Restoring Paradise: Western Esotericism, Literature, Art, and Consciousness

Notes

Notes I N T R O D U C T I O N 1. See Steven Katz, ed., Mysticism and Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 2. See the definition of the Association for the Study of Esotericism [ASE] and more information on this growing field at www.aseweb.org, the official Web site of the ASE. I retain the conventional distinctions between the capitalized terms Gnostic or Gnosticism (when referring specifically to figures or the current belonging to late antiquity ) and the uncapitalized gnostic as a more general term not tied to any particular era. I also retain the distinction maintained by Antoine Faivre between Hermetism (the current associated with Hermes belonging to late antiquity) and Hermeticism, which belongs more to the Renaissance and after. 3. See Arthur Versluis, “Methods in the Study of Esotericism,” Esoterica IV (2002): 1–15 and “Methods in the Study of Esotericism Part II,” Esoterica V (2003): 175–210. See www.esoteric.msu.edu. 4. For an overview of Western esotericism, see Antoine Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). Faivre, who held a chair at the Sorbonne in Western esoteric currents of thought, published a large body of work outlining and detailing numerous aspects of esotericism, much of it in French. There are a number of other scholars now working in this field as well, including Wouter Hanegraaff, a Dutch scholar, whose encyclopedic book New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1996) reveals the underlying connections between new religious movements today and their Western esoteric antecedents. The State University of New York Press series of books in Western esotericism edited by David Applebaum also represents an important contribution to this field, and readers would do well to become familiar with it. See also the journal Esoterica [www.esoteric.msu.edu ] for articles, mostly by North American scholars, in this field. 5. See Hanegraaff, ibid. 159 6. See Faivre, op. cit., pp. 10–15; see also Faivre L’Ésotérisme (Presses Universitaries de France, 1992), pp. 14–21. 7. Jean La Fontaine, Initiation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), p. 14. 8. Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries (NewYork: Harper, 1975), p. 223. 9. See Arthur Versluis, “Christian Theosophy and Ancient Gnosticism,” Studies in Spirituality 7(1997): 228–241; see also Wisdom’s Children: A Christian Esoteric Tradition (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 219–233. 10. Victor Sogen Hori, “Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum” in Stephen Heine and Dale Wright, eds., The Koan: Texts and Context in Zen Buddhism (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 307. 11. Ibid., p. 309. 12. See, for an explicit example of this inward sojourn and perception, John Pordage, Sophia, in Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s Book: The Sophia Anthology (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2000), pp. 76–106. Pordage writes that the invisible paradisal earth of Sophia is hidden from ratiocination and even scoffed at by those limited to reasoning alone, but they like everyone have access to this inward realm all the same, whether they know it or not. See ibid., p. 97. 13. See Versluis, ed., Wisdom’s Book: The Sophia Anthology (St. Paul, Paragon House, 2000), pp. 83 ff. C H A P T E R O N E 1. See Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), pp. 18 ff.; see also Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken, 1965), pp. 37 ff. 2. See Charbonneau, The Bestiary of Christ (New York: Parabola, 1991); see also Dionysius the Areopagite on like and unlike images. 3. Nag Hammadi Library, p. 145. 4. Nag Hammadi Library, p. 151. 5. See Versluis, Gnosis and Literature (St. Paul: Grail, 1996), pp. 51–89. 6. Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, Theosophic Correspondence (Exeter: Roberts, 1863), p. 248. C H A P T E R T W O 1. All of this is to be found in the ninth chapter of Parzival. 2. See the fifteenth chapter of Parzival. 3. See my discussion in Gnosis and Literature (St. Paul: Grail, 1996) of Piers Ploughman. 4. See Frederick Goldin, Lyrics of the Troubadours and Trouvères (New York: Anchor, 1973), pp. 140, 180. Translation is mine. 5. Ramon Lull, The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, E. Peers, trs. (London: Sheldon, 1978), p. 111. 160 N O T E S T O C H A P T E R O N E [18.190.153.51] Project MUSE (2024...