Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism

«It was explained to Ballard that a group of Highly Evolved Beings ‘work ceaselessly helping the humanity of our earth to become Perfected men and women, and enable them to manifest in their outer lives the same great Perfection and Dominion as did Jesus Christ’. Humanity had ‘manifested Perfection in every way’ in ages past, but subsequently ‘man became sense-conscious, instead of God-conscious’. Now is the time of entering a New Dispensation, which will allow more rapid progress. America will be the heart center of the approaching “Golden Age”» — Jean-François Mayer, en la entrada «I AM Activity», expone la doctrina del movimiento como algo dictado a Ballard y no razonado por él: un grupo de Seres Altamente Evolucionados trabaja para que la humanidad manifieste la perfección de Cristo, perfección que ya se poseyó y se perdió cuando el hombre se volvió consciente de los sentidos en lugar de consciente de Dios. Mayer acota la originalidad del sistema —lo llama síntesis de teosofía, Christian Science, Unity y AMORC— y atribuye la práctica de los decretos en parte al New Thought, siguiendo a Melton

«In addition to the idea of the stars being either the material cause or the representation of physiological events, “astrological medicine” was founded on yet a third conception, which may seem highly elusive from a metaphysical point of view, but which is indeed crucial for the topic in question. This conception, based both on hermetic works of a religious nature (Poimandres and Asclepius are the most obvious examples) and on astrological works, states the existence of a so-called “control relation” between the stars and the earth, i.e. the dependence of earthly events on heavenly events, in the same way as in the sphere of politics the subjects’ actions depend on the monarch’s» — G. Zanier, en «Iatromathematica», ordena la medicina astrológica en tres supuestos y aquí enuncia el que considera decisivo aunque metafísicamente elusivo: una relación de CONTROL entre astros y tierra que no es causalidad material ni coordinación semiológica, sino subordinación a una autoridad superior, calcada del vocabulario político. Lo deriva de obras herméticas religiosas y de la literatura astrológica. El límite es que es uno de tres supuestos, y el platónico lo contradice en parte: los astros no serían causa de los sucesos sublunares sino signo de ellos

«The education of the “new man” was not an end in itself, but was supposed to train staff for a “moral regime”, which was to be secretly introduced within existing states. The political goal of the Illuminaten was thus not open revolution, but rather the hidden infiltration of the various forms of authority and institutions of the Ancien Régime in the age of the late Enlightenment» — Monika Neugebauer-Wölk sostiene que el aparato de vigilancia interna de los Illuminaten no era un fin pedagógico sino una fábrica de cuadros: formar una legión moralmente superior para instalar un régimen moral dentro de los Estados existentes. De ahí extrae la tesis política que le da su carácter a la orden — no revolución abierta, sino infiltración oculta de las instituciones del Antiguo Régimen. El límite que ella misma pone es que el horizonte es generacional y desemboca en una utopía anarquizante todavía patriarcal, no en un programa de acción inmediata

«the grade of Magus or Philosophus, and as the supreme and last revelation of the Order, the grade of Docetist. With this explicit reference to Docetism, the founder of the Illuminaten placed his Order in the tradition of Gnostic heresy [> Gnosticism]. The text of the supreme mystery-grade shows Weishaupt to be the agent of a rigorously abstract, enlightened form of esotericism» — contra la lectura de los Illuminaten como orden meramente racionalista, Neugebauer-Wölk señala que Weishaupt coronó su sistema con el grado de Docetista, y que esa referencia explícita al docetismo inscribe deliberadamente a la orden en la tradición de la herejía gnóstica. Su punto no es la contradicción sino la coexistencia, apoyada en la lectura de Martin Mulsow. La ambigüedad es de la fuente misma —la orden purgó después las ciencias mágicas— y no debe resolverse hacia ninguno de los dos lados

