Under a familiarly sounding name, but with a twist worthy of notice, a new blog focusing on the academic study of Western esotericism has just been released. That doesn’t happen too often, so I found it worthy of a nod.
Heteropraxis is owned and hosted by Francisco Santos Silva at the University of Lisbon. Francisco earned his PhD from the University of Manchester on a dissertation about MacGregor Mathers’ translations of magical grimoires – particularly the Key of Solomon – and their influence on the Golden Dawn and wider occultist, pagan, and new religious practices in the west. I’m currently reading it with some interest. At the present he’s researching the notion of occult properties in early Portuguese medicine. A bit of a leap from Victorian ritual magic, but nevertheless another field of great interest for scholars of esotericism (and no doubt readers of this blog from the history of science crowd). What he will focus on in his blog, we’ll still have to find out. So: Check it out.
Thanks so much for that Egil!