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30 - Alchemy
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- By Lawrence M. Principe, Johns Hopkins University
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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Summary
Introduction
Alchemy is a complex and wide-ranging discipline that is difficult to characterize in simple terms. In the course of nearly two millennia, alchemy has appeared in many guises; was formed and reformed by various cultures, ideas, and locales; and was directed toward a variety of goals by its thousands of practitioners. Perhaps the greatest obstacle in gaining an accurate historical understanding of the subject today is the fact that alchemy continues to be misrepresented in many modern accounts. In many quarters, reinterpretations and programmatic reassessments of alchemy that date from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries continue to dominate and to be read back onto earlier epochs. Recent scholarship, however, has shown that these latter-day perspectives are historically untenable. Indeed, the past forty years have witnessed a remarkable blossoming of scholarly studies of alchemy, with the felicitous result that we now have access to a vastly more accurate understanding of what alchemy really was at various points in its long history.
A key point to stress at the outset is the internal diversity of alchemy. It is not an unchanging monolithic tradition, although it is sometimes represented as such by both its practitioners and its commentators. This issue becomes especially critical when the question of alchemy's connection to esotericism and mysticism arises. It is true that alchemy can be seen as a “common thread” running through various topics addressed in this volume. Nevertheless, both the degree and the uniformity of those connections are frequently overstated, and their nature misunderstood. The source of the problem is twofold. On the one hand, interpretations of alchemy dating from the Enlightenment and the Victorian era recast the subject into much closer association with topics routinely labeled as “occult” than had ever been the case historically. Thus, many popular treatments of alchemy today, and even some scholarly ones, regularly and rather casually claim that alchemy was “magical,” “spiritual,” “occult,” or “mystical.” The general aim of these characterizations has been to define alchemy as something very distinct from chemistry. By doing so, these accounts perpetuate – often unwittingly – the ahistorical claims of uniquely eighteenth- and nineteenth-century interpretations or reformulations of alchemy.
On the other hand, the terms “mysticism” and “esotericism” tend to be employed in so loose and vague a manner that they sometimes fail to retain any precise or consistent meaning.
31 - Astrology
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- By Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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Summary
Introduction: Astrology Defined
Astrology (from Greek, “science of the stars”) belongs to the oldest cultural phenomena of humankind. Its persistence from antiquity to modernity – despite many transformations and various developments – is remarkable. If we want to define this phenomenon, we can say that, most generally, astrology engages the supposed relationship and correspondences between the heavenly realm (the stars, planets, zodiacal signs, etc.) and the earthly realm. To interpret these correspondences and interrelationships, astrology developed different and often conflicting strategies. On the one hand, astrologers asserted a causal influence of heavenly bodies on the sublunar world, which consequently seems to lead to a deterministic or even fatalistic worldview. Ancient Greek philosophers – particularly the Stoics – spoke of the cosmos as a complex network of correspondences and influences, governed by a hidden power. On the other hand, astrologers argued that the stars do not exert influence themselves but that they are mere “signs” or “symbols” of powers that are active throughout the cosmos. The intellectual, religious, and ethical issues that are linked to these alternatives have been part of astrological discussion ever since. Are the heavenly signs simply accompanying the mundane events, or are they responsible for them? And if there is a sympathetic correspondence between the celestial sphere and the earth, does this necessarily imply a deterministic or fatalistic influence?
The answers to these questions evidently challenge philosophical and religious convictions. Particularly in Western scriptural religions, a deterministic interpretation of astrology was often seen as problematic because it seems to eliminate freedom, the prerequisite of moral action and the precondition of redemption, punishment, and sin. Not surprisingly, then, it was the second alternative that gained the upper hand in Western cultural history: The stars were deprived of their divine power and were seen as mere “instruments of God,” their path interpreted as “God's handwriting” (already in Origen's Philocalia).
The search for underlying principles in the correspondence between heavenly and earthly realms brought forth several fields of interest that can be distinguished as different areas of astrological practice. Already at an early stage, the prediction of agricultural matters and weather conditions was made on an astrological basis. This could mean that eclipses of the sun and moon, conjunctions of planets, or the paths of individual planets were correlated with climatic conditions.
