The Secret History of Western Esotericism.
https://shwep.net/podcast/so-what-is-western-esotericism-anyway/
This is podcast zero of 132 and growing, that I am going to start listening to. I've nothing much to say as yet. If you're interested enough to listen to the first one, perhaps you will want to comment - or not.
I just mention that Plato and Newton were interested, and that remnants of the tradition are extant in Freemasonry, Theosophy, and such ubiquitous details as the number of days in a week.
This is podcast zero of 132 and growing, that I am going to start listening to. I've nothing much to say as yet. If you're interested enough to listen to the first one, perhaps you will want to comment - or not.
I just mention that Plato and Newton were interested, and that remnants of the tradition are extant in Freemasonry, Theosophy, and such ubiquitous details as the number of days in a week.
Comments (68)
Luna(cy)! I tell you luna(cy)!
Since there are [math]\approx[/math] 365 days in a year, ignoring the [math]\frac{1}{4}[/math], a week should have 5 days! (5 goes into 365)
Please don't let it be the work days! :cool:
6 is what they call a perfect number as its proper factors added is 6: 1 + 2 + 3 = 6
Add day 0 and 7 days you have.
Day0: He woke up Moon
Day1: the heavens Tues
Day2: the light Wednes
Day3: the Earth Thurs
Day4: the life Fri
Day5: the Adam Satur
Day6: Return to rest Sun
I am extremely interested in Western esoteric thinking and wishing to discuss it rather than have to listen to a podcast. Using podcasts uses up most of my mobile data allowance and I don't enjoy podcasts. I am more of a reader. I do read in the esoteric traditions, including theosophy and Hermeticism, alchemy, Rosucucianism and the ancient writers. I also try to keep sceptical and critical in the spirit of philosophical enquiry. One writer who I find very useful for his readable writing on Western esoteric ideas is Gary Lachman, who was also the drummer in the pop band, Blondie.
I am not sure how you wish your thread is develop. A couple of people have put entries in about numbers and this may be important in some ways but I see esotericism as being more about ideas, but how they may go back to writers such as Plotinus. But, I am not sure if you are simply wishing this thread to be about the podcast which you introduced or more of a wider consideration of ideas.
Esoteric thinking?
Dance & Music!
Rhythm & Ratio!
Mathematical universe. Pythagoreanism?
Quoting Jack Cummins
I must admit to skepticism about esoteric philosophical approaches. It seems like most phenomena can be explained based on human psychology. It's also true that many practitioners have been charlatans. Many others have developed their ideas without any disciplined process of study. I would be interested in discussing esotericism from a historical perspective. How did it develop? How does it fit with more traditional philosophies? It seems like there is a relationship between esotericism and eastern philosophies. I'd be interested in understanding that better.
Forgot to mention this. There's a neat program on Netflix called "The Midnight Gospel." It's animated, but the discussion is taken from interviews with interesting people with all sorts of esoteric beliefs. Clever, entertaining, and interesting. Very free-wheeling and funny, but respectful of unusual ideas.
:meh:
...Does this forum have an ignore feature?
No but try this.
@SophistiCat - do you still keep this updated?
You just have to summon the appropriate Demiurge and instruct them to cast a shadow of ignorance in the direction required. but I haven't got to that podcast yet, so I have no details.
If you click on the link, each podcast has a reading list and some notes and the odd link.
Part of the significance that I want to look at or for in the thread discussion is how the perennial new-age spiritual revival relates to recent, particularly right wing, history, from The Nazis to to QAnon. And perhaps in this context, a little health warning is in order. Beware the Glamour!
[quote=Google, channelling Alice Bailey]Glamour -- "Mental illusion when intensified by desire, occurring on the astral plane. ... The emanatory astral reactions which each human being initiates ever surround him and through this fog and mist he looks out upon a distorted world."[/quote]
The curiosity of such a fog is that it manifests as clarity - the deeper one is en-fogged, the more certain one is of the clarity of one's vision. Glamour is the source of all fundamentalism.
Why "should" there be a week of any length? But better numerologists than you, also ignoring the 1/4, choose a year of 364 days and then an extra day that is no day. This gives 13 28day months, each comprising exactly 4 7day weeks. And hence the commonplace tradition of contracts and indentures that were for 'a year and a day' (Also the duration of the voyage of The Owl and the Pussycat).
I am extremely interested that you have read Alice Bailey's book, 'Glamour'. I have read it as well as some other books by her. The argument in her book 'Glamour' is so interesting, especially her observations about politics and the way in which Hitler was influenced by esoteric ideas but got caught up with the lure of glamour.
