Plebeian Spiritualism: Some Ambiguities of England's Enlightenment, Reformation, and Urbanisation

lt is superficial to speak of the occult as >post-Enlightenment.< The moderate Enlightenment had a basis in Newtonian physics which no >radical Enlightenment< ever claimed. The ambiguities of this physics fed occult activities into the 20th century. English plebeian spiritualists saw themselves as extending materialism into superfine or imponderable regions. Qualities conventionally associated with the >female< assumed a crucial role. Thus spiritualism restored the feminine to a centrality that it had not had in England since the death of the last Mary-substitute, Queen Elizabeth (1603). This restoration flourished most in newly industrialised areas of Northern England where, coincidentally or not, the impact of the 16th century formation had been notably superficial.lt is superficial to speak of the occult as >post-Enlightenment.< The moderate Enlightenment had a basis in Newtonian physics which no >radical Enlightenment< ever claimed. The ambiguities of this physics fed occult activities into the 20th century. English plebeian spiritualists saw themselves as extending materialism into superfine or imponderable regions. Qualities conventionally associated with the >female< assumed a crucial role. Thus spiritualism restored the feminine to a centrality that it had not had in England since the death of the last Mary-substitute, Queen Elizabeth (1603). This restoration flourished most in newly industrialised areas of Northern England where, coincidentally or not, the impact of the 16th century formation had been notably superficial

My ‘1968’

This emphasises the richness of late-1960s leftist activity; author’s reaction to the twin shocks of 1956 (Suez and Hungary) into opposition to both Western and Stalinist imperialisms; dynamics of the “International Socialist” group. On fringes of struggles at LSE; their impact. Servicing others’ struggles; full employment from 1940s allowed shopfloor momentum: ‘DIY reformism’; example: Manchester’s Roberts-Arundel struggle. GLC tenants’ movement from 1967. Arguing with pro-Enoch Powell dockers, April 1968. Differentiated solidarity with French ‘events’. August: sudden Soviet re-possession of Czechoslovakia: divergent motives on solidarity-demo. Position on Vietnam struggle; much hysteria on all sides before and during London’s Vietnam demo of 27th October. Factual and methodological convolutions of blaming the ‘1960s’ for neoliberalism

Keeping the lid on, Urban eruptions and social control

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