Esotericism, Religion, and Politics

Esotericism, Religion, and Politics PDF Author: Arthur Versluis
Publisher: North American Academic
ISBN: 9781596500136
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking collection, scholars explore how politics can be understood in a much wider range of esoteric religious contexts than is usually recognized. Included here are articles on subjects ranging across the modern era and from a broad geographical expanse, including Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, and North America. This is the first book to focus on how esotericism and politics intersect not only across the conventional spectrum, but also outside it. Taken together, these articles shed new light on the connections between politics and religion. Authors include Joscelyn Godwin, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Lee Irwin, Daniel McKanan, Arthur Versluis, M. E. Warlick, and many others. The third in a series of volumes on Western esotericism, this book emerged from international academic conferences held by the Association for the Study of Esotericism (www.aseweb.org).

Esotericism, Religion, and Politics

Esotericism, Religion, and Politics PDF Author: Arthur Versluis
Publisher: North American Academic
ISBN: 9781596500136
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 345

Get Book

Book Description
In this groundbreaking collection, scholars explore how politics can be understood in a much wider range of esoteric religious contexts than is usually recognized. Included here are articles on subjects ranging across the modern era and from a broad geographical expanse, including Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, and North America. This is the first book to focus on how esotericism and politics intersect not only across the conventional spectrum, but also outside it. Taken together, these articles shed new light on the connections between politics and religion. Authors include Joscelyn Godwin, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Lee Irwin, Daniel McKanan, Arthur Versluis, M. E. Warlick, and many others. The third in a series of volumes on Western esotericism, this book emerged from international academic conferences held by the Association for the Study of Esotericism (www.aseweb.org).

Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion

Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion PDF Author: International Association for the History of Religions. Congress
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042906303
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This volume is based upon papers read during the innovative section "Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion" organized at the 17th International Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in Mexico City, August 5-12, 1995. The section was created in order to fill a long-standing hiatus in the academic study of religions: whereas phenomena such as gnosticism and hermetism in antiquity, and even the occult sciences of that period, have long been recognized as subjects worthy of serious investigation, the history of similar and related phenomena in more recent periods has hardly received the same measure of scholarly attention and recognition. The present volume is devoted to the academic emancipation of these areas as constituting a legitimate domain of research, which may be referred to by the generic label "western esotericism". Preceded by an introductory essay on the birth of this new discipline in the study of religion, the volume provides a sample of current research in the field and devotes special attention to some central methodological questions.

Esotericism, Religion, and Nature

Esotericism, Religion, and Nature PDF Author: Arthur Versluis
Publisher: North American Academic
ISBN: 9781596500099
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this groundbreaking collection, leading scholars in this emerging field explore how nature can be understood in a wide range of esoteric religious contexts. Included here are articles on subjects ranging from alchemy and panpsychism to music, Appalachian folk magic, and new religions. Esotericism, Religion, and Nature illuminates the way that nature is understood by figures and in traditions that historically have not always been recognized or well understood. Taken together, these articles shed new light on the connections between humanity, nature, and religion. Authors include Joscelyn Godwin, Wouter Hanegraaff, Lee Irwin, Richard Smoley, Arthur Versluis, M. E. Warlick, and many others. The second in a series of volumes on Western esotericism, this book emerged from international academic conferences held by the Association for the Study of Esotericism (www.aseweb.org). Edited by Arthur Versluis, Claire Fanger, Lee Irwin, and Melinda Phillips

Western Esotericism

Western Esotericism PDF Author: Nicholas Goodricke-Clarke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351537164
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Esotericism is the search for an absolute but hidden knowledge accessed through mystical vision, the mediation of higher beings, or personal experience. In Western cultural history esoteric approaches to religion have often been in conflict with - and suffered at the hands of - more established forms of religious belief and practice. 'Western Esotericism' presents a very broad and engaging history of the people and ideas which have shaped occult history from antiquity to today. Throughout the history of esotericism the dynamic of concealment and revelation has characterized the search for secret knowledge. Pursued both publically and privately, esotericism has come to influence more mainstream religious practice and culture and has significantly shaped our understanding of modernity. Today, esotericism continues to be practised by a range of both established and new religious movements. 'Western Esotericism' presents the essential guide to one of the most fascinating, provocative, and sustained of religious traditions.

Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics

Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics PDF Author: Marco Pasi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317546296
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is one of the most famous and significant authors in the history of western esotericism. Crowley has been long ignored by scholars of religion whilst the stories of magical and sexual practice which circulate about him continue to attract popular interest. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" looks at the man behind the myth - by setting him firmly within the politics of his time - and the development of his ideas through his extensive and extraordinarily varied writings. Crowley was a rationalist, sympathetic to the values of the Enlightenment, but also a romantic and a reactionary. His search for an alternative way to express his religious feelings led him to elaborate his own vision of social and political change. Crowley's complex politics led to his involvement with many key individuals, organisations and groups of his day - the secret service of various countries, the German Nazi party, Russian political activists, journalists and politicians of various persuasions, as well as other writers - both in Europe and America. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" presents a life of ideas, an examination of a man shaped by and shaping the politics of his times.

Esotericism in African American Religious Experience

Esotericism in African American Religious Experience PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004283420
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There is a Mystery”..., brings together groundbreaking essays that inaugurate Africana Esoteric Studies (AES): a new trans-disciplinary enterprise that investigates esoteric lore and practices in Africa and the African Diaspora.

New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism

New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004446451
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This volume offers new approaches to some of the biggest persistent challenges in the study of esotericism and beyond. Commonly understood as a particularly "Western" undertaking consisting of religious, philosophical, and ritual traditions that go back to Mediterranean antiquity, this book argues for a global approach that significantly expands the scope of esotericism and highlights its relevance for broader theoretical and methodological debates in the humanities and social sciences. The contributors offer critical interventions on aspects related to colonialism, race, gender and sexuality, economy, and marginality. Equipped with a substantial introduction and conclusion, the book offers textbook-style discussions of the state of research and makes concrete proposals for how esotericism can be rethought through broader engagement with neighboring fields.

Theosophy across Boundaries

Theosophy across Boundaries PDF Author: Hans Martin Krämer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438480431
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
Theosophy across Boundaries brings a global history approach to the study of esotericism, highlighting the important role of Theosophy in the general histories of religion, science, philosophy, art, and politics. The first half of the book consists of seven perspectives on the activities of the Theosophical Society in very different regional contexts, ranging from India, Vietnam, China, and Japan to Victorian Britain and Israel, shedding new light on the entanglement of "Western" and "Oriental" ideas around 1900. The second half explores specific cultural influences that Theosophy exerted in the spheres of literature, art, and politics, using case studies from Sri Lanka, Burma, India, Japan, Ireland, Germany, and Russia. The examples clearly show that Theosophy was part of a truly global movement, thus providing an outstanding example of the complex entanglements of the global religious history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Contemporary Esotericism

Contemporary Esotericism PDF Author: Egil Asprem
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317543572
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
The study of contemporary esoteric discourse has hitherto been a largely neglected part of the new academic field of Western esotericism. Contemporary Esotericism provides a broad overview and assessment of the complex world of Western esoteric thought today. Combining historiographical analysis with theories and methodologies from the social sciences, the volume explores new problems and offers new possibilities for the study of esoterica. Contemporary Esotericism studies the period since the 1950s but focuses on the last two decades. The wide range of essays are divided into four thematic sections: the intricacies of esoteric appeals to tradition; the role of popular culture, modern communication technologies, and new media in contemporary esotericism; the impact and influence of esotericism on both religious and secular arenas; and the recent 'de-marginalization' of the esoteric in both scholarship and society.

The Problem of Disenchantment

The Problem of Disenchantment PDF Author: Egil Asprem
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438469926
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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Book Description
Challenges the conventional view of a “disenchanted” and secular modernity, and recovers the complex relation that exists between science, religion, and esotericism in the modern world. Max Weber famously characterized the ongoing process of intellectualization and rationalization that separates the natural world from the divine (by excluding magic and value from the realm of science, and reason and fact from the realm of religion) as the “disenchantment of the world.” Egil Asprem argues for a conceptual shift in how we view this key narrative of modernity. Instead of a sociohistorical process of disenchantment that produces increasingly rational minds, Asprem maintains that the continued presence of “magic” and “enchantment” in people’s everyday experience of the world created an intellectual problem for those few who were socialized to believe that nature should contain no such incalculable mysteries. Drawing on a wide range of early twentieth-century primary sources from theoretical physics, occultism, embryology, radioactivity, psychical research, and other fields, Asprem casts the intellectual life of high modernity as a synchronic struggle across conspicuously different fields that shared surprisingly similar intellectual problems about value, meaning, and the limits of knowledge. “The Problem of Disenchantment is, in its entirety, extraordinarily well researched, argued, and written—representing at once the most complete and nuanced treatment of the notion of disenchantment within this network of scientific, religious, philosophical, and esoteric discourses and currents.” — Nova Religio