Western Esotericism
A Concise History
Publication Year: 2010
Published by: State University of New York Press
Cover
Title Page, Copyright Page
Contents
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pp. v-vi
Introduction
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pp. 1-24
In 2010, historian Monika Neugebauer-W�lk showed that the noun esotericism occurs as early as 1792. In that year, it appeared in German: Esoterik,>sup>1 in the context of debates concerning the secret teachings of Pythagoras against a background of Freemasonry. In a...
1 Ancient and Medieval Sources of the Modern Western Esoteric Currents
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pp. 25-34
Scattered works, partly lost, written in Greek in the region of Alexandria, constitute a heterogeneous mass known as the Hermetica. Composed over several centuries at the dawn of our era, these treatises deal with astrology, alchemy, the philosophy of Nature, cosmology,...
2 Esotericism in the Heart of the Renaissance and the Flames of the Baroque
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pp. 35-52
Toward 1450, in Florence, Cosimo de Medici entrusted Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499; section I, 3) to create a Platonic Academy, and about a decade later he asked him to translate, even before any of the works of Plato, the Corpus Hermeticum (CH, see chapter 1,...
3 Esotericism in the Shadow of the Enlightenment
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pp. 53-68
Translated into German in 1706 (with a Paracelsian commentary), the Corpus Hermeticum (CH) also was the subject of scholarly presentations in late Germanic humanism (Bibliotheca Graeca of J. A. Fabricius, 1708–1727). However, it also had recently been the subject, along with the neo-Alexandrian current, Rosicrucianism, and...
4 From Romantic Knowledge to Occultist Programs
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pp. 69-88
In the last decade of the eighteenth century, a new manner of approaching the study of Nature emerged, which lasted about fi fty years and barely reappeared thereafter. This is Naturphilosophie, which is especially part of German romanticism in the broad sense. In several of its representatives, it takes an aspect that pairs it...
5 Esotericisms of the Twentieth Century
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pp. 89-110
Surviving in the form of activities as much speculative as operative, practiced inside initiatic associations or by individuals, the so-called “traditional” sciences (i.e., especially astrology, alchemy, and “magic”) directly touched a broad public. The most popular is evidently astrology, “queen” of the divinatory Arts. What big...
Bibliography
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pp. 111-118
Index of Names
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pp. 119-128
E-ISBN-13: 9781438433790
E-ISBN-10: 1438433794
Print-ISBN-13: 9781438433776
Print-ISBN-10: 1438433778
Page Count: 136
Publication Year: 2010
Edition: 1
Series Title: SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions
Series Editor Byline: David Appelbaum