«Thus arose the term “Swedish Box” for the most significant Illuminaten archive. In 1880, following a request from Gotha, the Swedish Box returned to Germany and was incorporated in the lodge archive. Including the papers of Duke Ernst, the material was collected in twenty uniform volumes. In 1935 it was confiscated in the context of a nationwide suppression of Freemasonry by the National Socialist regime in Germany. After an “Abteilung fiir Grundlagenforschung” was established in 1939 in the Reich Security Main Office, the Gotha documents were also evaluated from a National Socialist ideological standpoint in the 1941 habilitation thesis of Alfred RofSberg (1904-1943), supervised by Gunther Franz (1902-1992), professor of history at Jena, SS historian, and scholarly adviser of the Berlin Forschungsstelle. As the war progressed, the Swedish Box was stored in Silesia, where it was confiscated by the Red Army and transferred to the Soviet Union. In the 1950s the estate of Bode with the masonic materials returned from Moscow to Germany and thus arrived at the Zentrales Staatsarchiv of the German Democratic Republic (This collection comprised volumes 1-9, 11-20 of the Swedish Box; the tenth volume remained in Moscow). In 1975 a start was made in cataloguing the archive in Merseburg, but access to its contents was too restricted for scholarly study» — Neugebauer-Wölk explica por qué la investigación sobre los Illuminaten llegó tarde, y la explicación es archivística: la «Swedish Box» con los papeles de Bode vuelve a Alemania en 1880, es confiscada en 1935 en la supresión nazi de la masonería, evaluada ideológicamente por la Reichssicherheitshauptamt, pasa al Ejército Rojo y regresa mutilada a la RDA. Consigna así una tesis de método — el estado del corpus, no la escasez de fuentes, explica el estado del campo

«During the first few years of their existence, the Illuminés concentrated on their alchemical work. We know that, at least according to Antoine Pernety, the aim was to cure mankind of its diseases rather than to make gold. However, the Great Work did not produce the expected results. As early as 1780, La Sainte Parole began to utter mysterious millenarian statements about the advent of ‘the new heaven and the new earth’» — Jan A.M. Snoek fija el propósito del Gran Trabajo de los Illuminés d'Avignon y de dónde lo toma: al menos según Antoine Pernety, el fin era curar a la humanidad de sus enfermedades, no hacer oro. La cadena que arma es causal — el fracaso alquímico precede y provoca el giro milenarista, que a su vez ordena el éxodo de Berlín. El límite es explícito: la atribución del fin curativo es de segunda mano, y el propio oráculo resultó ser Johann Daniel Müller, identificado recién por Breymayer

«Criticism of a Cartesian or post-Cartesian reliance on natural intelligence goes together, in the very heart of Illuminism, with a desire to make good use of reason; but far more than a merely natural human capacity, “reason” for them included a spiritual dimension, as formulated by > Karl von Eckartshausen (1752-1803): “The inner eye is reason. However, this inner eye must be clarified by the divine light’» — Christine Bergé, en «Illuminism», niega que el iluminismo sea antirracionalista: en su centro la crítica a la confianza cartesiana en la inteligencia natural convive con la voluntad de usar bien la razón. Lo que cambia no es el aprecio por la razón sino su definición, y lo prueba con la fórmula de Eckartshausen — el ojo interior es la razón, pero debe ser aclarado por la luz divina. Ella presenta el iluminismo como movimiento de transición en una sociedad que se seculariza, no como doctrina estable

«This mystic, a great reader of the biblical commentaries of Madame Guyon, put forth in his Philosophie divine (1793) a theory of the “Astral”, populated by beings described as ‘neither angels nor demons’. Nevertheless, the quietists were averse against a concentration on spiritual “marvels” (‘Neither prophecies nor miracles are any proof of adoption or holiness’, wrote Dutoit), and “visions” were considered diabolical tricks» — Bergé sitúa el origen quietista del iluminismo: Dutoit-Membrini, lector de Madame Guyon, formula en su *Philosophie divine* una teoría del «Astral» poblado por seres que no son ni ángeles ni demonios. El límite viene pegado en la misma frase y es lo que impide leer a estos quietistas como cazadores de prodigios — aborrecían la concentración en las maravillas espirituales y tenían las visiones por engaños diabólicos

«His life took a tragic turn when his fiancée Sophie von Kiihn died in 1795. Love prematurely interrupted became the keystone of his mystical quest: ‘this flame consumes little by little that which is earthly in me’, he wrote to his friend Friedrich Schlegel. From then on, his life became rather like an incarnated I[lluminist myth, in which the resurrected Christ took on the contours of an alchemical metaphor. To survive death, for Novalis, is possible only by making life divine. Novalis met the German philosopher Fichte, studied under the dramatist Schiller at Jena, and met Schelling at the end of the 1790s. For this universal spirit, knowledge was “one”: in a network of correspondences, poetry, religion, chemistry, and philosophy were combined» — Bergé explica la obra de Novalis por una biografía convertida en doctrina: la muerte de Sophie von Kühn hace del amor interrumpido la clave de su búsqueda, y el Cristo resucitado adopta los contornos de una metáfora alquímica. De esa premisa deriva la unidad del saber que le atribuye — poesía, religión, química y filosofía como una sola cosa en una red de correspondencias. El pasaje es lectura interpretativa de Bergé, no cita de Novalis

