This collection explores the role of innovation in understanding the history of esotericism. It illustrates how innovation is a mechanism of negotiation whereby an idea is either produced against, or adapted from, an older set of concepts in order to respond to a present context. Featuring contributions from distinguished scholars of esotericism, it covers many different fields and themes including magic, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Tarot, apocalypticism and eschatology, Mesmerism, occultism, prophecy, and mysticism.
Innovation in Esotericism from the Renaissance to the Present
Description
Table of Contents
Part 1: Early Modern Period (15th -18th Centuries)
Angela Voss (Canterbury Christ Church University): ''Diligentia et divina sorte": Oracular Intelligence in Marsilio Ficino's Astral Magic'
Georgiana D. Hedesan (University of Oxford): 'The Rise of the Term 'Adept' in Esoteric Usage: From Arabic Philosophy to Early Modern Alchemy'
Peter Forshaw (University of Amsterdam): 'A Necessary Conjunction: Cabala, Magic and Alchemy in the Theosophy of Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605'
Christopher McIntosh (University of Bremen): 'The Rosicrucian Diaspora in the Seventeenth Century'
Judith Mawer (University of Exeter): 'Thomas Vaughan's Magia Adamica (1650): A Vindication of Magic and Magicians'
Jonathan Barry (University of Exeter): 'John Henderson (1757-1788) and the Changing Attitudes to the Occult in Enlightenment England'
Part 2: Modern Period (19th Century - present)
Jean-Pierre Brach (Paris-Sorbonne): 'Psychic Disciplines: The Magnetizer as Magician in the Writings of Jules Dupotet de Sennevoy (1796-1881)'
Tim Rudbog (University of Copenhagen): 'H. P. Blavatsky's 'Wisdom Religion' and the Quest for Ancient Wisdom in Western Culture'
Julie Chajes (Tel Aviv University): 'Orientalist Aggregates: Theosophical Buddhism between Innovation and Tradition'
Jeffrey D. Lavoie (Middlesex Community College): 'Theosophical Chronology in the Writings of Guido von List (1848-1919): A Link between H.P. Blavatsky's Philosophy and the Nazi Movement'
Antoine Faivre (University of Paris-Sorbonne): 'On the Various Uses of the Tarot'
Joscelyn Godwin (Colgate University), 'Afterword'
Author Description
Georgiana D. Hedesan is Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The 'Christian Philosophy' of Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579-1644) (2016).
Tim Rudbog is Associate Professor and Director of the Copenhagen Center for the Study of Theosophy and Esotericism at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His recent co-edited book Imagining the East: The Early Theosophical Society was published in 2020.