One other writer who I have read is Benjamin Creme and I managed to get to a lecture by him, his final one before he died. However, some of his ideas are very strange, especially that of the Maitreya being in East London, waiting to emerge to the world. He had been saying this for years as well. It was really after my interest in Creme' s ideas, which were based on the idea of channeling that I came back to reading philosophy as opposed to the direction I had gone into esoteric literature.
My guess is it doesn't, not in any real way anyway.
I've listened to the first 3 episodes, and one of the ideas put forward of the real history of the secret history of Western esotericism is that there isn't one unified movement, group of coherent ideas or linear hermeneutics.
I think there's a word for this - can't think of it right now - but my take is that ideas and concepts get appropriated from one generation to the next, without there necessarily being a continuity in meaning.... But they do carry some weight, an aura (because they do hang somewhere in our memories/culture I guess) which can be used as a means to gain some sway.
That's how I look at most of these phenomena. There's some real desire for answers to the situations people find themselves in, to the state of the world, for political influence maybe... which is a feeling more then something that is already clearly defined. And then this gets filled up with a whatever ideas that sound like they might fit in to create a semblance of coherence to the stories people want to tell themselves.
I do appreciate the more scholarly angle he is taking on the topic, he really does a good job. But I don't know how much I can handle of this particular topic, maybe it really doesn't deserve this much attention.
Quoting Banno
Or, the ways clever folk see through what's gone wrong.
The crap out on the web or in modern day literature is mostly crap despite the opinions of today's Thoth wannabes that claim that the ancient hidden mysteries are now available to us and are no longer hidden like they were for thousands of years prior but what they don't understand is that the "hidden knowledge" that only the initiates were aloud to know is still very hidden from the average person that's not an initiative because the wisdom and understanding that only the chosen initiates were allowed to receive cannot be found in any book written down anywhere it's received metaphysically
These books like the Golden Dawn and crap like that are no more then fantasy novels because the words written in them are worthless
But in today's society their are boy kids running around with quartz crystals thinking that they're playing Harry Potter it's quite embarrassing to see full grown adults doing this smh.
Did you start a podcast @Banno?
I think the charlatanism of a lot of modern western esotericism is related to a western way of thinking (involving capitalism, for instance), projected unto eastern thought. The west interpreting the east in a western way. This doesn't say anything about the actual ideas.
Btw, thanks for the heads up on the podcast. Looking forward to cleverly "getting it wrong" myself. :up:
Time is measured in cycles. - daily cycles, monthly, yearly. From what I know of the history of mathematics - has a lot to do with astronomy (agriculture) - our ancestors had a hard time with calculations that didn't line up perfectly as in the month was not a multiple of the week (7 doesn't go into 30/31) and the year wasn't a multiple of the month (28 doesn't go into [math]365\frac{1}{4}[/math]) and so on. Something to do with irrational numbers (incommensurables).
A week = 10 days
A month = 30 days
A year = 360 days
THEN
3 weeks = 1 month
36 weeks = 1 year
12 months = 1 year
Wouldn't that be great?
Each cycle is a whole number multiple of its subcycle(s).
Quoting Banno
I would appreciate particularly the sceptical response to Episode 5: Methodologies for the Study of Magic. However the warning about glamour particularly applies to the sceptic if they assume a superior position. One of the aspects of magic discussed is that of its normativity - magic as foreign/illegitimate religion. The high priests of science have cast out all the demons? Then why are we not in heaven already?
To quote the podcast:
Sums up pretty nicely why so much shade is being thrown on the subject of esotericism by many. It's a largely misunderstood area of knowledge, which suffers from being corrupted by many iterations of different historical periods of thought.
Magic in itself, to my understanding was once more like a principle rather than a practice. The understanding that the universe operates under certain laws, that there is cause and effect, and that operating these principles in a certain way may lead to a certain desired outcome. But the aspects of philosophical principle and practiced ritual, which followed an entirely different purpose, were eventually merged and resulted in that kind of ritual-magic practiced by Aleister Crowley and alike.
Quoting unenlightened
I think this in part also explains the popularity of the occult amongst authoritive figures. They bought into the idea and believed it to be a potential way to secure their desires and more power. Who knows how deep Hitler himself dove into the occult? The only thing that is clear are the reasons why he did it. He wanted to exploit any possibility that could lead him to his goals.
I think there is much to be gained from inspecting the long culture of esotericism. But as Hermes himself may put it: It is vital to separate the subtle from the gross. Personally I believe, albeit picturesque, works like the Corpus Hermeticum remain surprisingly accurate in their metaphysical descriptions even with the modern insights of science.
