目錄: |
CONTENTS
Foreword by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke Vll
Preface Xl
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ESOTERICISM?
Some Scholarly Views 2
Religious Pluralism and the 'Esoteric Ficld ofDiscourse' 6
CHAPTER 2
ESOTERICISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 12
Philosophical Religion, Religious Philosophy 12
Hermetism: The Founding ofa Tradition 18
What is 'Gnosis'? 23
Transmission into the Middle Ages 26
CHAPTER 3
THE KABBALAH: UNDERSTANDING THE HIDDEN
IN THE REVEALED 31
Prehistory: Hekhalot Mysticism and Esoteric Biblical Exegesis 31
The Classical Kabbalah: From Southern France to Israel 35
CHAPTER 4
THE RENAISSANCE: RE-INVENTING THE ANCIENT WORLD 44
Esotericism in the Middle Ages 45
The Birth ofModern Esotericism 49
CHAPTER 5
ESOTERICISM IN THE CONFESSIONAL AGE 62
The Mysteries ofNature: Magia naturalis 62
Kabbalah and Occult Philosophy 70
Complex Identities 81
Apocalypticism, Alchemy and Natural Science in Protestantism 94
vi WESTERN ESOTERICISM
CHAPTER 6
ESOTERICISM, ENLIGHTENMENT AND SCIENCE 99
The Battle for the Spiritual World 100
Natural Science in the Nineteenth Century 104
CHAPTER 7
INSTITUTIONALISED ESOTERICISM: SECRET SOCIETIES 113
Rosicrucians or In the Beginning was a Fiction 113
Freemasons or The Power ofMystery 116
Magical Orders or Egypt in England 118
CHAPTER 8
PIONEER OF MODERN ESOTERICISM:
THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 122
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: The Sphinx ofthe West 122
Ascended Masters and Mundane Squabbles 128
CHAPTER 9
ESOTERIClSM AND MODERNITY 133
Modernity and its Discontents 133
And the 'New Age'? 140
Bibliography 147
Index 162 |