V - COMMON THREADS
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Editor's Introduction
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Summary
A New Approach to the Hidden Intellectual History of the West
This handbook brings together articles on two subjects: Western mysticism and Western esotericism. These two areas are distinct, yet they are related so intimately that treating them together is not only possible but ultimately necessary if either is to be truly understood.
Mysticism in the West has tended to arise (as it has elsewhere in the world) within the context of a religious tradition, generally as a kind of deeper reflection on the inner meaning of the religion. This is obviously the case with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mysticism. However, the origins of Western mysticism go back much further, to pagan polytheism in fact, and the mystery religions of Ancient Greece.
Scholarship on Western mysticism enjoys a long, established history and is almost as old as scholarship on the religions from which mysticism typically springs. The same is not true, however, for scholarship on Western esotericism. It is, in fact, a very young field. Defining “esotericism” is a difficult task, and one fraught with controversy. However, we may begin simply by noting that this is the word increasingly used today to designate currents of thought formerly referred to as “occultism” or as “the occult sciences” (terms that came into wide usage in the nineteenth century). These currents have a long history in the West, sometimes hidden and subterranean (as the word “occultism” implies) – at other times, in the Renaissance for example, as part of mainstream thought. Esoteric doctrines, schools, or practices include alchemy, astrology, magic, Kabbalism, Renaissance Hermetism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, number symbolism, sacred geometry, Christian theosophy, spiritualism, mesmerism, and much else.
The ideas and movements just mentioned are familiar, in one way or another, to most people. We know that they exercised a great influence in the past (and still do). We have encountered traces of them in literature, film, and fairy tales. They peek through the cracks of standard histories of philosophy, science, and literature when, for example, it is mentioned in passing that Renaissance art and science were influenced by hermetic and kabbalistic teachings; that Goethe was an alchemist, and Newton an astrologer; that Kant and Strindberg read Swedenborg, and Schelling was a spiritualist; that Blake and Hegel were influenced by Jacob Boehme; that W. B. Yeats was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn; and so on.
17 - Freemasonry
- from III - THE RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERNITY
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- By Jan A. M. Snoek, University of Heidelberg
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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Summary
Introduction
Perhaps the best way to characterize Freemasonry is in terms of what it is not, rather than what it is. First of all, it is not a religion, at least not in the Western sense of the concept. One neither converts to Freemasonry, nor does it have any teachings or dogmas. If a candidate for Freemasonry belongs to a religion, this does not change when he becomes a Freemason. Moreover, the Masonic “work” consists in the initiation rituals that change the status of the candidate, first from an outsider to an Apprentice Freemason, then to a Fellow of the Craft, and finally to the rank of Master Mason. Different systems of so-called “higher degrees,” developed in the course of the centuries, offer still more initiation rituals. Although the rituals have changed in the course of time (and in different ways in different countries, producing varying traditions throughout the world), they are guarded as precious treasures, handed down from generation to generation.
However, there exists no official interpretation of the rituals which is held to be universally valid. Every member has the right – and, indeed, the duty – to interpret them in his own way. Consequently, Freemasonry has no particular intrinsic aim. All it aims at is the initiation of new members – on the one hand because it would disappear if it acquired no new members, but much more importantly because Freemasonry simply is the practice of these rituals, which are no longer truly secret. Today one can find most of them on the Internet, including the so-called traditional secrets: the words, signs, and hand grips by which the members of a particular degree can recognize one another. The only secret – which will always remain, because it cannot be divulged – is what it is like to experience these rituals as a candidate. Freemasonry, then, is first and foremost a method for inducing a particular kind of experience in candidates. Two methods, in fact, are involved: the initiation method and the allusive method. Three sorts of symbolism also play a role: building symbolism, light symbolism, and center symbolism.
29 - The New Age
- from IV - THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND BEYOND
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- By Olav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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Summary
Introduction: “The New Age,” A Catchall Term?
