Hermes Trismegistos und heutige (westliche) Esoterik

Wouter Hanegraaff / Peter Forshaw / Marco Pasi (eds.):

Hermes Explains

Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism

Amsterdam University Press 2019, 336 pp., indices
ISBN 978-9463720205

 

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See also: 

Wouter Hanegraaff, Joyce Pijnenburg (eds):
Hermes in the Academy
Ten Years‘ Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam University press 2009, 168 pp.
See more >>> here

Further Informations:

Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism: A Transcultural Approach book cover  Aaron French: Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism. A Transcultural Approach.
London: Routledge 2025, 208 pp., illustr. — ISBN 9781032566382
Verlagsinformation >>> — Inhaltsverzeichnis & Leseprobe >>>

  • Christian H. Bull: The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus – The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom.
    Leiden: Brill 2018, XVI+532 pp., indices
  • Christoph Elsas: Mystik in der Globalisierung.
    Diskurs und Traditionen der Chaldäischen Orakel im Kontext heutiger Religionsbegegnung. 
    Rückfragen an Zarathustra, Gnosis, Platonismus und Augustin mit Übersetzung der Orakelfragmente und erläuternder Texte des Christen Psellos und des Hellenisten Numenios
    Berlin: EB Verlag 2017, 432 S., reiches Literaturverzeichnis, Register  — Ausführliche Rezension >


Information of the publisher
Few fields of academic research are surrounded by so many misunderstandings and misconceptions as the study of Western esotericism. For twenty years now, the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (University of Amsterdam) has been at the forefront of international scholarship in this domain. This anniversary volume seeks to make the modern study of Western esotericism more widely known beyond specialist circles, while addressing a range of misconceptions, biases, and prejudices that still tend to surround it. Thirty major scholars in the field respond to questions about a wide range of unfamiliar ideas, traditions, practices, problems, and personalities that are central to the field. By challenging many taken-for-granted assumptions about religion, science, philosophy, and the arts, this volume demonstrates why the modern study of esotericism leads us to reconsider much that we thought we knew about the story of Western culture.
>>> Wouter Hanegraaff is Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam.
>>> Peter J. Forshaw is Associate Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period at the University of Amsterdam.
>>>Marco Pasi is Associate Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Modern and Contemporary Period at the University of Amsterdam.
 
Inhalt / Table of Contents 
 
Introduction: 9 
 
Thirty red pills from Hermes Trismegistos

Aren’t we living in a disenchanted world? 13 

 
Egil Asprem: Esotericism, that’s for white folks, right? 21 
 
Justine M. Bakker: Surely
modern art is not occult? It is modern! 29 
 
Tessel M. Bauduin: Is it true that secret societies are trying to control the world? 39 
 
Henrik Bogdan: Numbers are meant for counting, right? 47 
 
Jean-Pierre Brach: Wasn’t Hermes a prophet of Christianity who lived long before Christ? 54 
 
Roelof van den Broek: Weren’t early Christians up against a gnostic religion? 61 
 
Dylan M. Burns: There’s not much room for women in esotericism, right? 70 
 
Allison P. Coudert: The imagination… You mean fantasy, right? 80 
 
Antoine Faivre
Weren’t medieval monks afraid of demons? 88 
 
Claire Fanger: What does popular fiction have to do with the occult? 95 
 
Christine Ferguson: Isn’t alchemy a spiritual tradition? 105 
 
Peter J. Forshaw: Music? What does that have to do with esotericism? 113 
 
Joscelyn Godwin: Why all that satanist stuff in heavy metal? 120 
 
Kennet Granholm: Religion can’t be a joke, right? 127 
 
J. Christian Gree: Isn’t esotericism irrational? 137 
 
Olav Hammer: Rejected knowledge… 
So you mean that esotericists are the losers of history? 145 


Wouter J. Hanegraaff: The kind of stuff Madonna talks about – that’s not real kabbala, is it? 153


Boaz Huss: Shouldn’t evil cults that worship satan be illegal? 161 
 
Massimo Introvigne: Is occultism a product of capitalism? 168 
 
Andreas B. Kilcher: Can superhero comics really transmit esoteric knowledge? 177 
 
Jeffrey J. Kripal: Are kabbalistic meditations all about ecstasy? 184 
 
John MacMurphy: Isn’t India the home of spiritual wisdom? 191 
 
Mriganka Mukhopadhyay: If people believe in magic,
isn’t that just because they aren’t educated? 198 
 
Bernd-Christian Otto: But what does esotericism have to do with sex? 207 
 
Marco Pasi: Is there such a thing as Islamic esotericism? 216 
 
Mark Sedgwick: Doesn’t occultism lead straight to fascism? 225 
 
Julian Strube: A man who never died, angels falling from the sky… 
What is that Enoch stuff all about?  232
 
György E. Szönyi: Is there any room for women in Jewish kabbalah? 243 
 
Elliot R. Wolfson: Surely born-again Christianity has nothing to do
with occult stuff like alchemy? 252 
 
Mike A. Zuber: Bibliography 261 
Contributors to this volume 305 
Index of Persons 309 — Index of Subjects 317