«al-Kindi’s theory of rays, the imagination plays an important role in explaining magical effects. According to al-Kindi every thing in the machina mundana has a center that, like the stars, sends out rays. The human imagination also sends out such rays, by means of which it can imprint forms into matter; as a result, man is able to exert a strong influence on matter. According to > Avicenna, as well, the soul has significant power over matter, which is subject to it. The soul, if properly cleansed of bodily impurities, can function like a mirror that receives the astral powers and reflect them on to the environment. Whatever is present in the imagination, it can transmit to matter, thereby becoming a dator formarum. By virtue of the imagination, the soul can also cure illnesses or produce rain and fertility, as well as natural disasters or epidemics. The magus can use the powers of the soul to act at distance, thus becoming like an earthly god» — Marieke J.E. van den Doel y Wouter J. Hanegraaff, en «Imagination», explican por qué la imaginación pasa de facultad cognitiva a operador mágico: en la teoría de los rayos de al-Kindi todo lo que hay en la machina mundana emite rayos como los astros, y la imaginación humana también, con lo que puede imprimir formas en la materia. Avicena refuerza lo mismo por otra vía, el alma purificada como espejo que refleja los poderes astrales sobre el entorno. Es transmisión, no invención: el material llega por traducción y desemboca en Ficino

«Gianfrancesco Pico was the first to call attention to the shift of meaning that had taken place from the Greek phantasia, literally meaning “sense impression”, to the Latin translation imaginatio, which refers rather to a faculty of the soul. Like Ficino, Gianfrancesco Pico tends to unite all the inner senses under the heading of “imaginatio”. Our imagination depends on the bodily temperaments, on our perceptions of things, on our faculty of judgment, and on the influence of demons or angels» — atribuyen a Gianfrancesco Pico un hallazgo filológico con consecuencias doctrinales: fue el primero en advertir el desplazamiento del griego *phantasia*, impresión sensorial, al latín *imaginatio*, que ya nombra una facultad del alma. De ahí que unifique como Ficino todos los sentidos interiores bajo imaginatio. Y de ahí el límite, que está en la misma frase y es lo que su tratado quiere marcar: esa imaginación no es autónoma, depende de los temperamentos corporales, del juicio y de la influencia de demonios o ángeles

«He went beyond them, however, in presenting the imagination as not just a human faculty but a fundamental cosmic power of creation, crucially connected with will and desire. Using a strongly organic and sexualized language — replete with images of conception, generation, birth and incarnation — Paracelsus describes how the soul, spurned by desire, uses the power of the imagination to create images, which are, quite literally, the “bodily” incarnations of thought» — el corte que abre la sección «The Creative Imagination»: Paracelso hereda entero el repertorio previo y lo excede al presentar la imaginación ya no como facultad humana sino como poder cósmico de creación, atado a la voluntad y al deseo, en un lenguaje orgánico y sexualizado de concepción, generación y parto. Los autores ponen un límite fuerte en la misma página — rechazan la imagen de Paracelso como genio independiente, que marcan como herencia ideológica del Tercer Reich, y lo declaran en deuda con el neoplatonismo florentino

«Its function ‘lies in keeping unhappy bedfellows apart’ (Luhrmann 1989, 276) and allowing the magician to “live in two worlds” while avoiding cognitive dissonance: the rules that apply in the disenchanted world of the senses simply do not apply in the world of the imagination, and the reverse (cf. Hanegraaff 2003). Moreover, since there is no meta-level with rules that apply to both levels, there is no basis for denying the world of the imagination a “reality” at least equal to that of the world of the senses» — con Tanya Luhrmann, explican por qué funciona el plano mágico que la Golden Dawn instituyó con la proyección astral: su papel es mantener separados a los compañeros de cama incómodos, permitiendo al mago vivir en dos mundos sin disonancia cognitiva. Y de ahí la consecuencia que hace estable el arreglo — como no hay meta-nivel con reglas comunes a ambos, no queda base para negarle al mundo de la imaginación una realidad al menos igual a la del sensible. Es explicación de la legitimación de la magia en un mundo desencantado, no tesis sobre la existencia de ese plano

