This is the first systematic treatment of esotericism to appear in English. Here is also a historical survey, beginning with the Alexandrean Period, of the various esoteric currents such as Christian Kabbalah, Theosophy, Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and Hermeticism. Common characteristics of these currents are the notion of universal interdependency and the experience of spiritual transformation. The author establishes a rigorous methodology; provides clarifying definitions of such key terms as ‘gnosis, ‘ ‘theosophy, ‘ ‘occultism, ‘ and ‘Hermeticism;’ and offers analysis of contemporary esotericism based on three distinct pathways.
The second half of the book presents a series of studies on several important figures, works, and movements in Western esotericism—studies devoted to some of the most characteristic and illuminating aspects that this form of thought has taken, such as theosophical speculations on androgyny, rosicrucian literature, and Masonic symbolism.
The book is completed by a rich and selective Bibliography conceived as a means of orientation and a tool for research.
Table of Content
Preface to the Present Edition
Book One: Approaches to Western Esoteric
Part One: Methodology and Reflections
I) Methodology
II) Some Key Concepts
III) Reflections on ‘Tradition, ‘ or The Three Paths of Esotericism Today
Part Two: A Short History of Western Esoteric Currents (Essay On Periodization)
Chapter One: Ancient and Medieval Sources of Modern Esoteric Currents
I) Esoteric Currents in the First Eleven Centuries
II) Esotericism in Medieval Thought
III) Initiatory Quests and Esoteric Arts
Chapter Two: Esotericism at the Heart of the Renaissance and in the Flames of the Baroque
I)
Philosophia perennis, a Discovery of Humanism
II) The Germanic Contribution:
Naturphilosophie and Theosophy
III) Reading the World and Myth
Chapter Three: Esotericism in the Shadow of the Enlightenment
I) Sunburst of Theosophy
II) From the Arts of Reading to the Art of Subtle Fluids
III) A Century of Initiations
Chapter Four: From Romantic Knowledge to Programmatic Occultism
I) The Era
of Naturphilosophic and the Great Syntheses
II) Universal Tradition and Occultism
III) Esotericism in Initiatory Societies and in Art (1848-1914)
Chapter Five: Twentieth-Century Esotericisms
I) Gnoses in the Wake of the Western Tradition
II) The Four Winds of the Tradition
III) Arts and Humanities
Book Two: Studies In Esotericism
Faith and Knowledge in Franz von Baader and in Modern Gnosis
The Inner Church and the Heavenly Jerusalem—Foundations of a Cosmic Anthropology According to Franz von Baader and Christian Theosophy
The Temple of Solomon in Eighteenth-Century Masonic Theosophy
The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz as Pilgrimage of the Soul
Miles Redivivus: Aspects of the Chivalric Imagination in Eighteenth-Century Alchemy, Freemasonry, and Literature
Love and Androgyny in Franz von Baader
—Introduction
A) Ontological Androgyny
B) Primitive Adam and Failed Androgyny
C) Situations of Human Love: Dialectics and Oppositions
D) Situations of Human Love: Philosophies and the Life of the Couple
E) Knowledge and Reintegration
F) Baaderand His Time
The Metamorphoses of Hermes: Neognostic Cosmologies and Traditional Gnosis
A Bibliographical Guide To Research
Introduction
General works
Alchemy
Esoteric Freemasonry
From the second to the 15th century
Renaissance and the seventeenth century
A) Varia
B) The Reception of Alexandrian Hermetism
C)Christian Kabbalah
D)Paracelsism and Philosophy of Nature
E) Rosicrucianism
F) Theosophy
Eighteenth century
Romanticism and
Naturphilosophie
Late nineteenth century and the twentieth century
Concerning ‘Tradition’
Esotericism and Islam
Esotericism, Literature and Art
Journals and serials
A word about Libraries
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
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