Sedan 1948 Avenue de Stalingrad
A Historical Introduction
Oxford University Press, 2008
Baksida:
“Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s introduction to the Western esoteric traditions shows the sure hand of an accomplished scholar at his peak. Everything is here, from ancient Alexandria to the present day, with the main schools and personalities, continuities and changes, all clearly drawn. This book has something for everyone. For the beginner, it is an authoritative introduction; for the expert, everything is put surely and clearly in its proper place, and perplexing gaps are filled. Goodrick-Clarke shows quite what the present day is heir to, and how. We see, for example, who Paracelsus and the Rusicrucians once mattered and still do matter – even if the Rosicrucians never really existed. After one reads The Western Esoteric Traditions, nothing will ever again seem quite the same.”
Mark Sedgwick, author of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century
“In a field so often blighted by dubious claims and speculations, it is a pleasure to find a scholarly guide as responsible and experienced as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who leads the reader so expertly through the worlds of the occult, magical and esoteric.”
Philip Jenkins, author of Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History
“The cumulative result of decades of serious research is that Western esotericism has finally been recognized as a significant field of study. This new maturity is reflected in Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s concise, accessible survey of Western esotericism. Goodrick-Clarke’s volume should prove especially useful as a textbook, both for graduate and undergraduate courses.”
James R. Lewis, editor of The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements and author of Legitimating New Religions
Fram- och bakflapp:
Western esotericism has now emerged as an academic study in its own right, combining spirituality with an empirical observation of the natural world while also relating the humanity to the universe through a harmonious celestial order. This introduction to the Western esoteric traditions offers a concise overview of their historical development.Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke explores these traditions, from their roots in Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, and Gnosticism in the early Christian era up to their reverberations in today’s scientific paradigms. While the study of Western esotericism is usually confined to the history of ideas, Goodrick-Clarke examines the phenomenon much more broadly. He demonstrates that, far from being a strictly intellectual movement, the spread of esotericism owes a great deal to geopolitics and globalization. In Hellenistic culture, for example, the empire of Alexander the Great, which stretched across Egypt and Western Asia to provinces in India, facilitated a mixing of Eastern and Western cultures. As the Greeks absorbed ideas from Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia, they gave rise to the first esoteric movements.From the late sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, post-Reformation spirituality found expression in theosophy, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. Similarly, in the modern era, dissatisfaction with the hegemony of science in Western culture and a lack of faith in traditional Christianity led thinkers like Madame Blavatsky to look East for spiritual inspiration. Goodrick-Clarke further examines Modern esoteric thought in the light of new scientific and medical paradigms along with the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. This book traces the complete history of these movements and is the definitive account of Western esotericism.
JOB:s kommentar:
Alla dessa bristfälliga riktningar och rörelser som, tröttsamt, blev vad de blev, blev så ofullkomliga, skeva och ofta felaktiga som de blev, till helt övervägande del p.g.a. det oavlåtliga trycket från den i stor utsträckning av den världsliga makten som ordningsinstrument etablerade exoabrahamitiska ortodoxins literalistiska dogmatik med dess i andliga och sofiska termer otolkbara myter.
Att bara hela tiden hålla denna enda avgörande omständighet i minnet vid deras studium. Den förutan skulle antingen de österländska traditionerna ha spridits i västerlandet redan under antiken (såsom var på väg att ske), eller motsvarande insikter och praktiker där nåtts fram till dem förutan.