I do think he's on to something in identifying "magic" as a prerogative term, where practioners are seen as deviant, yet practtioners of authentic religious rites are seen as holy. Interesting too is that magic isn't denied as folly by its opponents, but is seen as dangerous. That is, magical spells should be avoided because they summon evil spirits, not because they are useless mutterings to powerless entities.
For example, Exodus, chapter 7, Pharoah's magicians replicate God's miracles of creating a snake from a staff and turning water to blood, but, importantly, the magicians powers in chapter 8 are then shown not as powerful as God's. And we read on to learn of the great suffering brought to the Egyptians.
Magic then becomes the way good is distinguished from evil, but it also suggests that any temporary benefit derived from magic will eventually cause great suffering due to its evil origin.
All this seems to be a critical element of Western mythology.
Perhaps you're right, but I don't see eastern philosophies, at least not Taoism as formulated by Lao Tzu, as esoteric at all. As I always say, to me, it's meat and potatoes philosophy.
Episode 7: We’re Together In Dreams: Dreaming and Western Esotericism
Freud is prefigured but not discussed here. Now Freud has reached the nadir of his popularity and is now being allowed a small place in psychological discussion by some. But the connection between dreams and mythology is the explicit foundation on which Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis are built. So the notion that dreams are an esoteric communication (a communication in need of interpretation) should be comprehensible to all of us.
Quoting Noble Dust
That is shaping up to be a major theme of the series from #3 onwards, but if Aryan supremacy was the glamour of the last century leading to a distortion of Greek history I think the glamour for us will be more to do with atheistic superiority.
To further bring home my point, I suppose "esoteric" is a Greek word, and a Western projection unto Eastern thought. It's esoteric to us. But the point remains that we interpret Eastern thought through a Western lens, i.e. your description of Taoism as "meat and potatoes philosophy".
Isn't that the world we live in?
I leave this Here for those who prefer text, to introduce #11 of the podcast, https://shwep.net/podcast/the-long-secret-history-of-judaism-part-i/
I'll comment or not later.
Quoting Noble Dust
Just so!
Very droll.
I listened to the first two, with intent. The others might become part of the ritual of putting on a podcast at bedtime and hearing only the first few minutes.
I should skip to episode 5?
Don't make me come down to NY and lay some Tao upside your head.
I haven't checked, but my guess is that it'll be #150 - #200 before we get to the time when Chinese philosophy had any significant impact on the West. Where we are at the moment is Classical Greece and the oriental influences are Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, and Judea. The Near East, not the Far East. Lao Tzu was contemporaneous give or take a few centuries, but the influence can only have been very tenuous and indirect gossip along a precursor of the silk road.
Only read the cover page to the linked to episode but, in case it’s of interest: From my multicultural studies I’ve so far gathered that “magick” is commonly understood amongst modern practitioners (e.g., self-labeled neopagans, witches) as simply being the ability to conform reality (more properly, aspects of it) to one’s will. Hence, if one’s will is to blow one’s nose, one’s being capable of so doing and then so enacting would be a proper, and quite technical, instantiation of magick. Obviously by this, it's deemed commonplace, if not utterly pivotal, to the ordinary occurrence of will-endowed-beings and, by the extension of such interpretation, the world itself can be deemed to be magical (shit and all). From this pov it’s esoteric only in that most people don’t consciously realize they engage in it 24/7. And then it’s considered both “a science and an art” whose details haven’t yet been adequately figured out with any semblance of precision.
TMK, it’s taboo typically applies to monotheistic folk who deem that everything should be done via God’s will: hence magic only via prayer to God who is then the agent that does the deed—this rather than via a spellcasting wherein the spellcaster proclaims “so mote/may it be (this in accordance to one’s own will as agent who does the deed)”. As with most anything in life, those who deem themselves to practice magick affirm that it too can be intended for either good or bad, this depending on the practitioner’s intents. But I reckon the same can be said for prayers as well—which tmk can sometimes take the form of curses upon others.
As to the skepticism, well, causal determinism and physicalism tend to contradict any ontic ability to conform aspects of reality to one’s will, either because everything is deemed to be predetermined in full or because no such thing as the will is deemed to hold ontic reality (instead being deemed illusory).
Mentioning this in attempts to demystify the notion of magic as it is held by modern folk who don’t use the term as a derision - as per magical thinking and such.
(P.s. Me? I too will sometimes blow a runny nose but I don’t make much of it.)
