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| Friday, September 26th, 2008 | 1:30 pm
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| | Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 | 3:54 am
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| 3:48 am
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| | Friday, August 8th, 2008 | 1:44 am
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MA Renaissance Studies Option: Magic, Science and Religion in the Renaissance This module investigates the relations between some of the major intellectual currents in Early Modern Europe, the complex interplay between its various kinds of magic, science and religion. The course calls into question conventional forms of historiography that contrast a benighted illicit magic to either a pious religiosity or enlightened science and helps the student develop a familiarity with the theories and practices of those engaged in what has been called “the Other Side of the Scientific Revolution”. The course considers the boundaries of acceptable knowledge and the particular communicability of its forms in Renaissance and Reformation Europe. Discussing the works of significant early modern thinkers (including Agrippa, Bacon, Browne, Copernicus, Dee, Della Porta, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, and Reuchlin), it will look at the interaction between magical, religious, and humanist discourse, the relations between ‘occult’ and ‘scientific’ forms of knowledge and natural and supernatural forms of experience and agency. By the end of the course the student will have considered ‘occult’ subjects as astrology, alchemy, cabala, natural and ceremonial magic, as well as works traditionally associated with the Scientific Revolution (such as Copernicus’s De Revolutionibus and Kepler’s De Harmonia Mundi) in the context of contemporary religious belief.
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/eh/staff/ForshawPeter/MSR
nice reading list follows | | Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 | 10:41 am
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| | Sunday, July 6th, 2008 | 5:01 pm
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| | Monday, June 30th, 2008 | 3:37 pm
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| | Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 | 11:33 pm
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copied from a hermetic_group post by wjk_ouroboros 2:06p The Circle of Arte - two Talks in Europe William Kiesel, the publisher and editor of Ouroboros Press, will be giving two talks in the coming weeks. The first will be at Treadwells Bookshop in London [Covent Garden] March 19th and the second will be at the University of Amsterdam on March 25 as part of the Conference "Emblems, Magic, and Hidden Knowledge" along with several other scholars of Western Esotericism. The same talk will be given at both events [see description below]. LONDON March 19th 19 March 2008 (Wednesday) “The Circle of Arte”: Magic Circles in the Western Grimoire Tradition William Kiesel (Ouroboros Press) 7.15 for 7.30pm start £5 34 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB http://www.treadwells-london.com/default.aspFor almost a thousand years, magic circles have been depicted in popular books of magic and witchcraft, as well as in high magic grimoires such as the Clavicula Salomonis Regis or Liber Juratus. Tonight’s talk will explore the varieties, forms and functions of “the circle of arte” in this long tradition. Our speaker will draw upon the evidence from historical texts and manuscripts: illustrations, sketches, descriptions, instructions, and ritual rubrics from grimoires. He will also consider the circle’s role in providing authority and protection to the operator, and tell us about its uses in such activities as divination and treasure finding. See what some of the oddest and rarest magical grimoires say about “the Circle of Arte”, and you will never see it quite the same way again. William Kiesel is the publisher and editor of Ouroboros Press. He works with translators of Arabic, Latin, German and Romanian to provide fine and deluxe editions of rare magical texts to the English-speaking world, most notably grimoires and alchemical works. Of grimoires, he is currently working on a second volume of the Picatrix, and has already published the Heptameron and the first volume of the Picatrix. He lives in the United States and is speaking at Treadwell’s during a brief visit to London. AMSTERDAM March 25th Workshop on "Emblems, Magic, and Hidden Knowledge" 25 March 2008 On March 25, a conference on "Emblems, Magic, and Hidden Knowledge" will be held for students as well as independent and established scholars, in collaboration with the department History of Hermetic Philosophy (GHF, Religious Studies) of the University of Amsterdam. Particular emphasis will lie on the role of imagery and emblems in magic and alchemy, and in pursuits and conceptions of (hidden) knowledge; however, questions related more generally to the study of Western esotericism and its methodology will also be addressed. The full program may be seen at the website for the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism: http://www.esswe.org/agenda_detail.php?agenda_id=49 | | Saturday, February 16th, 2008 | 4:18 pm
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| | Monday, February 11th, 2008 | 9:38 pm
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green alchemy conference Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology": a one-day symposium featuring Zia Inayat-Khan, Peter Lamborn Wilson and Christopher Bamford Saturday, March 1, 10am–5:30pm New York Open Center 83 Spring Street, NY, NY 10012 Ph: 212.219.2527 Members: $100 / Nonmembers: $110 "Hermeticism, or alchemy, is the primordial science of nature by which human beings in all times and places have sought to unite Heaven and Earth—divinity, cosmos, earth and humanity—for the sake of the world. At once sacred cosmology and spiritual practice, art and science, it has accompanied each religious epoch and every revelation from India and China to the Abrahamic traditions of the West. Nevertheless, in the revival of spiritual traditions and practices, hermeticism and alchemy—like Nature herself—have been largely ignored. Green Hermeticism proposes that it is time to explore not only our ancient masters’ “inner” sciences, but also their sciences of Nature, in order to recover a healthy, truly holistic way of healing our relationship to nature, the Earth and the heavens. Pir Zia Inayat-Khan will introduce the topic and speak