In modern society, an astounding range of religious or “spiritual” alternatives to organized religion are available. A very incomplete list includes tarot reading, Reiki healing, swimming with dolphins, astrology, (neo-)shamanism, crystal healing, psychic phenomena, the recall of past-life memories, Aura-Soma remedies, fire walking, and various modes of “positive thinking.” Among the list of the spiritual, one also finds vast numbers of books, with titles such as A Course in Miracles, Conversations with God, and The Celestine Prophecy. The term “New Age” is often affixed to them all, at least by people who do not personally share any of these interests. Insiders will, on the contrary, often insist that the label is derogatory or even meaningless. Rather than seeing their own beliefs and practices as part of any wider social movement, many hold that they have embarked on a thoroughly individual quest. Scholarly literature hovers uncertainly between the two views, some authors insisting that there is a minimal shared discourse uniting these various practices and ideas, others rejecting “New Age” as a thoroughly vacuous term. One difficulty with the expression is that, in common with many other terms employed in the study of religion, it was a designation coined by the members of a particular religious milieu and has since become employed in a wide and not always compatible variety of ways.
The concept “New Age” is diffuse also because it consists of a combination of a common adjective and an equally common noun and has therefore historically been repeatedly used in contexts that would seem to have few points of contact with the modern concept. William Blake uses the term in a publication dated 1804, in a context that has roots in the writings of the eighteenth-century visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, and earlier. Other early references are Warren Felt Evans's book The New Age and Its Messenger (1864), and the literary magazine The New Age founded in 1894.
New Age as label for a utopian vision with an occultist tinge is a later creation.
II - THE MIDDLE AGES
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IV - THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND BEYOND
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26 - René Guénon and Traditionalism
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- By Mark Sedgwick, Aarhus University, Denmark
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Summary
Introduction
What is sometimes called “Guénonian Traditionalism” is a school or movement most easily identified by its origin in the writings of the French philosopher René Guénon (1886–1951). Guénonian Traditionalism – distinguished in this essay from other forms of traditionalism by the use of a capital “T” – was originally developed in Paris in the 1920s and has since become widespread and influential. Some Traditionalists today stay close to Guénon's original conceptions and practice, and they may be said to form the Traditionalist school, sometimes now called Integral Traditionalism; others have modified and developed his ideas to the extent that purist Guénonians do not recognize them as fellow Traditionalists. These may be said to be part of the broader Traditionalist movement.
Guénonian Traditionalists of both sorts understand “tradition” in a special sense that distinguishes them from the many other individuals and groups that use the term. For Traditionalists, “tradition” indicates the spiritual wisdom that is conceived as having formed the ancient core of all the great religions and spiritual paths – in effect, the perennial philosophy. The term “perennialist” is also used, both by some Traditionalists to describe themselves and by some outsiders. Traditionalists, however, differ from other perennialists such as Aldous Huxley (who published his The Perennial Philosophy in 1944) in their anti-modernism and their insistence on esoteric initiation. Huxley, for example, was interested in neither of these. This insistence is one basis on which Traditionalism may be classed as esoteric; another is the degree to which Traditionalism draws on other esoteric currents discussed in this volume, even though Traditionalists are fiercely critical of most other such currents, which they see as “pseudo-initiatic” or even “counter-initiatic.”
Traditionalism has a complex doctrine, and a cyclical conception of time borrowed from Hinduism. In the distant first age of the current cycle, spiritual wisdom was widespread and generally accessible; in the current and final age, identified as the kali yuga or dark age, spiritual wisdom has almost vanished. The result is what is called modernity, with all its problems. Inevitably, things will degenerate further. During the first age, spiritual wisdom was unified, and there was no distinction between the esoteric and exoteric.
35 - Panpsychism
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- By Lee Irwin, South Carolina
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Summary
Introduction
The term “panpyschism” is a combination of the Greek pan, “all or every,” and psuchê (or psyche), “breath or soul,” implying life-force, mental activity, and an animating spirit inherent in all of nature. The historical morphology of the term is complex and it was not until the Renaissance period that the term panpsychism was first used by Francesco Patrizi in 1591 in an esoteric, philosophical work. Much of what might be interpreted as panpsychism is also interwoven with other late philosophical constructs, such as “pantheism,” which was first articulated by John Toland in 1705 as “God or Deity throughout everything”; a bit later, “panentheism” defined by Karl Krause in 1829 as a theological doctrine that “all is in God.”