It's a demon exiting your body! Or perhaps not, though it is a curious historical quirk, originating from superstitious beliefs, that we utter "bless you" when someone sneezes. So as protect the devil from taking the sneezers soul, or so was believed during plague times. In french it's "À vos souhaits". Germans have "gesundheit". Further back, in antiquity, the phrase was "Que Jupiter te conserve!"("may Jupiter keep you!"), or simply "salve" ("health").
If one believed in magic, one might say these phrases are magical incantations. But I don't make much of it either.
However, it dawned on me that there are (at least) two reasons why some things are kept under wraps:
1. It's meant only for special people (experienced, wise, good, faithful, and so on).
2. Persecution! Many movements, I'm told, went underground when they were targeted for extermination.
I'm afraid esotericism and the secrecy surrounding it has nothing to do with 1 and all to do with 2. :sad: Disappointing, oui?
Ok, there's two meanings put forward of the word/concept magic, first order and second order.
The first order meaning revolves around ingroup-outgroup perspectives being taking on some sets of rituals, where in-group rituals are seen as legitimate and out-group rituals as illegitimate, magic... i.e. magic used as a political term. I totally buy that this distinction isn't really justified from a more objective point of view one would want to take on the matter. The fact that some subset of rituals is deemed illegimate however, on the basis of some political/objectively unjustified criterium, doesn't really make one want to re-evaluate the excluded rituals, if one doesn't believe in religious ritual to begin with, legitimate or otherwise,. Put another way, If one is an atheist, it doesn't really matter if it's magic or legitimate religious ritual... both seem equally unpalatable.
Looking for a second order meaning, a more objective meaning one could use as a scholar, seems a lot more difficult. One gets something that remains nebulous at best, as the podcast-host has to admit. It's a word that could denote something like rituals that seek to elicit some effect, maybe or maybe not in connection with the will. So for the skeptic there doesn't seem a whole lot to go on there.
I will say, I do think the practice of rituals, or rather the omission of ritual in Western Philosophy for the most part, is something that does interest me. That's something that is lacking in Western philosophy, which tends to focus on mind/pure thought (forgetting the body). This does get a whole lot more attention in eastern philosophy (rites, meditation, etc.). So I do think this is an important topic, but I would rather want to explore it from a psychological/physiological naturalist point of view, rather than from a magical supra-natural point of view... if that makes sense.
The esoteric as whatever Western philosophy neglects or denies, is almost a tautology. But I wonder how a naturalist account of the supernatural, or a rational account of the irrational can possibly work. I'll have to wait and see I suppose...
I'm sure a lot of magic is like that.
Quoting unenlightened
Yeah I did and do wonder about that tension too. I'd say at this point in time we did arrive at the conclusion, via reason/empirical data, that the irrational, myth/stories are important for us humans. That's to say the idea that we should be perfectly rational beings was by itself not a very reasonable or scientifically justified conclusion.
The question still remains, how does one deal with the irrational with reason? The answer is, I suppose, one doesn't... one recognizes that ones reason isn't suited for everything and leaves some space for exploration of the irrational via arts, music, practicing rituals etc... Isn't this precisely the problem with the magical or esoteric, that one is still trying to use an essentially rational methodology to things that aren't really suited for it? What I mean is that one is looking at these things as if they have a "literal" meaning, instead of metaphorical meanings.
Without going off topic I am afraid that I do get messages saying, 'Data warning' and that I have used too much data, especially when I have logged into links. Perhaps, Big Brother is watching me and sees my interests as subversive, like the Illuminati 'all seeing eye'!
Such reactions to sneezes are customary, traditional, and so don’t imply much in terms of magical thinking. But humans are brimming with magical thinking even when they don’t believe in it when asked. Intently talking or else yelling at a TV screen as though one can alter the results of a game by so doing is a common enough example, one that can be enacted by theists and atheist alike. Or else the cursing of an inanimate object when one can’t accomplish what one wants with it; the talking to drivers of other cars that cannot possibly hear you, this when they drive in manners that displease; I’ve seen such magical thinking based behavior enacted by atheists often enough.
I think that is a false question. Reason declares her other to be irrational, and then deals with her accordingly. Nor is the question of belief important. Think of the golden amulet worn on a particular finger by married folks. No supernatural belief is required for a wedding ring to be important and significant, and those who've not been initiated into the mysteries of marriage cannot really understand, because they have not experienced.
#8, and #9 discuss esoteric orientalism.
#10 is about the beginnings of astronomy/astrology
#11 introduces Judaism
I listened through 0-2 and enjoyed it. I skipped through, looking at episode topics, and it looks like he still hasn't made it out of late antiquity on episode 137 or whatever? I was a little bummed; I was hoping for some in depth episodes on more recent iterations, or even someone pre-renaissance like Bohme.