«It may be useful, however, to emphasize that the distinction between good angels and bad demons is Jewish and Christian: in Antiquity, demons were thought to be both beneficent and harmful» — Roelof van den Broek, en «Intermediary Beings I: Antiquity», pone la corrección que gobierna su entrada: el reparto entre ángeles buenos y demonios malos no es dato de la Antigüedad sino decisión judía y cristiana; en la Antigüedad los daimones se pensaban tanto benéficos como dañinos. Declara que adopta esas rúbricas por comodidad expositiva, siguiendo el corpus de Colpe y Michl, y deja fuera de ellas a los seres que son atributos personificados de la divinidad

«In Matthew 18:10, Jesus says of the little children that ‘they have their (guardian) angels in heaven, who look continually on the face of my heavenly Father’, and in Acts 12:15, the disciples, who cannot believe that Peter is knocking on the door, assume: ‘It must be his angel’. This idea of a heavenly counterpart of each individual was still held in the 3rd-century Jewish-Christian community in Mesopotamia in which > Mani grew up: he twice received an appearance of his heavenly twin» — van den Broek reconstruye el ángel de la guarda como idea de doble celeste antes que de protector: la interpretación pitagórica del daimon personal se cruza con el eidolon y con el alma preexistente, y el judaísmo saca de ahí un ángel que vive en el cielo y se PARECE a la persona asignada — en el Talmud se lo nombra con el préstamo griego *iqonin*, imagen. Sobre esa base lee Mateo 18:10 y Hechos 12:15, y muestra la continuidad hasta la comunidad judeocristiana en que creció Mani. Es nota de filiación de la idea, no de doctrina eclesial

«If celestial beings such as angels, the Virgin, and the souls of the elect could be communicated with both in ways that were institutionally sanctioned and ways that were not, the same is true for other beings, such as demons and the ghosts of the ordinary dead. The similarity between necromantic formulae of conjuration and exorcistic practices by which both demons and ghosts might be commanded has already been noted. There was similarity too in the ways that information passed between demons and living persons through both licit and illicit modes of exorcism. In compilations of necromantic experiments, demons might be called upon for a variety of purposes, but very commonly they were summoned because the conjuror wished to derive information about something hidden, such as the location of stolen goods or buried treasure, or the outcome of some personal matter which was in doubt» — Claire Fanger, en «Intermediary Beings II: Middle Ages», sostiene que la frontera medieval entre práctica lícita e ilícita no corre por el tipo de ser invocado sino por el modo de comunicación, y lo extiende de los seres celestes a los demonios y a los fantasmas. La prueba que aduce es de contenido: en las compilaciones nigrománticas se convoca a los demonios sobre todo para averiguar algo oculto. Su límite metodológico va dicho antes — las categorías católico/no católico e institucional/extrainstitucional son fluidas y permeables

«Already found in the earlier documents of Jewish > gnosticism, and often referred to as the Sar ha-Panim (Prince of the Countenance), that is “head of the angels who stand before the divine Face”, Metatron nevertheless possesses an ambiguous status. Sometimes identified with Enoch (Gen. 5:21-24), or with the angel who spoke to Moses on several occasions (Exod. 23: 21), he is occasionnally (even in Jewish sources) considered almost identical with the Godhead, as the “lesser Adonai” (in accordance with his name being written with or without a iod). Present in the works of most important Christian kabbalists (Pico, - Reuchlin, > Giorgio, Rici, > Postel, > Knorr von Rosenroth), where he is frequently equated with the Active Intellect of medieval sholastics, he appears in his traditional role of guide into the divine presence, being simultaneously perceived as the penultimate rung of the cosmological ladder, and the uppermost spiritual intermediary in the contemplative ascent of the soul. In a way, albeit definitely an angelic being in most respects, he is perhaps even more representative of an exalted function (but a dual one, both cognitive and ontological) than of a singular entity, as stated by Giorgio (De harmonia mundi, I, 5, VI)» — Jean-Pierre Brach, en «Intermediary Beings III: Renaissance», explica la irrupción de Metatrón en la literatura esotérica moderna por su ambigüedad y no a pesar de ella: *Sar ha-Panim* en las fuentes judías, identificado unas veces con Enoc y otras con el ángel que habló a Moisés, y a veces tenido por casi idéntico a la divinidad. Los cabalistas cristianos lo equiparan al Intelecto Agente. El límite lo pone Brach apoyado en Giorgio: Metatrón es más representativo de una función exaltada que de una entidad singular

