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By similarity, I mean that concrete points of analogy can be established between practice A and B. When we have both proximity and similarity, we can argue that constitutive elements of B may have been borrowed from or inluenced by A. All I can do in the following discussion is point to some areas where I believe such evidence ought to be sought. I have already suggested that the element of similarity rests in a shared kataphatic practice. Instead, what matters is that the employed techniques, or the means of the practices are analogous. Since I am deining kataphatic practices in terms of their actions rather than their goals, to establish that one kataphatic practice inspired the emergence of a new one as contrasted with a mere stylistic inluence one must focus on the steps that make up these patterned practices and how they work with cognitive dispositions for the cultivation of mental imagery — rather than what precise meanings they attach to such imagery and to the ultimate goals of the opera- tion.
In other words, a serious analysis of these features requires that the terms of the comparison are grounded in solid knowledge of how mental imagery cultivation works. First, the medieval affective piety movement, which was spurred on in part by the scholastic rehabilitation of imagination, was massively popular. Hence, most European Christians would be proximate to it, if not necessarily expertly skilled.
Pennsylvania State University Press, , 16— For an overview of its scope in the Middle Ages, see the other contributions to the same volume. Taves draws, among other things, on medieval gospel meditations and contemporary Pagan visualization techniques. The fact that most people were already acquainted with techniques for cultivating mental imagery may help explain why the complex kataphatic procedures of the ars notoria were apparently spreading so rapidly in precisely the same period.
However, we can also make a more speciic point by homing in on the so- ciocultural demographic that was most active in developing and disseminating esoteric practices in medieval Europe. As is well known, priests, monks, and students of theology are overrepresented. In fact, they were the experts. Cambridge University Press, , — There is only one problem with this story: It is true that the Neoplatonic element in Ficino is what makes the imaginative faculty particularly powerful, but this, we have seen, was the case already with Bonaventure and to a smaller degree with Albert and Aquinas.
Faivre touched tangentially on this issue in his analysis of Tomberg: Studies in Western Esotericism Albany: State University of New York Press, , A Study in the History of Ideas London: Routledge, , Moreover, it is largely a riff on Iamblichus, who already syn- thesized Aristotelian faculty psychology with a Platonic framework see e.
He did this by attaching the Aristotelian inner senses in particular imagination and memory to the pneumatic body or vehicle of the Neoplatonists. This move harmonized quite easily with the ventricular theory of the faculties common at the time, which held that the faculties were associated with the low of air pneuma through the ventricles of the brain rather than with the biological tissue of the brain itself.
On the complicated and murky history of ventricular theory, see Christopher D. Johann Theodore de Bry, , irst trac- tate, section I, book X, p. The focus on practice that I have suggested means that we should expand our focus from the construction of heterodoxy to the construction of heteropraxy.
As Leen Spruit has argued, the indexes of illicit literature created by the Catholic Church in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance came to serve as lists of recommended reading for Protestant reformers, religious dissidents, and those desiring forbidden knowledge. When the same techniques are oriented toward images of angels with the intent of gaining knowledge of the liberal arts, the practice is considered dangerous magic and the books instructing it should be committed to the lames. Particularly, I have argued that esoteric practice is intimately interwoven with the development of kataphatic spiritual prac- tices with a basis in medieval theories of imagination that are rooted in the Arabic tradition of commentary on Aristotle.
Based on this narrative, I have formulated two hypotheses: Brill, , This is a key characteristic of bureaucracies. Keith Warner and A. I have discussed some evidence that might support both hypotheses, but have suggested that more empirical work is called for. In conclusion, I wish to list what I see as the three most important domains on which such future empirical work should focus.
First, more attention needs to be given to the Medieval period, both as a context for the emergence of key practices and for the development of exclusionary strategies that form later disjunctions between orthopraxy and heteropraxy in the domain of kataphatic spirituality. Historians of magic have already paved the way; scholars of esotericism should work to integrate these studies fully into their narratives, and bring in a diachronic perspective that allows us to see how medieval developments shaped later esoteric currents.
Secondly, the story I have told here suggests that the scholastic as opposed to the humanist roots of Renaissance and early modern esotericism still de- serves further investigation. Or do we, after all, want to make a bold argument in favour of the radical novelty of the Neoplatonic syntheses of the ifteenth century — even though such syntheses have their obvious precursors?
