Examining the extraordinary influence of Darwin's theory of evolution on French thought from 1875 to 1910, Rae Beth Gordon argues for a reconsideration of modernism both in time and in place that situates its beginnings in the French cafe-concert aesthetic. Gordon weaves the history of medical science, ethnology, and popular culture into a groundbreaking exploration of the cultural implications of gesture in dance performances at late-nineteenth-century Parisian cafe-concerts and music halls. While art historians have studied the ties between primitivism and modernism, their convergence in fin-de-siecle popular entertainment has been largely overlooked. Gordon argues that while the impact of Darwinism was unprecedented in science, it was no less present in popular culture through the popular press and popular entertainment, where it constituted a kind of "evolutionist aesthetic" on display in the cafe-concert, circus, and music-hall as well as in the spectator's reception of the representations on the stage. Modernity in these sites, Gordon contends, was composed by the convergence of contemporary medical theory with representations of the primitive, staged in entertainments that ranged from the can-can, Missing Links, and epileptic singers to the Cake-Walk. Her anthropology of gesture uncovers in these dislocations of the human form an aesthetic of disorder a half century before the eruptions of Dada and Surrealism.

Vividly bringing to light the tradition of physical comedy in the French cabaret, cafe-concert, and early French film comedy, this book answers the perplexing question, "Why do the French love Jerry Lewis?" The extraordinary emphasis on nervous pathology in the Parisian cafe-concert, where the genres of the Epileptic Singer and the Idiot Comic took center stage, and where popular comic monologues and songs included "Man with a Tic" and "I'm Neurasthenic," points to a fascinating intersection between medicine and popular culture. The French tradition of comic performance style between 1870 and 1910 nearly exactly duplicates the movements, gestures, tics, grimaces, and speech anomalies found in nineteenth-century hysteria; the characteristics of hysteria became a new aesthetics.
Early French film comedy carried on this tradition of frenetic gesture and gait, as most film performers came from these entertainments and from the circus. Even before Chaplin's films triumphed in France, film comics were instantly recognizable from their pathological gait, just as Jacques Tati would be a half-century later. Comedy, a genre that dominated French cinema until World War I, has often been linked to a mass public for film; the author elucidates this link by proposing a broadly generalized cultural-medical phenomenon as the explanation for the dominance of the comic genre. Comic performance style drew from a group of nervous disorders characterized by the psychological automatism emanating from the "lower faculties" nervous reflex, motor impulses, sensation, and instinct.
Building on her previous work on hysteria, the cabaret, and pathologies of movement in the films of Georges Melies, and drawing on over 400 French films made between 1896 and 1915, the author contributes to a new theory of spectatorship at work in the cabaret, in shows of magnetizers, and in early French film comedy. Jerry Lewis touches a nerve in French cultural memory because, more than any other film comic, he incarnates this tradition of performance style.

Explains individual reincarnation as a microcosm of Earth's great cycles of existence, as a means of developing love and wisdom in order to manifest the true beauty of the spirit realm. includes instructions for recalling past lives and developing psychic skills, descriptions of the Otherworld (where we go between lives), and thoughtful interpretations of various myths of the Goddess in her many aspects.

Written in the form of letters from an experienced witch to her two apprentices, solitary witchcraft is offered, not as a substitute for coven worship, but as a fulfulling lifestyle in its own right. Rae Beth explains the importance of the Goddess and her consort, the Horned God, as sources of spiritual strength and worship. The author extols the feminine principles of healing and regeneration as well as attacking greed and self-interest which jeopardize the planet's very future. Rae Beth provides spells for all the key festivals of the witch's calendar; describes and outlines the Pagan approach to finding a partner. Her lyrical letters, accompanied by delicate pen-and-ink sketches, bring the reader towards a deeper understanding of the solitary witch's lifestyle and beliefs.

Vividly bringing to light the tradition of physical comedy in the French cabaret, cafe-concert, and early French film comedy, this book answers the perplexing question, "Why do the French love Jerry Lewis?" The extraordinary emphasis on nervous pathology in the Parisian cafe-concert, where the genres of the Epileptic Singer and the Idiot Comic took center stage, and where popular comic monologues and songs included "Man with a Tic" and "I'm Neurasthenic," points to a fascinating intersection between medicine and popular culture. The French tradition of comic performance style between 1870 and 1910 nearly exactly duplicates the movements, gestures, tics, grimaces, and speech anomalies found in nineteenth-century hysteria; the characteristics of hysteria became a new aesthetics.
Early French film comedy carried on this tradition of frenetic gesture and gait, as most film performers came from these entertainments and from the circus. Even before Chaplin's films triumphed in France, film comics were instantly recognizable from their pathological gait, just as Jacques Tati would be a half-century later. Comedy, a genre that dominated French cinema until World War I, has often been linked to a mass public for film; the author elucidates this link by proposing a broadly generalized cultural-medical phenomenon as the explanation for the dominance of the comic genre. Comic performance style drew from a group of nervous disorders characterized by the psychological automatism emanating from the "lower faculties" nervous reflex, motor impulses, sensation, and instinct.
Building on her previous work on hysteria, the cabaret, and pathologies of movement in the films of Georges Melies, and drawing on over 400 French films made between 1896 and 1915, the author contributes to a new theory of spectatorship at work in the cabaret, in shows of magnetizers, and in early French film comedy. Jerry Lewis touches a nerve in French cultural memory because, more than any other film comic, he incarnates this tradition of performance style.

