SUGGESTION: Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture by Wouter J. Hanegraa
This volume makes one aware of the effect of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics on our understanding of the domain of religion. Essential reading for a lesser-known aspect of Christian history.
Amazon blurb: [quote]Academics tend to look on 'esoteric', 'occult' or 'magical' beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the Renaissance have tried to come to terms with a cluster of 'pagan' ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion and Greek rationality. Expelled from the academy on the basis of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics, these traditions have come to be perceived as the Other by which academics define their identity to the present day. Hanegraaff grounds his discussion in a meticulous study of primary and secondary sources, taking the reader on an exciting intellectual voyage from the fifteenth century to the present day and asking what implications the forgotten history of exclusion has for established textbook narratives of religion, philosophy and science.
Vote at Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture by Wouter J. Hanegraaff | Logos
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
Comments
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Don't you sleep?
I really don't know what to do with this book (assuming the blurb). I agree, there's a big hole, but I would place the edge around the time of the catholic church (not referring to the Roman), and the takeover by a non-jewish hellenists. First west, followed by east.
So, it's extremely hard to read Ezekiel in an eastern perspective, instead over-laying the Enlightenment. Hard to read the gospels, that demons really did prowl the day, and special knowledge of incantations were demanded. That Simon the Sourcerer was a major issue for the church. Or that here in the western US, much remains from medieval techniques to battle the esoteric.
But I suppose Logos does need more in medieval times. Yesterday, I was reading that the medieval was not so bothered by questions ... life was a known and magic included.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I had to read a similar book to this called The Enlightenment and religion The myths of modernity by S. J. Barnett. This book questions the standard perspective of the Enlightenment, arguing that it was significantly less deistic, secular, and anti-Christian than previously imagined. He supports reducing traditional estimates of the number and importance of deists and atheists, as well as highlighting the numerous Christian sources of enlightened thought, ranging from dissenting Christians in England to Jansenists in France. Overall, Barnett's theory is well-argued and appealing, but he does overstate his case at times. It was undeniably true, for example, that deists wielded intellectual power well beyond their numbers. Nonetheless, Barnett's work deserves serious consideration since it identifies significant, sometimes enormous faults in prior conceptions of the birth of modernity.
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I need to check Barnett out - sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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I ran into my quote again, derived from Jung (Jordon Peterson):
"Even if the medieval individual was not in all cases tenderly and completely enraptured by his religious beliefs (he was a great believer in hell, for example), he was certainly not plagued by the plethora of rational doubts and moral uncertainties that beset his modern counterpart. Religion for the pre-experimental mind was not so much a matter of faith as a matter of fact ... "
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Happy to share open access https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/35013 Yay.
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Thank you
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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