«Elemental spirits (nymphs, elves, gnomes and salamanders) were believed to live each in one of the four elements (water, air, earth, and fire respectively) and consequently share its nature. Their existence is explained by the fact that the material elements, for Paracelsus, are not the real ones but only the outward appearance of the true, immaterial ones. Whereas man is conceived of as a synthesis of the whole universe, these spirits are only related to the element they inhabit; and, being devoid of a soul, so that they have never sinned, unlike man they will neither be granted eternal life nor damnation. Accordingly, following Paracelsus, they have nothing in common with demons (except for a serious taste for practical jokes), who are fallen angels and therefore damned» — Brach expone la doctrina paracelsiana de los elementales como consecuencia de una tesis sobre la materia: los elementos materiales son la apariencia externa de los verdaderos e inmateriales, y por eso hay seres ligados cada uno a un solo elemento. De ahí las dos diferencias que importan — frente al hombre, síntesis del universo entero, estos espíritus se relacionan solo con su elemento; y al carecer de alma nunca han pecado, así que no recibirán vida eterna ni condenación, y nada tienen en común con los demonios, que son ángeles caídos

«Similar ideas about vast supra-human hierarchies of spiritual beings with god-like powers have become a staple of occultist theory and practice since the later roth century. As has been demonstrated by scholars such as Godwin, Deveney, Mathiesen and others, they were deliberately put in opposition against what occultists considered the more timid and intellectually inferior perspective of the spiritualists. It is clear that the higher beings had entirely taken over the place formerly reserved for the Christian God. While a single Divine Source is usually mentioned as the ultimate origin of all reality and the final goal of spiritual evolution, this is a non-personal God who does not intervene in human affairs; for all intents and purposes, it is to the spiritual hierarchies that man has to look for any kind of spiritual assistance he may need» — Wouter J. Hanegraaff, en «Intermediary Beings IV», sostiene que las jerarquías supra-humanas de los ocultistas del XIX no son adorno cosmológico sino reemplazo teológico: ocuparon por entero el lugar antes reservado a Dios. Lo deriva de la polémica —se erigieron contra la visión que juzgaban tímida de los espiritistas— y de la estructura resultante, donde la Fuente Divina es un Dios impersonal que no interviene. Añade enseguida que las actitudes hacia el cristianismo en esos medios variaron muchísimo, de Anna Kingsford a la Thelema de Crowley

«Of particular interest is the claim that it is possible to channel one’s own “higher self”. Here we encounter a line of development that has important roots in the “communication with the Holy Guardian Angel” highlighted by the > Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where this “Angel” was frequently interpreted as being in fact the operator’s true higher self» — Hanegraaff traza la genealogía de la entidad canalizada más rara del repertorio New Age, el propio yo superior, hasta la comunicación con el Santo Ángel Guardián de la Golden Dawn, donde ese Ángel se interpretaba con frecuencia como el verdadero yo superior del operador. La consecuencia que extrae es la psicologización, con Jung como influencia mayor. El límite que marca de inmediato es que eso NO se entiende en sentido reduccionista: en un contexto de sacralización de la psicología, distinguir entidades reales de imaginadas pasa a ser el error

«These approaches imply serious methodological problems due to our lack of adequate sources on the Jewish side: we possess neither first hand evidence of any Jewish-Gnostic system comparable to those preserved in the Nag Hammadi library, nor anything in the Jewish context that could be compared to the attacks the Church fathers launched against their Gnostic enemies. The most important corpus of Jewish texts roughly contemporaneous with Gnosticism is Rabbinic literature, but the Rabbis almost never attack their enemies explicitly, nor do they adopt foreign ideas in a way which makes them easy to discern. Therefore an undeniable gap exists between the Gnostic sources and the Jewish ones» — Reimund Leicht, en «Jewish Influences I: Antiquity», explica por qué la hipótesis del origen judío del gnosticismo no puede cerrarse: tras Nag Hammadi muchos textos parecían apoyarse en tradiciones judías no mediadas por canales cristianos, pero la evidencia es asimétrica — no hay del lado judío un sistema judeo-gnóstico comparable ni nada equiparable a los ataques de los Padres. De ahí su conclusión de que existe una brecha innegable. Y lo consigna como afirmación suya: que se escrutaran igual las fuentes judías se debe a una presunción previa de origen judío

