies were considered outside the domain of orthodox religion yet still religious or spiritual rather than atheistic or materialistic. Among the works-obscure and canonical-he analyzes are Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni and A Strange Story; Forest Life in Ceylon, by William Knighton; Anthony Trollope's The Vicar of Bullhampton; Anna Leonowens's The English Governess at the Siamese Court; Literature and Dogma, by Matthew Arnold; and Bram Stoker's Dracula.

About the Author

J. Jeffrey Franklin is Professor of English and Associate Vice Chancellor at the University of Colorado Denver. He is the author of Serious Play, For the Lost Boys, and The Lotus and the Lion.

Reviews

Franklin's study, well researched and grounded in primary documents, makes an important contribution to the study of 19th-century Christianity, alternative religions, and the predecessors of 20th-century New Age religion.

* Choice *

Spirit Matters is persuasive and engaging, deserving of the attention of anyone interested in English literature or in the development of modern Western occultism.

* Fortean Times *

A generous overview of a large topic.... Franklin's contribution to this established research works powerfully to both collect and to expand upon these core concepts of heterodox faiths and belief systems and, in particular, to better globalize them. The result is a text that avoids broad conclusions and injects a series of much-needed nuances to the overall tapestry of the study of heterodox religions and occult philosophies.

* The Wilkie Collins Journal *

Spirit Matters presents a critical exploration of these various alternative spiritual discourses...[W]orthy contributions to this field of study.

* British Association for Victorian Studies *

Overall, the book is excellent: a very close reading of a set of sources for historical data where many would not think to perform such a reading.

* Nova Religio *

Fascinating and compelling.

* The Journal of Religion *

The originality of Spirit Matters undoubtedly comes from Franklin's keen analysis of the intertwined religious, cultural, and national discourses on orthodox Christianity in relation to the formulation of alternative religions fostered by the scientific skepticism about Christian Spirit.

* Supernatural Studies *

Much recommended.

* Religious Studies Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9781501715440
Author J. Jeffrey Franklin
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 27mm