Announcements | Heterodoxology

The Problem of Disenchantment – invitation to a PhD defence

Last autumn I completed my PhD dissertation, and now it’s time to defend it. The defence is public, and will take place on February 5, 2013, at 12:00 in the Agnietenkapel of the University of Amsterdam. The event is open to anyone (with a max. capacity of 90 people), and I will give a short public lecture on the topic of my research prior to defending it in front of the committee.

While I have given hints about my research in a number of posts here at Heterodoxology, I am now happy to present an official abstract of the final product – the dissertation itself:

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on January 9, 2013 at 12:02 pm Comments (9)
Tags: Agnietenkapel, Aleister Crowley, Anthroposophy, Egil Asprem, Max Weber, natural theology, New Age science, open-ended naturalism, parapsychology, PhD defence, The Problem of Disenchantment, Theosophy

Two conferences in June, 2013: CESNUR and ESSWE4

This June will be a busy conference month, as often is the case. This year, as last August (EASR and Contemporary Esotericism), Sweden is the place to be for big international events having to do with (“alternative”) religion and esotericism. Two big conferences are planned, and it is still possible to submit proposals for both of them – although not for very long. Below is the information you need.

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on January 7, 2013 at 1:16 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: CESNUR, ESSWE

Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens – a Webinar with Peter Forshaw

Ever wondered what those enigmatic emblems in Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens (1617) are all about? Well, you could do much worse than watching Peter Forshaw speak about it in the latest BPH webinar. Peter places Maier in the context of 16th and 17th century alchemy, emblematics, the Rosicrucian furore, early printing culture, and the broader political contexts of both continental Europe and England at the time. He also takes the time to go through a few of the 50 emblems in the book.

For the book itself, there is a transcription of an English translation of the original Latin available at the Levity website.

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on December 5, 2012 at 11:33 am Comments (2)
Tags: Atalanta Fugiens, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, emblems, Michael Maier, Peter Forshaw, Rosicrucianism

A tour of the BPH with its founder, Joost Ritman

In the spirit of its new policy of openness (“Hermetically open”), the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica has posted a video on its YouTube channel that contains a 53-minute tour of the library’s collection, given by the founder Joost Ritman himself. This gives an excellent opportunity for non-Amsterdammers to have a peak at what the BPH looks like, and what the collection contains. But more than that, it gives an interesting insight into the mind of Ritman himself. As he guides online viewers through parts of his collection, we get to know quite a bit about how Ritman conceives of his collection, what it means to him, and what he has been trying to achieve with the library from the beginning. Worth checking out if you are curious about this legendary library and its founder.

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on November 27, 2012 at 6:34 pm Comments (1)
Tags: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Joost Ritman, Rosicrucianism

“Correspondences” – Launching a new journal for esotericism research

The rumour already broke yesterday on Twitter and Facebook (a bit earlier than planned, I think), that a new journal is being launched: Correspondences: An Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism.

This is an innovative initiative in several respects. By being all online and open access, it aims to provide “a wider forum of debate regarding issues and currents in Western esotericism than has previously been possible”. Furthermore, however, it also aims to mobilize a currently unused demographic potential in the study of esotericism:

Correspondences is committed to publishing work of a high academic standard as determined by a peer-review process, but does not require academic credentials as prerequisite for publication. Students and non-affiliated academics are encouraged to join established scholars in submitting insightful, well-researched articles that offer new ideas, positions, or information to the field.

In other words, it is a refreshing initiative that aims to be true to some of the most basic ideals of academic/scientific scholarship: that knowledge is available to everyone (thus must also be free), and that it is produced by a rigid application of “organized scepticism”, a communal, critical practice that is embodied by the peer-review process and otherwise blind to social, institutional, geographic, or political background. (Yes, I am echoing old Merton’s CUDOS here). In the the field of esotericism, I think these are very good norms to hold on to, and I am hopeful that this journal may establish itself as a nice and fresh competitor to already existing journals (e.g. Aries), catering to a somewhat different, expanded demographic, and allowing for a much more flexible and up-to-date exchange by being web-based, open, and free.