Whichever way we want to settle these questions, it seems evident that we cannot tell the esotericism story in terms of Aristotle versus Plato and Hermes and zarathustra: Third, the Islamic background of core ideas and practices deserves much more attention. Again, intellectual historians focusing on magic and science have laid the foundations long ago. Medievalists studying magic have made major contributions to this line of research for decades. See especially the works of Charles Burnett — too numerous to be listed here, but see e. Burnett, Arabic into Latin in the Middle Ages: Variorum, ; Burnett and Contadini eds.
Warburg Institute Colloquia, Acknowledgements The article was written during and made possible by a six-month research stay at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Towards a New Comparativism in the Study of Esoteri- cism. The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientiic Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, — Towards a Theory of Kataphatic Practice.
Arabic Paradigm and Western Transforma- tions. The Science of the Soul: Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. Bonaventure, The Journey of the Mind to God, ed. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Arabic into Latin in the Middle Ages: The Translators and their Intellectual and Social Contacts. Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages: Texts and Techniques in the Islamic and Christian Worlds. Burnett, Charles and Anna Contadini eds. Islam and the Italian Renaissance.
A Study in the History of Ideas. Doel, Marieke van den and Wouter J. Access to Western Esotericism. Studies in Western Esotericism. Studies in Western Es- otericism, — Studies in Western Esotericism, — Perceiving God in Western Christianity. Cambridge and New York: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Renaissance Magic and the Ambivalence of Idols. Potentials and Problematics of a Typological Construct. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Papal Encyclicas Online, url: Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle Ages.
University of Chicago Press, Thompson, and Giorgio Ganis. The Case for Mental Imagery. Oxford and New York: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England.
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Prayer Practice Affects Cognitive Processing. Prolegomena zu einer Bestimmung ihrer Differenz. The Role of Visions in Shamanism. Magic in the Cloister: Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages. Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form. Robert Appleton Company, Basingstoke and New York: From Perception to Knowledge.
Leiden and New York: Towards an Integrative Model of Interpretation. Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities. DeConinck and Grant Adamson, — The Scientiication of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Change, — Princeton University Press, Taves, Ann and Egil Asprem. Event Cognition and Religious Experience. The Art of Memory.
Routledge and Kegan Paul, Correspondences 4 37—79 ISSN: This article demonstrates that a historical contextualization of the Baphomet leads to an understanding of its meaning that is signiicantly different from prevalent interpretations. It will then be discussed which sources he used to elaborate and re-signify this narrative. Today, the image and its countless variations are highly popular in new religious movements and subcultures, most notably the various metal or gothic scenes.
It is frequently used in decidedly provocative counter-cultural contexts. In , the so-called Satanic Temple unveiled a massive monument inspired by the Baphomet drawing. The statue was intended as a tongue-in-cheek protest against what was perceived as an improperly close relationship between religion and the state.
The organizers, who successfully attracted enormous media in- terest, could draw on a close association between the Baphomet, devil worship, and Satanism that had been established at least since the s but reaches back to the end of the nineteenth century. The magnetistic connotation of this concept was made very explicit by the author, and both early esoteric recipients such as Helena Blavatsky, in , and later scholars such as Christopher McIntosh, in , emphasized this. La clef de la magie noire Paris: Henri Durville, , Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, 3rd ed.
De Gruyter, , — The meaning and intention of this narrative can only be comprehended if one takes into con- sideration the ideas that he had propagated in the s under his civil name Alphonse-Louis Constant, when he was known as one of the most notorious socialist radicals. He regarded himself as the latest representative of a long tradition of revolutionary heretics who struggled for the realization of a universal religious association. His publications, however, will be listed using the name under which they were published. Due to the omnipresence of similar depictions, it is both impossible and needless to deter- mine a limited set of sources for this motif.
Migne, , e. Antoine Dezallier, , — The origins of the Occult Tarot London: Duckworth, , esp. Theodore Maire, , between the preface and the dedication, cf. Long, Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe: Ashgate, , — About the engravings in Khunrath, see Peter J. Museum Tusculanum Press, In , Guiraudet et Jouaust advertised for Dogme et rituel de la haute magie with an extract from the irst volume, which at that time was still a work in progress. There exists in nature a force which is much more powerful than steam. This force was known to the ancients: This agent, which barely manifests itself under the trial and error of the disciples of Mesmer, is exactly what the adepts of the Middle Ages called the irst matter of the great work.
