95 papers in the library · 4,079 citations · publishing 1990-2026
Oxford University Press eBooks May 14, 2009 William Fish
This chapter develops a naive realist theory of veridical perception. It begins from the thought that the phenomenal character of our visual experiences is simply a matter of the scene before us but finds this to be open to criticism. In light of these criticisms, together with the empirical findings of change/inattentional blindness experiments and considerations concerning the conceptual...
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 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 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 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 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 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 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...
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 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 May 29, 2008 Galen Strawson 561 citations
This chapter discusses the following statements: a materialist holds that every concrete phenomenon is wholly physical or material and a realistic materialist is a full-fledged realist about consciousness. Therefore it follows that a realistic materialist must hold that consciousness is a wholly physical phenomenon, and that at least some arrangements of matter are conscious or constitute...
Oxford University Press eBooks May 15, 2008 Michael Silberstein 38 citations
The first section characterises the kind of emergence defended in this chapter and situates it largely in the enactive paradigm of consciousness and cognition. The second section begins to cast doubt on physicalism and related doctrines in philosophy of mind that speak against ontological emergence. In the process, it becomes clear that ontological emergence cum enactivism is philosophically...
Oxford University Press eBooks May 1, 2008 Gary D. DeAngelis, Warren G. Frisina
Abstract This essay outlines the way Gary D. DeAngelis employs the DDJ in a course on comparative mysticisms. Beginning with Ninian Smart's definition of mystical experience as a “state of consciousness where one ‘acquires a fundamental insight into the nature of reality,'” DeAngelis leads students into a discussion of how the DDJ responds to two basic questions: “What is the nature of ultimate...
Oxford University Press eBooks June 23, 2005 Susan Blackmore
‘Time and space’ discusses a range of experiments and theories of consciousness using examples such as neuroscientist Benjamin Libet's ‘half second lag’ and the ‘cutaneous rabbit’ test. Theories considered include dualism, quantum computing, ‘higher-order thought’, and psychologist Bernard Baars' global workspace theory. None of these theories can solve the basic mystery of subjective...
Oxford University Press eBooks December 7, 2000 Ninian Smart
This chapter shows that while Brahmanism rested on a kind of sacramental and mantric ritual, Buddhism did not encourage such rites. Buddhism looked mostly on concentration, involving the purification of consciousness. The Buddhist theory of causation was inimical to both mantric causation and the use of ritual other than in a psychological manner. There could not be any strict revelatory...
Oxford University Press eBooks February 1, 1996 Richard Swinburne
God has reason occasionally to set aside the operation of the laws of nature and to bring about a miracle — in answer to prayer, or to reveal some truth; and there can be enough historical evidence to show that he has done so (perhaps in the Resurrection of Jesus). He also has reason to provide apparent experiences of his presence to many humans. The occurrence of such historical evidence of...
Oxford University Press eBooks March 12, 1992 910 citations
A cautious welcome - an introduction and guide to the book, Anthony J. Marcel (MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge), E. Bisiach (Instituto di Clinica Neurologica, University of Milan) ____, yishi, duh, um and consciousness, Kathleen Wilkes (St Hilda's College, University of Oxford) quining qualia, Daniel C. Dennett (Department of Philosophy, Tufts University, Massachusetts) consciousness,...
Oxford University Press eBooks August 9, 1990 David A. Shapiro 4 citations
This chapter argues that efforts to ascertain the effects of meditation on well-being and health are usefully viewed as falling within the larger domain of psychotherapy research. This perspective on meditation studies offers two main advantages. Firstly, methodological advances in psychotherapy research carry enormous potential for the improvement of meditation research. Secondly, it opens up...