Category: Global Esotericism
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Aleister Crowley and Thelema critiques of Theosophists
A COMMON MISCHARACTERIZATION OF THEOSOPHISTS Many Theosophists early-on and still today belonged to and represented their particular tradition, or religion to its highest, being specialized and trained within them in their deeper meanings, and tied to some actual superior, or superiors (priests, gurus) of the group, or religion they belonged to. A Theosophist was hence…
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Why the Academic Study of Western Esotericism is not as Popular as Critical Theory and Women’s History?
Thoughts on Wouter J. Hanegraaff about “Rejected Knowledge” in Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism (page 149-151). Should this be a topic to tip toe over, or be careful? There are things that must be considered first. While so many people have become interested with deconstructing the hegemonic grand narratives of Western culture, racial…
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The Practice of Concealing Spiritual Wisdom
Thoughts on the persecution and exclusion of the marginalized ‘esotericist’ in Western Culture and the difference between Ancient and Modern Esotericism in an illuminating paper from Michael L. Frazer’s “Esotericism Ancient and Modern:Strauss Contra Straussianism on the Art of Political-Philosophical Writing,” Political Theory 34:1,February 2006, pp. 33-61. In Stanley Rosen’s Hermeneutics as Politics, a critique…
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Four Kinds of Esoteric Sciences in Hindu Philosophy | Helena Blavatsky
Anton Levey once defined Occultism as a “Do it yourself God-kit,” leaving out the significance of ethics, self-discipline and morality. This is not what Occultism is once we explore it. This is to understand Occultism more fully as a Tree with Branches (Practices, Sciences and Departments), not a singular thing, a benevolent nor nefarious thing.…
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Hilarion Smerdis, Serapis Bey and the Legend of the “Brotherhood of Light” and Luxor
THE FRATRES LUCIS AND THE EGYPTIAN BROTHERHOOD OF LUXOR INVOLVING HILARION SMERDIS AND SERAPIS BEY Another less known Theosophical master of a sub-brotherhood of the Greater Fraternity of Adepts, known as the Egyptian Brotherhood of Luxor is Hilarion Smerdis, whom K. Paul Johnson attempts to identify with a little known character by the name of…
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Getting Technical about “The First Cause”
The word God is generic for a collective, or plethora of beings, a multitude under a unity, and not a singular entity. The “First Cause” is a philosophical conception, that is in-fact, not the same as what is termed, e.g., the “ever Unknowable Eternal Cause.” There’s for example a historical distinction drawn between El’ and…
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Readings from Isis Unveiled: Man’s Yearning for the Proofs of Immortality
The narration explains some theosophical ideas of H.P. Blavatsky from her early major work, Isis Unveiled on the source and possibility of thaumaturgical powers in man. MEDITATION ON READINGS FROM H.P. BLAVATSKY’S ISIS UNVEILED TITLED “MAN’S YEARNING FOR THE PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY“
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The Meaning of Pistis and the Science of Gnosis
The writings of Christian authors and theologians about those called Gnostics and Gnosticism often indicate insecurity and fear of it as a legitimate threat, even after attaining victory over it. I will demonstrate what I mean. Bible Hub explains, that “gnṓsis (“applied-knowledge”) is only as accurate (reliable) as the relationship it derives from.” It adds, “the…
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German Aryanism and the Magical Blood of the Teuton: Gobineau, Chamberlain, Guido von List and Liebenfels
The Aryan racial view that entered Fascism does not derive from the Ariosophy of Guido von List and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels. It is also a concept in fact, not originally integrated into Fascism, as it is in Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism. Giovanni Gentile as well as other early Fascist intellectuals despised introducing Ariosophical racial…
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Blood, the Universal Proteus: Significance of Blood in Ancient Magic and Religion
“…it was then that I understood for the first time a little of that message proclaimed by my ancestors on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago–‘They who see but One in all the changing manifoldness of this universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth, unto none else!’” (MODERN SCIENCE AND THE VEDANTA, THE BRAHMAVADIN,…
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The Septenary Principles of Man: Zurvanite Zoroastrian and Theosophical Classification
R. C. Zaehner, Zurvan. A Zoroastrian Dilemma, Oxford, 1955, pp. 323, 334) demonstrates, that the Zurvanite Zoroastrian (a now extinct school of thought) classification (referring to levels of being or existence) is near identical to the Tāraka Rāja Yoga classification. However, as the Theosophical [esoteric] classification show, that the septenary division of man is explained in…
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Himmler’s Witches Library and Eric Kurlander talk Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich
Last year’s Hallows’ Eve special program, “Hitler’s Monsters” explored occult ideas, esoteric sciences, and pagan religions touted by Nazi Germany in the service of power. “The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, and in reality the supernatural was an essential part of the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan…
The American Minervan 