July 5, 2017
Kocku von Stuckrad, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Many scholars of religion regard 1875 as the birth of modern Western esotericism. That year witnessed the foundation of the Theosophical Society, without whose influence twentieth-century esotericism might scarcely have existed. There are several reasons why the Theosophical Society was the most important recurrent stimulus of esoteric discourses into the twentieth century. Helena Petrovna...
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
January 8, 2010
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
Book Review| February 01 2010 Review: Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation, by Henrik Bogdan Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. By Henrik Bogdan. State University of New York Press, 2007. xii + 235 pages. $66.00 cloth; $21.95 paper. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke University of Exeter Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
2 citations
This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in Renaissance esotericism and its rapid diffusion during the period 1550–1650 is directly related to its combination with Neo-Platonic and Hermetic approaches to nature, and especially to the controversy...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
1 citation
This chapter examines the influence of mesmerism and spiritualism on the history of Western esotericism. It explores the relation between science and spirituality and traces the development of animal magnetism from the combination of the notion of fluid and the powers of the mind in science. It discusses the works of Franz Anton Mesmer and his doctoral dissertation concerning the influence of...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines 18th-century Freemasonry and illuminism and its influence on the history of Western esotericism. After Rosicrucianism supplied the myth of a secret society cultivating hermetic sciences, Freemasonry provided a vehicle for the historical transmission of theosophical and alchemical traditions. The Illuminist societies were high-grade varieties of Freemasonry and they were...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the ancient Hellenistic origins of Western esotericism. It explains that Western esoteric traditions have their basis in certain distinct patterns of thinking about the divine, man, and the universe which stretch back into classical antiquity. These patterns of thoughts can be can be such ancient teachings as Alexandrian Hermetism, Neoplatonism, theurgy, and to a limited...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the new paradigms of modern Western esotericism. Esotericism has responded to religious and cultural change in the West. This development is evident in its speculations about the emanations of God transformed into archetypes, from alchemical principles to symbols and from angels to electromagnetic frequencies. This chapter suggests that as long as the West upholds an image...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of Renaissance period planetary and angel magic on the history of Western esotericism. It evaluates the works of German magician and occultist Henry Cornelius Agrippa in the Holy Roman Empire and English occultist John Dee in Elizabethan England as representative figures of the more elaborate esoteric systems which employed more syncretic forms of...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of Italian Renaissance magic and cabala on the history of Western esotericism. The history of Western esotericism during the Middle Ages is largely one of exotic transmission. The Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium became the principal channel of classical and Hellenistic civilization when the western part of the empire was engulfed by the mass migration of...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of Rosicrucianism on the history of Western esotericism. During the early part of the 17th century, the original Rosicrucian manifestos attracted widespread interest and a wave of applications to join the order. Its first manifesto, titled Fama Fraternitatis, together with these other texts is strongly suggestive concerning the Protestant and Paracelsian...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the works of Swedish Christian mystic and theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, and his influence on Western esotericism. Swedenborg occupied a key position in the history of Western esotericism as a major representative of 18th-century theosophy. He offered a relatively sober, matter-of-fact mesocosm full of spirits and his esotericism was heavily influenced by Enlightenment...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the works of Jacob Boehme on theosophy and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. During the 17th and 18th centuries, esotericism found particular expression in the currents of Christian theosophy and Pietism which arose in response to the hardening orthodoxy of the Lutheran Reformation. Boehme established early his reputation as a leading Protestant mystic....
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of the theosophy works of Helena Blavatsky on the revival of Western esotericism in the modern era. The Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Blavatsky played a vital role in propagating esotericism in the modern era. Theosophy was a major factor in the revival of the indigenous Western esoteric tradition and Blavatsky's writings presented the...