The Gnostics repre- sented it as the iery body of the Holy Spirit, and it was the object of adoration in the secret rites of the Sabbath or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic igure of Baphomet or the Androgynous Goat of Mendes. This allows for a dating ante quem and shows that the eventual size of the volume was as yet unclear. It stood for a speciic secret tradition that formed the key to the understanding of the true form of religion.
It will be shown that the Baphomet is more than a bricolage of older esoteric traditions. Its meaning can only be understood in the context of the s and s. However, his attitude towards the status quo of the Church was much more radical in that it was marked by an aggressive anti-clericalism, directed not against the ofice of the priest but against the corrupted holders of this ofice.
His occultist narrative is marked by an ambiguousness that often appears incoherent and self-contradictory. Strube, Sozialismus, , 98, , 80, , 99, ; cf. So began the occult initiations which attracted the whole Order of the Temple to the light, by revealing to it its veritable destination. Bureaux de la Revue, , 35, 40— Here, the concept of Palingenesis is essential for an understanding of the narrative.
But this puriied religion will not be invented, it exists and it has always existed in humanity; but it had to be concealed by the sages, because the vulgar have been incapable of comprehending it. It is the tradition of all the great sanctuaries of an- tiquity, it is the philosophy of nature, it is God living in humanity and in the world, it is being demonstrated by being, it is reason proven by harmony, it is the analogy of the contraries, it is faith based on science and science elevated by faith. Given the fact that he had been imprisoned for political reasons in for the third time in his life, and that he had faced the harsh anti-socialist restrictions of the new government since the Coup of , he exercised much caution in Dogme et rituel and the Histoire de la magie but apparently felt safe enough to employ a more radical language in the socialist Revue.
Bureaux de la Revue, , This is a typical Saint-Simonian notion. To begin with, any contemporary learning about the Knights Templar inevitably would have consulted literature about Freemasonry. The controversial rise and great success of neo-Templarism in the eighteenth century sparked a myriad of writings discussing the relationship between Freemasonry and the historical Templars, often in a highly polemical way. Henrik Bogdan and Jan A.
Antoine Schmid, , 2. However, it was used in alchemical contexts, where the meaning was often symbolically conlated with the act of baptizing. This is why, quite cor- rectly, Hammer-Purgstall chose the translation tinctura. Many thanks for this information are due to Dylan Burns. The old accusations gained fresh interest when Masonic Neo-Templarism was established in the eighteenth century and, due to its outstanding success, caused much controversy. Editions Dervy, , 59— The Chevaliers joined the Grand Orient de France but maintained an afiliation with the Strict Observance, which was now led by Ferdinand von Braunschweig — and Karl von Hessen — In early nineteenth-century France, they stimulated a wave of Masonic literature that tried to discuss the history of Freemasonry in a positive, self-referential light.
Der Sohar und Seine Lehre: Instead, what matters is that the employed techniques, or the means of the practices are analogous. Memorize the abbreviated card mean- ings. One of the earliest recorded forms of such a divina- tion used militarily was The Mingling of Arrows mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel: The prime reason for developing and understanding the spiritual Tarot is to carry us to the summit above.
Lambert Schneider, , esp. Helmut Reinalter Frankfurt am Main et al.: Peter Lang, , 24— This resulted in a controversy with Herder which unfolded between March and June in the Teutschen Merkur. Jean-Marie Ragon de Bettignies — was a highly inluential Freemason with revolutionary and reformist tendencies. Tarlier, , —90, cf. Pagnerre, , Dentu, , That being said, it must be noted that Ragon was himself only reproducing tropes that were omnipresent in Masonic and anti-Masonic writings, as well as the vast literature they had inspired since the second half of the eighteenth century.
He also criticized Ragon, rather vaguely, for knowing nothing about the Tarot. For a more detailed analysis, see Strube, Sozialismus, — In another text from , Ragon had written: Berlandier, , Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy. Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture Cambridge: Gnosticism It has become clear by now that the Templars were commonly regarded as the successors of the ancient Gnostics.
Foulon et Compagnie, , 77— This work is also a source for later occultists, e. Hachette, , — Interpretations, Transformations, Adaptations, ed. It contains the thesis that the merging of Christian and pagan doctrines lay at the root of the new Gnostic school, which propagated an emanationist doctrine of creation in the Jewish-Platonic tradition of Philo that was opposed to the Christian creatio ex nihilo—two rival traditions whose struggle has continued well into the present day.