The construction of panpsychism within the history of Western esotericism is a complex of related ideas forming a rich morphological history from which ideas of pantheism and panentheism are not easily separated. Further, the early history of panpsychism is implicit in comparison to much later writings in which the concept becomes explicit (and where psyche is usually interpreted as “mind”), although even in contemporary esotericism, panpsychism tends to cover a range that mediates between implicit theories and explicit definitions. In this essay, I will review some key implicit morphologies of panpsychism within the history Western esotericism and, where possible, indicate where the idea becomes more explicit.
Panpsychism in Greco-Roman Traditions
The belief that nature is ensouled can be found in early Greek philosophy as a classical source for cosmological speculation in Western esotericism. Applied to the world at large, an implicit panpsychism was constructed as an animate presence or vital soul principle within the world, imbued with mental influences, and often conceived as taking the form of gods or goddesses. Thus, for Thales the world was enpsychion or “ensouled” as a great living organism, an animal, within which lesser beings had their own lives and souls. Aristotle cites Thales as the author of the statement “all things are full of gods,” implying a panpsychism with strong pantheistic content.
In a related but distinct morphology, Cicero attributes similar panspiritual beliefs to Pythagoras, whose mathematical theory infused the whole of nature with divine number and forms, universally spiritualizing nature.
2 - Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism
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- By Joscelyn Godwin, Colgate University
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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Summary
Life and Work of Pythagoras
The giant figure of Pythagoras straddles the borderline between history and myth. As in the case of his approximate contemporaries Zoroaster, Mahavira, Confucius, Lao Tse, and Gautama Buddha, his followers created an idealized biography that cannot be checked against impartial sources. Even then, they differ widely in their accounts, most of which date from the third century CE, eight centuries after their subject. Consequently, we cannot confirm any of the biographical data, nor even give firm dates for Pythagoras's birth and death.
Certainly his homeland was the Dodecanese island of Samos, and his birth occurred between 580 and 569 BCE. According to Iamblichus and Porphyry, he was born in Syria where his father Mnesarchus (a Phoenician by origin) was trading. After many travels, he settled in southern Italy, founding a school and community at Croton. Around 500 BCE, local opposition destroyed the school, and if Pythagoras did not perish then and there, he died in Metapontum during the following decade. This is the bare outline with which modern scholarship has to be content.
Turning to the legendary life of Pythagoras as reported by the same authors, we find him first studying with the Ionian philosophers Thales and Anaximander, and with Pherecydes of Syros. Next came his voyages to the Phoenician settlements in Syria, where he underwent mystery initiations. The early witness of Herodotus confirms his long residence in Egypt. Having gone there on Thales's recommendation, Pythagoras visited the religious centers of Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes and was admitted to initiations never before given to foreigners. A fourth, involuntary journey was to Babylon, as a captive following Cambyses's conquest of Egypt (525 BCE), but Pythagoras turned it to good use by studying astronomy and mathematics with the Magi. On his release, he returned to Samos but became increasingly at odds with his compatriots. He made a tour of the oracular centers of Delos, Samothrace, Eleusis, Grecian Thebes, Delphi, and Crete, and he visited Sparta to observe the system of government. After emigrating to Croton, he never returned to Samos.
8 - Sufism
- from II - THE MIDDLE AGES
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- By William C. Chittick, Stony Brook University
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Summary
Introduction
The Arabic word ṣūfī, the original sense of which has been much discussed, came into use in the second century AH/eighth century CE to designate a certain sort of pious, usually ascetic, individual. Its derivative form “Sufism” (taṣawwuf, literally, “to be a ṣūfī”) has been one of several terms used to designate those tendencies of Islamic thought and practice that focus on the inner domain of the human spirit rather than the outer domain of ritual activity, social rules, and creedal dogmatics. Many Western scholars have referred to Sufism as mysticism, esotericism, or spirituality, but there is no consensus as to what exactly it, or any of these words, designates. The difficulty of defining the word “Sufism” itself is partly the result of the historical and geographical vagaries of the word's usage and the frequent controversies over its legitimacy – controversies in which the two sides typically had radically different notions of what it denotes. Throughout Islamic history, numerous definitions have been offered by authors claiming to speak for it. These are rarely consistent with the notion that Sufism had a clearly defined identity, especially when we take into account the definitions offered by critics. In what follows, I use the word as a designation for the focus on “interiority” that is found in the sources of the Islamic tradition and in countless authors down through the centuries, whether or not the term “Sufism” itself was employed in each case. I will discuss three broad issues: Sufism's relation to other fields of learning, its characteristic approach to theory, and its understanding of the role of praxis.