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on November 24, 2012 at 3:18 pm Comments (6)
Tags: Aren Roukema, Aries (journal), Correspondences (journal), CUDOS, Jimmy Elwing, open access, Robert Merton

W. J. Hanegraaff on Arguing with Angels

Wouter Hanegraaff has typed up a nice little review of my book, Arguing with Angels, over at his Creative Reading blog. He has many kind words, but I am first of all pleased that there are some very good observations about what I attempted to achieve in it: first to expel some common myths in the historiography of Dee reception, and secondly to highlight the “authenticity problem” struggled with in modern and contemporary ritual magic in general, and Enochian magic in particular. Wouter’s observations even point out wider connections that I did not explore explicitly in the book – namely that the authenticity dilemma finds similar responses in Western religious history more broadly, as prototypically expressed in the camps variously emphasising scripture, tradition, or personal experience during and following the Christian Reformation. (Incidentally, I recently explored these themes in an article on (neo)shamanism that is still to appear in a Norwegian journal – that one, in turn, influenced by Wouter’s own work. The non-vicious, beneficent spirals of academia.)

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on November 22, 2012 at 10:57 pm Comments (3)
Tags: authenticity problem, automatic writing, channelling, Donald Laycock, Enochian magic, glossolalia, John Dee, linguistics, mesmeric trance, Protestant reformation, Runar Karlsen, seances

PhD opportunities in Amsterdam (deadline February 2013)

Some readers of this blog may be interested to know that there are currently PhD vacancies at the University of Amsterdam, in the Institute for Culture and History (ICG). These are not in the “History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents“-subdepartment (GHF) per se (we just appointed two new candidates for our regular positions); instead they are open vacancies in the humanities, meaning that the best research proposals will be employed for a period of 3-4 years. It would nevertheless be a good opportunity for anyone hoping to do a PhD on an esotericism-related subject. Or any other subject in the humanities, for that matter: Amsterdam really is a nice place to do your PhD, in a vibrant international environment, and with a decent salary on top of that. (The latter really matters in a day and age where people go into heavy debt only to find a status as “overqualified” and “unemployable” on the other side of the PhD defence.)

Deadline is February 1. Find guidelines and details on how to apply here.

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Announcements

on November 19, 2012 at 1:55 pm Comments (1)
Tags: GHF, ICG, PhD opportunities, University of Amsterdam

Art is dead, again

Tonight, the dead walk (again) in Amsterdam West.

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Announcements

on November 16, 2012 at 1:58 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: Art is dead, Cryptic, esotericism and art, Sapphire Dice

More books for modern heterodoxologists

Inspired by my colleague Asbjørn Dyrendal’s recent spur of book blogging (i.e. this, this and this), I will further bring to the attention three recent collective volumes on themes that should be relevant to many readers of this blog. While some are more groundbreaking than others, they are all important contributions to their fields, namely: NRM studies, Satanism studies, and the academic study of Aleister Crowley.

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on November 16, 2012 at 12:42 pm Comments (1)
Tags: Aleister Crowley, Church of Satan, dianetics, Henrik Bogdan, Jesper Aa. Petersen, Jihadism, L. Ron Hubbard, Martin P. Starr, Mikael Rothstein, neo-Sufism, Olav Hammer, Paganism, Per Faxneld, Satanism, Wicca

“Fernando Pessoa and Western esotericism”, a public lecture by Marco Pasi

Curious about the relationship between modern literature and Western esotericism? On December 7, my colleague Dr. Marco Pasi will be giving a public lecture in Amsterdam, on his ongoing research into Fernando Pessoa’s intricate but little understood engagement with esotericism. Marco has been working on this for some time, and co-organised (with Jerónimo Pizarro) an international and interdisciplinary workshop on the subject earlier this year. The upcoming Amsterdam lecture is open to the public, and entirely free of charge. For an abstract and more information, see below – or download this flyer.