«Models of direct borrowing from one side by the other and the assumption of common sources have to be supplemented by models which allow parallel though genealogically independent developments and influences mediated through other sources, such as magical literature (Alexander). Also, a distinction must be made between phenomenological and historical parallels (Dan). + Magic has always been seen as an important melting pot for Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and Pagan ideas in late antiquity. Recent studies on Jewish and Greek magical texts have indeed brought to light a number of striking parallels (e.g. Sperber, Veltri, Schafer/Shaked). Moreover, more and more evidence for close contacts between Jewish and Christian magic comes to light. The specifically Gnostic character of most of the Greek magical texts, however, is no longer generally accepted (cf. Brashear), so that the textual basis for Jewish-Gnostic studies is rather limited here as well» — Leicht propone el remedio metodológico a esa brecha: sumar a los modelos de préstamo directo y fuente común otros que admitan desarrollos paralelos genealógicamente independientes e influencias mediadas por terceros, y distinguir paralelos fenomenológicos de históricos. La magia parecía el crisol ideal. El límite es lo que hace honesta la propuesta — el propio crisol falla como base textual, porque el carácter gnóstico de la mayoría de los papiros mágicos griegos ya no se acepta

«The notion that the appearance of the Christian Kabbalah in late-15th century Florence is one of Christian mystics discovering Jewish > mysticism is completely erroneous. The Florentine humanists were not mystics, and what they discovered in the Hebrew sources that they studied was not mysticism. They were looking into many directions in search of ancient secrets: the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the enigmatic Hermetic treatises [> Hermetic Literature], and many other places, and within this framework they also became interested — sometimes intensely so — in Jewish ancient traditions known as “kabbalah”. The emphasis on a particular aspect of this vast tradition — that of the writings of the Jewish kabbalists concerning the divine world — occurred much later, and was never an exclusive one» — Joseph Dan desarma el nombre de su propia entrada: llamar «cábala cristiana» al proyecto florentino sugiere algo mucho más estrecho de lo que esos autores hicieron, que fue adoptar el conjunto de la creatividad hebrea post-bíblica usando «kabbalah» en su sentido hebreo amplio de tradición recibida. De ahí la afirmación frontal: la idea de que unos místicos cristianos descubrieron la mística judía es errónea, porque los humanistas no eran místicos y lo que hallaron no era mística. El énfasis en el mundo divino llegó mucho después y nunca fue exclusivo

«This “breaking of the vessels”, which caused numerous divine sparks to be scattered, captive of the evil powers and yearning to be saved, is especially reminiscent of ancient gnostic myths. The most influential Lurianic concept which was integrated in European thought was the zimzum, the primordial withdrawal of God into Himself before the beginning of the positive processes of emanation and creation. This concept came to be interpreted mainly in a philosophical manner, and the possibilities for speculations of a gnostic type were neglected» — Dan mide la recepción cristiana del luranismo por lo que no pasó: la *shevirah* es lo más cercano a los mitos gnósticos antiguos y sin embargo los eruditos cristianos absorbieron muy poco de ella; el único concepto luriánico que sí se integró fue el *zimzum*, y se lo interpretó en clave sobre todo filosófica, dejando de lado sus posibilidades gnósticas. La ausencia de gnosticismo en la cábala cristiana no es falta de material sino elección de lectura