The Three Dimensions of Islam
The Koran and the Hadith (the sayings of Muhammad) are full of raw material for the disciplines that came to be called jurisprudence (fiqh), scholastic theology (kalām), philosophy, and Sufism, but these disciplines themselves appeared gradually. When scholars say that Sufism originated in the second/eighth or third/ninth centuries, they mean that before that time, the sources do not delineate the specific concerns that differentiate the Sufis of later times from other Muslims. The same is true, however, for the other approaches to Islamic thought and practice – not least jurisprudence and scholastic theology, which are often said to represent “orthodox” Islam.
Contents
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22 - Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy
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- By Robert McDermott, California Institute of Integral Studies
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Summary
Introduction
Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) is the founder and teacher of anthroposophy, which derives its name from the Greek anthropos (understood by Steiner to mean “ideal human”) and sophia, which refers to divine feminine wisdom. Anthroposophy overlaps with religion and mysticism in that it is focused on the human experience of the divine, but its emphasis is on a spiritual knowledge that is in principle difficult to attain. Steiner insisted that in theory others could attain the same kind of knowledge that he had. In fact, however, very few have been able to attain the profound secrets of evolution, higher beings, as well as afterlife and rebirth, all of which Steiner claimed to have researched successfully.
Steiner reported his esoteric research in three thousand lectures recorded by stenographers. As he continued to write, lecture, administer, and counsel, he did not have time to revise these lectures for publication. However, Steinerbooks has now undertaken the project of publishing his collected works in 354 volumes. Steiner's writings contain important contributions to philosophy, the natural and social sciences, the arts, education, and the study of Asian and Western spiritual traditions. Steiner is perhaps best known for the Waldorf School movement, consisting of more than one thousand schools in more than one hundred countries. These schools continue to draw guidance from his hundreds of lectures on child development, curriculum, and pedagogy.
Steiner wrote approximately thirty books, beginning in 1891 with Truth and Knowledge, his doctoral dissertation in philosophy, and ending in 1924, the year before he died, with his autobiography (which unfortunately covers only up to 1907, therefore before the beginning of the Anthroposophical Society, and before most of his important research). Steiner was convinced that his Philosophy of Freedom, which he wrote in 1894, at age 33, would be the book that would be his most lasting and influential. It seems more likely, however, that his Theosophy (1904) and How to Know Higher Worlds (1904) might prove more enduring, perhaps because for most readers both are more immediately accessible than Philosophy of Freedom.
Rudolf Steiner believed his esoteric mission and research to be a continuation of the tradition associated with the mysterious fifteenth-century esoteric teacher Christian Rosenkreutz. However, he also intended his teaching to be entirely relevant and contemporary, especially given that he set it in direct opposition to the reductionist science of his day.
24 - G. I. Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way
- from IV - THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND BEYOND
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- By Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University
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Summary
Life, Writings, and Influence
As is the case with many figures in Western esotericism, the life of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff is shrouded in both mystery and controversy. Seen by some as a sage and others as a charlatan, he is arguably the most influential esoteric teacher of the twentieth century. As we shall see, whether we are approaching Gurdjieff's life, writings, teachings, or legacy, there are no easy answers to be found.
