Aren Roukema is a doctoral researcher at Birkbeck, University of London. He is Co-Editor of Correspondences and has published on esotericism and fiction in The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 (Routledge, 2018), Journal of Inklings Studies, and North Wind.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Through the PortalWilliams and the Occult: Some Discursive ComplicationsEncountering the Occult in Williams’s Fiction: A Literary/Historical Method1 Life and Times: Christian Occultism in Modern EnglandA Life in Myth“But about This Reality of Yours …”The “Dead Master”Arthur Edward WaiteOccult Imagination and the Secret TraditionConstructing a Cordon SanitaireChristian Occultism2 The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross: A Modern Occult ExperienceMasonic RosicrucianismThe Paths of the Tree of LifeThe F.R.C. and the Golden Dawn: The Adeptus Minor Rituals3 Fiction and ExperienceThe Unbearable Lightness of FictionFantastic Narratology: The Liminality of Esoteric KnowledgeThe Novels—Intrusions of the SupernaturalThe Gothic OccultIn the Network of Occult FictionThe Novels of an Adeptus Exaltatus“The End of Desire”—The Discovery of the Higher SelfOccult Fiction, Occult Life4 Kabbalah: Charles Williams and the Middle PillarA.E. Waite and Modern Occult KabbalahBecoming Shekinah: Charles Williams and the Middle PillarThe Greater TrumpsKabbalistic Eros and Romantic Theology5 The High-Priestess: Charles Williams and Modern MagicMagic in the WestThe “High-Priestess of Heaven”Ritual Semiotics and the Magical Imagination6 A Magical Life in FictionActive ImaginationActive WillThe Way of P’o-luArt Magic: Sex, Poetry, ConsciousnessReanimation: Enchantment and EmpowermentInterpretive Drift: The Development of a Modern Christian Magic7 The Transmutation of Charles Williams: Spiritual and Literary AlchemyFrom Metallurgy to Particle Physics: A Brief History of AlchemyInfluences: Lee, Waite, AtwoodRosicrucian AlchemyThe Great Work in FictionA Literary AlchemistEpilogue: The Coagulation of BeliefBibliographyIndex

Aren Roukema is a doctoral researcher at Birkbeck, University of London. He is Co-Editor of Correspondences and has published on esotericism and fiction in The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875–1947 (Routledge, 2018), Journal of Inklings Studies, and North Wind.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Through the PortalWilliams and the Occult: Some Discursive ComplicationsEncountering the Occult in Williams’s Fiction: A Literary/Historical Method1 Life and Times: Christian Occultism in Modern EnglandA Life in Myth“But about This Reality of Yours …”The “Dead Master”Arthur Edward WaiteOccult Imagination and the Secret TraditionConstructing a Cordon SanitaireChristian Occultism2 The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross: A Modern Occult ExperienceMasonic RosicrucianismThe Paths of the Tree of LifeThe F.R.C. and the Golden Dawn: The Adeptus Minor Rituals3 Fiction and ExperienceThe Unbearable Lightness of FictionFantastic Narratology: The Liminality of Esoteric KnowledgeThe Novels—Intrusions of the SupernaturalThe Gothic OccultIn the Network of Occult FictionThe Novels of an Adeptus Exaltatus“The End of Desire”—The Discovery of the Higher SelfOccult Fiction, Occult Life4 Kabbalah: Charles Williams and the Middle PillarA.E. Waite and Modern Occult KabbalahBecoming Shekinah: Charles Williams and the Middle PillarThe Greater TrumpsKabbalistic Eros and Romantic Theology5 The High-Priestess: Charles Williams and Modern MagicMagic in the WestThe “High-Priestess of Heaven”Ritual Semiotics and the Magical Imagination6 A Magical Life in FictionActive ImaginationActive WillThe Way of P’o-luArt Magic: Sex, Poetry, ConsciousnessReanimation: Enchantment and EmpowermentInterpretive Drift: The Development of a Modern Christian Magic7 The Transmutation of Charles Williams: Spiritual and Literary AlchemyFrom Metallurgy to Particle Physics: A Brief History of AlchemyInfluences: Lee, Waite, AtwoodRosicrucian AlchemyThe Great Work in FictionA Literary AlchemistEpilogue: The Coagulation of BeliefBibliographyIndex