«Knowledge of the Kabbalah came from secondary sources such as the Enlightenment’s histories of philosophy and encyclopaedias, but also from the writings of > Giordano Bruno, > Paracelsus, > Robert Fludd, and > Jakob Boehme. The aesthetic paradigm of the Kabbalah in Romanticism was a secular reinterpretation of the languagetheory of early modern Kabbalah. The older theological, philosophical, and nature-mystical language-theorems of Christian Kabbalah were understood as aesthetic parameters. The language of the Kabbalah was no longer seen as a metaphysical model, but as the paradigm and metaphor of a poetical language» — Andreas B. Kilcher describe la operación romántica sobre la cábala como secularización de su teoría del lenguaje: los teoremas lingüísticos teológicos y místico-naturales pasan a leerse como parámetros estéticos, y la lengua de la cábala deja de ser modelo metafísico para volverse paradigma de una lengua poética. El límite que el pasaje pone y que es su premisa: esa configuración no descansaba en conocimiento directo de las fuentes judías ni casi en la cábala cristiana renacentista, sino en fuentes secundarias — historias de la filosofía y enciclopedias ilustradas, Bruno, Paracelso, Fludd, Boehme

«A central role in the Golden Dawn tradition in this regard is played by the sefirotic “tree of life”, understood as a system of correspondences that can be used not only to understand the structure of the universe but also as a basic tool for magical/spiritual practice. One typical ritual, for example, as transmitted by Israel Regardie in his edition of the Golden Dawn rituals, requires the operator to stand in front of a man-high picture of the tree, and imagine how ‘the universal energy’ flows down from sefirot to sefirot and thus through all the corresponding parts of his own body; this practice can be expanded e.g. by making use of the sounds and colours that are believed to correspond to each of the sefirot. One sees here how the sefirotic system is put to entirely new uses in the context of a strongly psychologized spirituality. Typical of the Golden Dawn approach and its later derivations is that “kabbalah” is almost completely reduced to the symbolism of the Tree» — Hanegraaff, en «Jewish Influences V: Occultist Kabbalah», define qué es el Árbol de la Vida en la tradición Golden Dawn: un sistema de correspondencias que sirve no solo para entender la estructura del universo sino como herramienta básica de práctica mágico-espiritual. Lo demuestra con el ritual que transmite Regardie, y de ahí extrae que el sistema sefirótico queda al servicio de una espiritualidad fuertemente psicologizada. El límite es la afirmación más dura del pasaje — lo típico de este enfoque es que la cábala se reduce casi por completo al simbolismo del Árbol

«One of Jung’s first works that displays most vividly his privileged relationship with esotericism is Septem sermones ad mortuos (Seven sermons to the dead, 1916), a text of poetic character that borrows the language of gnosticism (the principal speaker is > Basilides of Alexandria). This textprogram, unique in its genre among the published works of Jung, sets forth an esoteric anthropology, cosmology, and theology, and calls upon various gnostic images (the Pleroma, the god Abraxas as demiurge), but also on elements borrowed from different oriental and European traditions, notably from Jacob Boehme’s thought, such as the myth of Sophia and the status of the principle of evil (Lucifer). Typical of Jung’s eclecticism, the Sermons present in cryptic form the ensemble of themes which would structure both his clinical work and his religious thought. In the same vein were his private journals written during these years (the “Black Book” and the “Red Book”, 1913-1916), to which he consigned his inner experience, notably the dialogue with his “inner master” whom he christened Philemon. These texts from the first period of Jung’s work constituted the esoteric facet of his thought, of which the clinical and hermeneutic works were therefore the exotericism» — Christine Maillard propone la clave de lectura de toda la obra de Jung: los *Septem sermones ad mortuos*, cuyo hablante principal es Basílides de Alejandría, exponen con imágenes gnósticas y elementos boehmianos el conjunto de temas que luego estructuran la clínica y el pensamiento religioso, y junto con el Libro Negro y el Libro Rojo constituyen la faz esotérica, de la cual las obras clínicas serían el exoterismo. Ella misma marca el texto como único en su género entre las obras publicadas, así que la clave se apoya en una pieza excepcional