We are not even certain when Gurdjieff was born, but it was likely January 13, ca. 1866. The place of birth was definitely Alexandropol, which at the time was part of the Russian Empire. Gurdjieff's father was Greek, his mother Armenian. The family name was originally Georgiades and was later Slavicized as Gurdjieff. When he was quite young, Gurdjieff's family resettled in Kars near the Turkish border, which had once been part of the Ottoman Empire but was then under Russian control. Because of its location and rich history, Kars exposed the young Gurdjieff to a great variety of cultures and faiths. Meetings with Remarkable Men, Gurdjieff's most accessible work, is our chief source of information on his early life, and it contains a number of fascinating stories about his experiences in this mysterious region.
Gurdjieff's father was an ashiq, or balladeer, and was a strong influence on him. His parents raised him in the Eastern Orthodox faith, whose theology is almost entirely “mystical,” and it is clear that this was a strong influence as well. However, Gurdjieff was no admirer of organized religion, and in later life expressed strong antipathy to the clergy. From a young age, he reacted against both the tendency to rationalism and reductionism in the modern outlook, and the unquestioning faith demanded by religion.
In early adulthood, Gurdjieff set off on what would become roughly two decades of travels, journeying throughout Central Asia and the Middle East in search of wisdom. Our chief source for this period in his life is, again, Meetings. Though it must be acknowledged that this is a flawed source, for it contains some anecdotes that strain credulity. Precisely because of this, and because Meetings does not fill in all the gaps, there has been a great deal of speculation about Gurdjieff's activities during this time.
Index
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I - ANTIQUITY
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6 - Early Jewish Mysticism
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- By Daphna Arbel, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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Summary
Introduction
In recent decades, attention has increasingly been paid to the shifting and multifaceted meanings of the “mystical” in a variety of cultural, historical, and linguistic contexts and discourses. As a result, scholars largely agree that the term “mysticism” can neither be uncritically imposed on ancient texts nor commonly utilized to connote a single, universal, timeless phenomenon. With this in mind, this essay adopts a contextualized perspective and aims to elucidate the manner in which distinct notions, embedded in early Jewish sources, can be categorized as “mystical.” I discuss this topic with a focus on one heuristic model: the Merkavah mysticism of the Hekhalot literature.
Merkavah Mysticism of the Hekhalot Literature
Merkavah mysticism developed out of exegesis of, speculations on, and expansion of the vision of God's celestial chariot-throne (the Merkavah/מרכבה) in Ezekiel 1, 10, as well as Daniel 7. Variants are found in diverse early Jewish sources, such as Qumranic texts, earlier apocalyptic and gnostic sources, the Talmud, and other rabbinic writings. The Hekhalot corpus includes its first developed expression. This literature derives its name from the Hebrew word for palaces or temples (Hekhalot/היכלות). This name corresponds with one of its key themes: the ascent of humans through divine celestial palaces or temples, and their visions of God and his chariot-throne.
The Hekhalot corpus is distinctively multifaceted, composed of several pseudepigraphic compositions written primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic, and attributed to early rabbis of the second century CE. The precise historical date, provenance, social context, textual boundaries, and transmission of these compositions are ambiguous. The literature contains traditions from the Second Temple period and has strong connections with Qumranic, apocalyptic, rabbinic, and gnostic sources. However, it evolved through a long process of writing, editing, and redacting and is commonly assumed to have been formed in Babylonia and Palestine between the fourth and ninth centuries CE, perhaps even later. Despite its collective title, the Hekhalot literature is fluid and diverse, including a variety of texts, themes, practices, topics, and literary genres.
A Paradigmatic Model
For a number of interrelated reasons, this remarkable cluster of writings serves as a highly suitable paradigm for the present investigation of early Jewish mysticism.
15 - Rosicrucianism
- from III - THE RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERNITY
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- By Hereward Tilton, University of Exeter
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism
- Published online:
- 05 May 2016
- Print publication:
- 18 April 2016, pp 171-183
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Summary
Introduction: Gnosis and Transfiguration in Rosicrucianism
Disparate groups have assumed the Rosicrucian mantle across the four centuries of development of this esoteric current; consequently, the task of defining Rosicrucianism is a challenging one. In both scholarly and esoteric literature, Rosicrucianism has been portrayed as the purveyor of a gnosis originating in the ancient gnostic and hermetic milieu, that is to say, an esoteric knowledge promising salvation through the freeing of the spirit from its bondage to matter. The prevalence of this portrayal owes much to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, who advanced the influential thesis that the alchemical art practiced in Rosicrucian circles was a conduit for such gnosis. Jung's view echoes a heterodox Protestant polemic of the seventeenth century, when the Pietist Gottfried Arnold sought to ally Rosicrucianism with the suppressed teachings of a supposedly authentic primitive church.