He had evident contacts to the High Degree Masonry in Strasbourg and sustained contacts with leading Martinists. This shows that his interest in the School of Alexandria was not motivated by mere scholarly curiosity but a determination to unveil the history of an authentic religious tradition that would provide the path to the inal religion of the future.
Levrault, , 83, It has been argued that his understanding of emanation was based on Martines des Pasqually: Levrault, , 7. Literally every French study of socialism that appeared between the s and early s depicted the socialists as the heirs of a heretical tradition that included the theosophists of the eighteenth century, medieval groups such as the Templars and the Cathars, and eventually the very same protagonists of the School of Alexandria, most notably the Gnostics, that were discussed above.
Unfortunately, the scope of this paper does not allow for a discussion of the reasons for these depictions. Guillaumin et Compagnie, , —33; cf. Au Bureau de la Revue des deux mondes, , esp. They founded, in the revolutionary year of , one of the most notorious revolutionary clubs, the Club de la Montagne. Thus, when Esquiros wrote his Histoire, he attempted to establish the genealogy of his own ideology and that of his political comrades.
Although the medieval magicians were not usually reformers in the modern sense, they were dissidents whose practices betrayed a hatred of the established powers. For more details about Esquiros, see Jacques P. Victor Lecou, , 26— For example, he described a tradition reaching from Moses, Enoch, Hermes, Orpheus, Socrates, Pythagoras, and Plato, among others, to Jesus Christ and inally to the revolutionary heretics who succeeded him. It may be noted that a later edition of the Histoire, from , did not contain any relativizing and critical remarks about magicians, Freemasons, etc.
Also, the Kabbalah receives signiicantly more attention. Librairie de la Renaissance, , La Gallois, , XIX. Le Gallois, , Le Gallois, , 65— In contemporary times it was particularly the poet who could decipher it, as Jesus had been a poet himself, and the Apocalypse a poem: However, his radical socialist writings do contain a number of ideas that would later resurface in his occultist oeuvre, most speciically in the concept of the Baphomet. Charles Gosselin, , esp. Paulier, , — Presses Universitaires de France, , 5— Corti, , —72, —; ibid. As will be seen in section 4, this was not only decisive for the creation of his Baphomet, but it would also be central to his polemics against Catholic writers.
Henry Maret — , for example, a former disciple of Lamennais and one of the most distinguished Catholic apologists, saw the socialist school of the Saint-Simonians as the successors of a tradition that had originated in India before spreading to Egypt and Chaldea and then manifesting in the Greek Mysteries, the doctrine of Pythagoras, and the School of Alexandria with its Gnostic and Neoplatonist protagonists.
For Nerval, see ibid. Milner, Diable, 2, —51, where the parallels to Lamennais and Sand are highlighted. Sapia, , 97— One of the most striking aspects of the Baphomet is its androgynous form. He regarded the emancipation of woman as a prerequisite for the progress of society—a widespread notion in socialist circles—but she was also the one who, in the personiication of Mary, redeemed humanity by her Christ-like suffering and would eventually rehabilitate Lucifer, heralding the inal universal synthesis. Gougenot des Mousseaux, who was known for his notoriously anti-Semitic stance, leveled similar accusations against the Kabbalah.
Gallimard, , — God alone is all in all. The political dimension of these ideas can hardly be overestimated. Then, according to the promise of the Gospel, there will only be one lock and one shepherd [i. Its core elements are represented by the Baphomet. It has already been indicated that he was part of a generation of disillusioned socialists who were excited by the vogue of the tables tournantes in , which eventually led to the emergence of the French Spiritist movement. His sense of superiority can be understood against two backgrounds: Early recipients, such as Blavatsky, were mainly interested in this concept, and, as noted above, the Baphomet is in several ways an embodiment of the Astral Light.
Contrary to occultist perspectives on the Astral Light, and contrary to recent scholarship, it must be stressed that Histoire, Chamuel, , Rezeptions- und diskursgeschichtliche Analysen von der Antike bis zur Neuzeit Berlin: Writing a Religious Past, ed. De Gruyter , Champion, , — It is noteworthy, however, that he had already come into contact with it in the s and maybe even the s. Discussions of magnetism were omnipresent in the Romantic literature that he had devoured, for example in the works of Lamartine, Gautier, Nerval, Sand or Hugo.
