Chapter 2 Descartes’s Dreams, the Neuropsychology of Disbelief, and the Making of the Modern Self

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS v
3. Introduction 1
4. Part 1: Magic and the Making of Modernity
5. Chapter 1 Bad Habits, or How Superstition Disappeared in the Modern World 17
6. Chapter 2 Descartes’s Dreams, the Neuropsychology of Disbelief, and the Making of the Modern Self 33
7. Chapter 3 Why Magic Cannot Be Falsifi ed by Experiments 49
8. Chapter 4 Witches as Liars: Witchcraft and Civilization in the Early American Republic 66
9. Part 2: Magic in Modernity
10. Chapter 5 Loagaeth, q consibra a caosg: The Contested Arena of Modern Enochian Angel Magic 91
11. Chapter 6 Babalon Launching: Jack Parsons, Rocketry, and the “Method of Science” 119
12. Chapter 7 Manning the High Seat: Seiðr as Self- Making in Contemporary Norse Neopaganisms 152
13. Chapter 8 Reviving Dead Names: Strategies of Legitimization in the Necronomicon of Simon and the Dark Aesthetic 171
14. Selected Bibliography 197
15. List of Contributors 203
16. Index 205