Gnosis is certainly a central motif in the modern construction (and postmodern deconstruction) of Western esotericism as a field of discourse formed by Christian apologetics. Nevertheless, there is little in pre-twentieth-century Rosicrucianism of the world-rejecting flight from matter or heavenly ascent through salvific knowledge that was central to ancient Gnosticism – which like esotericism is a problematic category with origins in a heresiological agenda. Prior to the rise of the neo-gnostic Lectorium Rosicrucianum in the 1930s, when the Demiurge emerged among the Neoplatonic cosmologies that were a staple of Rosicrucianism, he was the benevolent architect of Plato rather than the dark creator god of the gnostics. Nor is the presence in the Rosicrucian corpus of other motifs associated with ancient Gnosticism (such as the androgyne and the ouroboros) evidence of a lineage stretching back to antiquity via the gnostic heresy of the Cathars. Rather, these motifs are derived via Boehme and Paracelsus from the alchemical corpus, and their employment by the medieval alchemists cannot be considered proof of the secret practice of a heretical “spiritual alchemy.” Jung's references in this regard are not to a consciously transmitted tradition but to a largely unconscious process of collective individuation corresponding to the precession of the equinoxes. As the main conduit of the notion of Rosicrucianism's gnostic lineage, Jung's testimony on this matter must be carefully distinguished from a purely historical enquiry, lest we become unwitting purveyors of an esoteric tradition rather than agents for its historical analysis.
9 - Kabbalah
- from II - THE MIDDLE AGES
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- By Brian Ogren, Rice University
- Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee, Long Island University, New York
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism
- Published online:
- 05 May 2016
- Print publication:
- 18 April 2016, pp 95-106
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Summary
Introduction
“Kabbalah” is a multifaceted term which, in its most austere religious sense, denotes the “reception” of tradition from a higher source or an older generation. One of the earliest expressions of this sense of “Kabbalah” comes in a verbal form in the Mishnaic tractate Avot, which begins: “Moses received (kibbel) the Torah from Sinai, and transmitted it to Joshua; and Joshua to the elders; and the elders to the prophets; and the prophets transmitted it to the men of the great assembly.” This passage establishes an uninterrupted chain of transmission of Kabbalah, that is, of that which is “received,” going back to the theophany at Sinai. In so doing, it lends a sense of direct divine sanction to Kabbalah, which in this passage is connected to both prophecy and religious adjudication. It has thus been understood for millennia to go beyond the reception of the Written Torah and to include the entire tradition of commentary, law, and ethics known as Oral Torah, thereby giving even seemingly innovative interpretations and practices an air of primordial authority.
Abraham Joshua Heschel has observed that “the term kabbalah denotes the act of taking an obligation upon oneself. The term in this sense has the connotation of strictness and restraint. Yet kabbalah in its verbal form means also: to receive, to welcome, to greet.” Heschel goes on to note that the obligatory usage has a legal meaning, whereas the welcoming connotation is spiritual, but that the two are inseparable from each other. In the traditional view, a binding commitment to established statutes goes hand-in-hand with a sense of personal sanctity and awe. It is from this standpoint that starting in the Middle Ages, the term “Kabbalah” came to denote a sacrosanct esoteric tradition fundamentally based within Jewish praxis. Kabbalah, in this view, was part of God's revelation through Torah to his people, Israel. In the words of the thirteenth-century Zohar: “There are three interconnected levels: the blessed Holy One, Torah, and Israel. Each is level upon level, concealed and revealed.” Kabbalah thus became associated not only with the revealed and received, but also with the received and concealed elements within what came to be three of the foundation stones for all of Judaism, namely, God, Torah, and Israel.