Slatkine, , — A comprehensive discussion of the role of esotericism for the writings of Balzac can be found in Anne-Marie Baron, Balzac occulte. Werdet, , — For a detailed discussion, see Strube, Sozialismus, — Harvard University Press, , —59, and Lynn R. Wilkinson, The Dream of an Absolute Language: State University of New York Press, , esp. John Warne Monroe, Laboratories of Faith: Cornell University Press, , 64— By arguing that the recent magnetistic approaches were only a rediscovery of ancient magical wisdom, they heralded a future synthesis of science and religion.
Auguste Le Gallois, , Dieu me garde pourtant de formuler ces changements; on me prendrait pour un socialiste tout rouge. Comon, , Fauvelle Le Gallois Paris: Voitelain et Compagnie, , Delaage, Initiation and Delaage, Doctrines. Lesigne, , 21— Dentu, , — La science des esprits.
While they welcomed the new interest in spirituality and the overdue criticism of materialism, they warned of diabolical forces behind the phenomena and urged people to adhere to the Catholic faith in order to avoid being misled by them. Famously, Henri Lacordaire — , one of the most prolif- ic former disciples of Lamennais, had adopted magnetistic theories as early as the late s for his spiritualist apology of Catholicism.
Church authorities faced the dificult task of Strube, Sozialismus, —38; cf. Les Editions du Cerf, , — An obvious point of attack was the Baphomet and the heretical tradition it represented. He simply denied the existence of the devil altogether: Satan is the personiication of all errors, all perversities, and consequently also of all weaknesses.
Vrayet et Surcy, , Plon, , 45, —61, 37, —28, 45; cf. Henri Plon, , xxiv—xxv. This becomes especially clear in the following passage: Let us say now, for the ediication of the vulgar, for the satisfaction of Monsieur le Comte de Mirville, for the justiication of Bodin the demonomaniac, for the great- est glory of the Church, which has persecuted the Templars, burnt the magicians, excommunicated the Freemasons, etc.
Yes, in our profound conviction, the grand masters of the Order of the Temple have adored the Baphomet and they have made their initiates adore him…; but the adorers of this sign do not think like us that it is the representation of the devil, but rather that of the god Pan, the god of our schools of modern philosophy, the Ibid. Obviously, his statement about the Baphomet and the tradition behind it is marked by a curious ambiguousness, which might appear puzzling if taken out of context.
In the s, Freemasonry had become a gathering point for the opposition, and the salons of Fauvety turned into an important platform for this process. The reader will have noted the absence of Medieval and Early Modern sources in this article. His concept of the Astral Light, which was so central to his drawing of the Baphomet, can only be understood against the background of the s. It is curious that the School of Alexandria became the focal point not only of debates about the history of Freemasonry, but also about the origins of Christianity, the history of Gnosticism, and the develop- ment of socialism, which supposedly ranked among the most recent heirs of either the tradition of error or that of truth.
This shows the preoccupation of contemporaries with the origin and the future of religion, which often man- ifested as a belief in the primitive unity of all religions and its restoration in a future synthesis. Its Doctrine and Ritual, trans. Arthur Edward Waite London: Redway, , xi—xiii. The monstrous igure of the Baphomet is an embodiment of all those aspects: Bibliography Andrews, Naomi Judith. The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy.
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Tableau historique, analytique et critique des sciences occultes. Du Potet de Sevennoy, Jules. Pommeret et Moreau, Voitelain et Compagnie, De la vie future au point de vue socialiste. Librairie de la Renaissance, Fauvety, Charles, and Alphonse-Louis Constant. Auguste Le Gallois, Sa formation et la chronologie de ses oeuvres. Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques. Histoire de la magie en France. Foulon et Compagnie, Gougenot des Mousseaux, Roger. Essais de sciences maudites, vol. La clef de la magie noire. Der Wilhelmsbader Freimaurer-Konvent von Frankfurt am Main et al.: Esotericism and the Academy.
Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a product review. Get to Know Us. Delivery and Returns see our delivery rates and policies thinking of returning an item? See our Returns Policy. Visit our Help Pages. Audible Download Audio Books. We know that occult beliefs and practices became widespread in the later Middle Ages, but there is much about the phenomenon that we do not understand. For instance, how deeply did occult beliefs penetrate courtly culture and what exactly did those in positions of power hope to gain by interacting with the occult? Ryan examines the interest in astrology in the Iberian kingdom of Aragon, where ideas about magic and the occult were deeply intertwined with notions of power, authority, and providence.
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