#13 & #14 on mysticism.
These are particularly useful efforts at disambiguation - #13 and #14 really good. And then we arrive at #15 The birth of philosophy, which turns out to be a messy affair and saturated with the body-fluids of religion mythology cults and initiations.
#16 Pythagoras. As you have never seen him, devoid of mathematics and the interpretation of Plato and later commentators.
But seriously, I think even the episodes I have heard already offer a new understanding of modern esoteric revivals, and also the rather bowdlerised history of philosophy that dismisses all this as "irrational".
And what is true of alcohol, is even more so true of hallucinogens like LSD. The more so because prior beliefs and social setting so radically alter the experience, from heavenly to hellish, and from life-changing to rather dull, from a sense of unity with the world, to total paranoia. I describe, but only initiates will 'be able to relate to' what I say.
Moral knowledge is esoteric knowledge.
The Shadow is hidden in moral knowledge.
Why do you say that? Consider the 10 commandments - an explicit enumeration of the dimensions of the shadow, surely?
Perhaps I need to explain my own aphorism. Moral knowledge is esoteric because it requires an initiation, which is described in the OT as 'The Fall'. It means nothing to the uninitiated, who think it must be a species of desire or some such.
The uninitiated state in Genesis is a child-like state where there's no shame for nakedness. The initiation is an exit from this paradise to work, drudgery, pain, murder, and a hope for an always distant redemption and return.
In the older Sumerian version of the story, the uninitiated is a guy who thinks he's an animal. He is brought into a state of limbo by the holy temple whore. He leaves limbo when he learns to eat city food: bread and wine (in some versions). The initiatory meal also establishes Abraham as a priest of the True Religion, and obviously this is also the Last Supper.
Limbo is a fascinating aspect of initiation, where the young man is no longer a child, but not yet an adult.
Clearly, I'll have to listen to this. But in reading (not all that much, really) about Hermes Trismegistus and works attributed to him, it seems they're inconsistent in some respects, and very busy, if you know what I mean. There are all sorts of beings involved, some of whom were, it seems according to one account stuffed into humans as a kind of punishment. It gets a bit confusing. Esoteric knowledge by its nature may be available only to those with skill who have studied deeply confusing matters, but I wonder if it's worth the effort.
I think philosophy is incapable of addressing spiritual matters and that they are more in the realm of art. Mysticism or esotericism is interesting to me to the extent they may address those matters, but one hopes for something simpler. Or at least I do. I think it's difficult to say with any certainty what took place in the ceremonies and rituals of the ancient mystery religions (particularly in the case of Mithraism, which I find fascinating) and I wonder if they were less complicated than they've been made out to be by those who claim to interpret them.
Now back when I was at ninnyversity (early 70's), Plato was presented as the founder of the philosophical method as it is here celebrated. Dialogue, argumentation, logic, and a healthy scepticism for ancient authority and tradition, religion, and anything remotely 'esoteric.
This view was clearly skewed and partial. But not only that, it was modern and novel at the time, and fashion has since moved on, or back, to a more complete and complex view.
The discussion of the divided line story in The Republic, for example, comes in the Republic just at the point in the text of the golden ratio. And the description of the divided line is such as to define the golden ratio. But the ratio is not mentioned.
And then there is Atlantis, a myth originating with Plato as far as is known, that surely ought to make more sense than it does. And, and, and ...
So at the least, there is much weirdness and many things alluded to but not spelled out, but left to the reader to work out.
I am staying esoteric in these comments as instructed, and just leaving a breadcrumb trail of my progress, but feel free to make comments out of sync with me.
The golden ratio is irrational. This was a heavily guarded secret for Pythagoreans. They would burn me alive or something like that for revealing it.
Those of us that were brought up with some kind of view of Jews and Judaism as a homogeneous single lineage with a single unchanging monotheistic religion, will find some surprises. This episode can pretty much stand alone and gives some background to early Christianity as (yet another) Jewish sect with odd beliefs and practices, and charts a strong interaction of Judaism (and thus Christianity) with Greek religion.
We live in a social world of constructed meaning, and and meaning is made of ritual. This is a really good episode, that speaks to various debates we have here about knowledge as social construct, language as social construct, performativity and the intersection of race and gender with ritual and magic.
Certificates displayed on walls, passports, are objects imbued with real magical power; written incantations. There is a huge amount to think about in this episode - highly commended.
Honorable mention:
Pierre Hadot's Veil of Isis