Arts and Crafts Divine

Arts and Crafts Divine: Teaching and Learning Ritual Magic in Sodalitas Rosae Crucis by Olivia Cejvan. Lund: Lund University, 2023.

Olivia Cejvan’s dissertation is an anthropological study of a Stockholm-based initiation community practicing ritual magic called Sodalitas Rosae Crucis (SRC), in which she did fieldwork during 2019–2021. Ethnographic approaches are rare in the study of esotericism, which makes this study important.

The theoretical perspective of the study is insightful: it applies theories of social learning to lived esotericism. The study illustrates both learning and teaching are always linked to and situated in a particular place, time and community. Western societies are very learning-oriented. Esoteric movements are not outside this mindset. They reflect the learning culture of the society around them. The SRC has curriculum, teaching and guidance, and exams. Cejvan’s thesis has a single research question: How can we understand what, how, and why teachers teach, and students learn, in the initiatory society Sodalitas Rosae Crucis?

The focus of this study on how contemporary esoteric practitioners construct their identities and live their lives is rare and fresh. The perspectives of learning theories also prove useful in the study of lived esotericism. Cejvan is well acquainted with the field of learning and teaching research, and she applies theories and concepts in innovative ways to her own (auto)ethnographic material. The analytical process is transparent and carefully reflected. The study is written in a lively and fluent language. Cejvan carefully considers the ethics and poetics of ethnographic writing.

I hope that this work will soon be made available to a wider audience through a commercial publisher.

Tiina Mahlamäki