Rae Beth, author of the bestselling Hedge Witch, here blends the ancient traditions of hedge witchcraft with our modern concerns for the natural world. Working in liminal places and with wild spirits, she shows how we can both help to heal the human relationship with the natural world and cast spells of increase for threatened species. The Green Hedge Witch is based in the knowledge that we are part of nature, not apart from Her and that this gives us our power and potential as well as our responsibilities. And therefore, by the use of rites, spirit journeys and elven help, we can work heartfelt healing magic. This is a book for the budding spellcaster as well as the experienced hedge witch.

Here is a guide to the magical spirituality of the hedge witch, which describes a path that is profound and yet simple - uncluttered by complex ritual, a matter of the heart. The hedge witch is a solitary witch and natural mystic who practises wildwood mysticism, so called because it is the knowledge at the root of the tree of witchcraft. Explained in detail are the witch's prayers, spell-casting and communication with spirits and faeries, including those spirits travelling in the three realms of the magical otherworld. The values and ethics of this most ancient tradition may surprise and delight with their blend of common sense, compassion and wildness. (It is not a spiritual way for conformists!) This book opens the door to all those who feel they are natural witches but are, as yet, uninstructed. The Hedge Witch's Way is a guide for witches of either gender - potential wisewomen or wisemen - that presents the faerie-led practices of our ancestors, in a modern-day context.

In this examination of the role of ornament in nineteenth-century French literature, Rae Beth Gordon shows that ornament, far from being a simple accessory, raises problems that are at the very heart of aesthetic experience: limits and their transgression, illusion and seduction, pleasure and tension, harmony and confusion, excess and marginality. After placing texts by Nerval, Gautier, Mallarm, Huysmans, and Rachilde within the context of the history and techniques of the decorative arts, she reveals in these works the powerful role played by decorative figurations of syntax, diction, and composition. Gordon's detailed textual analyses yield spatial parallels with specific ornamental configurations (interlace, arabesque, decorative frame, horror vacui, trompe l'oeil). These patterns are then studied in relation to a dynamics of desire. Ornament, taken as the site of desire and illuminated by the theories of Charcot, Clrambault, Freud, Winnicott, and Lacan, highlights important differences between romanticism, symbolism, and decadence. Not only does the author relate ornament to artistic representations of the sublime, the grotesque, and hysteria, but she also reveals that the function of ornament in literature anticipated psychiatric and aesthetic research on decorative form in the fin de sicle. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In this examination of the role of ornament in nineteenth-century French literature, Rae Beth Gordon shows that ornament, far from being a simple accessory, raises problems that are at the very heart of aesthetic experience: limits and their transgression, illusion and seduction, pleasure and tension, harmony and confusion, excess and marginality. After placing texts by Nerval, Gautier, Mallarm, Huysmans, and Rachilde within the context of the history and techniques of the decorative arts, she reveals in these works the powerful role played by decorative figurations of syntax, diction, and composition. Gordon's detailed textual analyses yield spatial parallels with specific ornamental configurations (interlace, arabesque, decorative frame, horror vacui, trompe l'oeil). These patterns are then studied in relation to a dynamics of desire. Ornament, taken as the site of desire and illuminated by the theories of Charcot, Clrambault, Freud, Winnicott, and Lacan, highlights important differences between romanticism, symbolism, and decadence. Not only does the author relate ornament to artistic representations of the sublime, the grotesque, and hysteria, but she also reveals that the function of ornament in literature anticipated psychiatric and aesthetic research on decorative form in the fin de sicle.

Originally published in 1992.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The spirituality of a fey person may be quite anarchic and entirely private, having no basis in any organised religion. So it can be a secret spirituality that informs the fey type and this may be largely experiential. It has often been perceived as a threat by people who like ideas to be tied down and under control, and by the organisations that such people have created. Meanwhile, in much of today's world, fey people have been thoroughly marginalized. In this book, Rae Beth suggests ways in which we might understand Otherworldly realities without abandoning commonsense. Drawing upon her knowledge of traditional faerie lore, she shows how fey perceptions and psychic skills can serve and enhance life.

At the dawn of a new era we are drawn to modern Goddess spirituality. Rae Beth feels the world can change by sharing our personal spiritual experiences with each other. She has gone within herself for this book of recollections, inner guidance and ancient teachings (which was originally published as Reincarnation and the Dark Goddess). She explains individual reincarnation as a microcosm of Earth's great cycles of existence and as a means of developing the love and wisdom needed to manifest the true beauty of the spirit realm. Along with instructions for recalling past lives and developing psychic skills, she gives descriptions of the Otherworld (where we go between lives) as the land of the Dark Goddess - the Queen of the Dead. This is not a fearsome place, but a joyful spirit land where healing flows, whether we approach it from its peripheries in dreams, in meditation, or between incarnations. Rae Beth also includes thoughtful interpretations of various myths of the Goddess in her many aspects - Isis, Kali, Mary Magdalene, Persephone and Tiamat - to name but a few. Lamp of the Goddess looks at reincarnation from the viewpoint of a present-day priestess who honours the Deep Feminine, or the Goddess, as Mother of Souls, as well as the Earth Mother of physical existence. This sharing vision is relevant to us all, in our process of discovery and rebirth.