about the cosmology, angelology and practices of Sufi hermeticism. Peter Lamborn Wilson will speak about hermeticism in art, language and magic, and propose practical applications such as the creation of astrological gardens. Christopher Bamford will address hermeticism as the paradigm for a new eco-spirituality. Co-sponsored with Seven Pillars: A Contemporary House of Wisdom, http://www.seven-pillars.org/"Christopher Bamford, editor of SteinerBooks and Lindisfarne Books, is a writer and scholar of Western esotericism, esoteric Christianity and Anthroposophy. He is the author of, most recently, An Endless Trace: The Passionate Pursuit of Wisdom in the West. Pir Zia Inayat-Khan is the spiritual leader of the Sufi Order International, a mystical and ecumenical fellowship rooted in the visionary legacy of his grandfather, Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan. Pir Zia is Founder of Seven Pillars: A Contemporary House of Wisdom and holds a Doctoral degree in Religion from Duke University. Peter Lamborn Wilson is a poet-scholar of Sufism and Western Hermeticism and a well-known radical anarchist social thinker. He is the author of, among others, Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam and Escape from the Nineteenth Century." Registration info: http://www.opencenter.org/content/view/1504 | 6:48 pm
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| | Thursday, February 7th, 2008 | 7:43 pm
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| | Friday, February 1st, 2008 | 1:57 pm
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| | Thursday, January 31st, 2008 | 4:23 pm
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| | Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 | 9:08 pm
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| | Sunday, January 13th, 2008 | 1:19 am
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| | Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 | 12:10 am
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some alchemical latin
Pseudo Avicenna de anima 125-26
Modo dicam tibi, ut cognoscas aurum cuiusmodi sit. Primum in solutione, secundum in lapide, tertium in pondere, quartum in ore, ut gustes, quintum in igne, sextum in sublimatione, septimum in fusione. Et in unoquoque eorum est magisterium temptandi. Si vis scire cuius naturae sit aurum, funde cum salibus, & si solvetur, est de magisterio: Et si vis eum tentare in lapide si est de quinto, aut de sexto, aut de octavo, aut de medietate, aut de tertio: aut de quarto, secundum quod est judicabis. Et si vis temptare ad pondus, vide si est leve aut ponderatum magis alio: & si est, est de lapide, si ustineat omnes alias tentationes. Si vis tentare ad ignem, iacta in ignem. Si permenebit in colore suo, est aurum: sin autem, est falsum aurum. Et tenta in sublimatione pulverizatum cum aliis speciebus: Si sublimatur, ita quod ante non fiat calx, nec lavatur. Et si facias eum pulverem, & projicias in aludel, & Sublimetur: scies quod est de nostro auro. Et in fusione est magna scientia: quia quando fundis debes videre si ferveat, aut si non ferveat. Si ferveat, est de nostro lapide, & in gustu potes cognoscere salsum, & extragi. | | Saturday, January 5th, 2008 | 2:02 pm
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thoughts on reading list and curriculum (for next time I teach the class)
when I first taught this class to grad students, I trusted them in such a way that I basically handed them the roob hermetic museum, linden alchemy reader and abraham dictionary of alchemical symbols and said "have fun." I filled this site with links to more texts and images, and gave them a reader with a few scholarly articles, but other than that mostly I just mentioned texts in lecture. next time I think I'll have a more scheduled regimen of primary and secondary sources. (i'm open to suggestions, btw, if anyone can think of good introductory stuff I haven't covered enough)
Allison Coudert's book on Alchemy: The Philosopher's Stone still speaks to me as one of the most useful introductory texts. It's easy to read, sensitive to the spiritual and symbolic dimensions, and scholarly enough given the genre. The alchemy chapter of Naomi Janowitz's "Icons of Power" is another striking example of a "first start" type read which does a nice concise job of citing classical academic sources one should know about.
In the first couple weeks I want to have students read at least the beginning and end of Principe and Newman's "Alchemy Tried in the Fire," and ideally have a reader consisting of the ten or so most important articles by those two. Newman and Principe are the most important scholars working on the project of rescuing alchemy from the idea that it's all just spiritual nonsense grafted onto chemical nonsense. While there are many good historians disentangling the personalities and texts involved, few others in their generation have been able to demonstrate the solid chemical basis of alchemy, showing the true nature of the empirical traditions involved. They are careful to emphasize--if a bit overeager in their denunciations of Jung and his initiates--that they are not reductively ruling out religious and symbolical resonances when they call attention to the chemical foundation, although they don't really get into the non-hard-science stuff. Their careful, detailed, and authoratative studies of characters like Boyle and Starkey are of course invaluable, though difficult to connect directly with the visual stuff.
From a stricter Semiotickal p.o.v. I want to give students Ursula Szulakowska's book on the Alchemy of Light, which treats of the optical-theological side of Dee, Maier and Khunrath, opening up some important doors. M.E. Warlick's work should serve to whet the appetites of those students interested in serious Art History. Barbara Obrist's article (available online) is also very readable and interesting (at least for grad-level beginners); I wish her french book on the "Debuts" of alchemical imagery would get translated into english. Stanton Linden's "Darke Hieroglyphicks" should serve as a sufficient text on literary uses of Alchemy.
Allan Debus' "The Chemical Philosophy" and his books on the French and English Paracelsians, as well as the works of Bruce Moran should serve as readings during the series of lectures on 16th-18th century alchemical developments. Tilton's "Quest for the Phoenix" book on Maier would be a nice supplement to the recommended reading list here.
If I were teaching undergrads I guess I would put together a reader with bite-sized excerpts of the above |
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