«Jung’s last great works (including Mysterium coniunctionis, 1955/1956) developed these concepts within a vaster framework, postulating a unity of the world, an unus mundus whose different levels of reality are articulated with one another and, due to the “psychoid” character of the universe, able to intercommunicate. Jung thus tried to bring about a meeting between the Hermetic world view and that of the scientific revolutions of his time. His fruitful dialogue with Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), Nobel prizewinner in physics, with whom he published The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche (1950), allowed him to integrate into his vision of man and the world the new perspectives offered by quantum mechanics. Thus, if one follows the criteria established by Antoine Faivre (Access to Western Esotericism, 1994) to judge whether an oeuvre belongs to the field of esotericism, one must admit that the work of Jung satisfies several of the requisite criteria: it is based on the idea of “correspondence” between the great and small world; on that of a mediation through the imagination, the creative faculty; on that of “transmutation” or the transformation of the individual! through work on the materia prima of the unconscious contents; one may add the idea of a “second birth” of the person, attaining a new identity at the close of an initiatic process» — Maillard sostiene que la obra tardía de Jung generaliza la sincronicidad en una cosmología: un *unus mundus* cuyos niveles de realidad pueden intercomunicarse por el carácter psicoide del universo, y lee ese movimiento como intento de hacer coincidir la visión hermética con las revoluciones científicas de su tiempo. El límite es obligatorio y está en la propia frase: aplicando los criterios de Antoine Faivre, la obra de Jung satisface VARIOS de los criterios requeridos, no todos. Citarla sin ese «several» convierte una adjudicación parcial en pertenencia plena

«The precise genealogies that lead from Jung’s own work to the popularizations and reinterpretations found in the cultic milieu have to date not been traced in any scholarly work, and only the outlines of the process can be given here. Perhaps the most important single line of transmission of Jung’s ideas into a broader Jungian religiosity have been the Eranos conferences. Beginning in 1933, Jungian speakers, including Jung himself, were invited to hold lectures on a variety of topics in the history of religions. These lectures were recorded in a series of highly influential yearbooks. Due to this distinct Jungian emphasis, Eranos became a forum for the dissemination of a specific interpretation of Western esoteric thought, primarily to an intellectual audience» — Olav Hammer identifica la vía principal por la que Jung entra en una religiosidad más amplia: las conferencias de Eranos desde 1933 y sus anuarios, dirigidas ante todo a un público intelectual, a diferencia de la vía popular que atribuye a Joseph Campbell. El límite lo pone él antes de exponer nada: las genealogías precisas que llevan de la obra de Jung a las popularizaciones del medio cúltico no han sido trazadas hasta hoy en ningún trabajo académico, y solo pueden darse los contornos del proceso

«(7) Finally, Jungian concepts are readily applied to domains in which Jung himself had only a marginal interest. A prime example is the tarot. Jung mentions the tarot only in passing, whereas the 1980’s and 1990’s have seen the emergence of an entire genre of Jungian exegeses of the tarot. Jung’s ideas have thus been received in a way analogous to that of many canonical scriptures. They are referred to with great respect by Jungians as constituting a fund of spiritual wisdom, but are nevertheless in practice used as a pool of cultural resources from which one can freely pick, choose and reinterpret various elements» — última de las siete diferencias que Hammer establece entre el corpus de Jung y el uso que hacen de él los junguianos posteriores: los conceptos se aplican con soltura a dominios que a Jung apenas le interesaron, y el caso ejemplar es el tarot. De ahí el modelo de recepción que propone — las ideas de Jung se reciben como muchas escrituras canónicas, invocadas con respeto como fondo de sabiduría pero usadas como reserva de recursos culturales de la que se elige y reinterpreta libremente

«The substantive “occultism” (l’occultisme) seems to have appeared for the first» — time en el Dictionnaire des mots nouveaux de Randonvilliers — y el verbo es «seems», no consta.

«In 1614, finally, Isaac Casaubon published his De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes» — XVI, en uno de cuyos capítulos data el Corpus.

Registra que los platónicos de Cambridge ignoraron o contestaron la datación de Casaubon.

«The term “kabbalah” in the concept “Christian kabbalah” is a misleading one» — sugiere un fenómeno más estrecho que el de los autores que agrupa.

La vía de transmisión: «transmission of ~ astrology, > hermetism, magic and astral magic from the Arabic into the Latin world» [las flechas son las remisiones internas del Dictionary].

Del De Occulta Philosophia: «This work became the most important» libro de texto de filosofía esotérica y oculta del XVI.

La dependencia, con su matiz: «dependent on the foundational writings of Westcott and Mathers», pero «each of the important authors in the tradition have their own emphases».

«one of the greatest figures of Western esotericism in the 2oth century» — [«2oth», del OCR].

Denuncia como herencia de Frazer y de la tradición cristiana la tríada magia-religión-ciencia que separa la cultura en tres dominios excluyentes.

«The modern term “magic” and its cognates derive, through Latin intermediates (magia), from the Greek magiké, “the art of the magoi» — el arte de los magoi, sacerdotes persas.