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Post by Admin on Sept 8, 2021 15:41:23 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2021 15:45:25 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 13, 2021 15:40:42 GMT
Gurdjieff and Blavatsky: Western Esoteric Teachers in Parallel www.academia.edu/5838316/Gurdjieff_and_Blavatsky_Western_Esoteric_Teachers_in_Parallel"This article is concerned with the largely unexamined interrelations between the biographies (both factual and mythological), public personas, and teachings of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) and George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949). Although their lifetimes overlap in the late nineteenth century, Blavatsky and Gurdjieff never met. The years that most obviously link them are between 1912 and 1916, after Blavatsky's death, when Gurdjieff was establishing himself as a spiritual teacher and formulating his teachings in Moscow and St Petersburg. At this time Theosophy was flourishing in Russia, particularly in these cities, which were major centres for the occult revival. It will be posited that Gurdjieff capitalised on the popularity of Theosophy by donning a Blavatsky-like image and using recognisable Theosophical terminology in order to attract followers in Russia. "
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Post by Admin on Sept 14, 2021 16:28:06 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 15, 2021 15:49:44 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 21, 2021 16:14:22 GMT
Cabala Chymica or Chemia Cabalistica - Early Modern Alchemists and Cabala www.academia.edu/5237828/Cabala_Chymica_or_Chemia_Cabalistica_Early_Modern_Alchemists_and_CabalaThis essay investigates the relationships between early modern alchemy and the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, following its introduction to the Christian West by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola at the end of the fifteenth century, and its promulgation by Johannes Reuchlin in the early sixteenth century. New exponents of Christian Cabala were excited by the exegetical methods of Kabbalah, and some alchemists, seeking fresh ways of interpreting enigmatic alchemical texts and the Book of Nature, experimented with novel combinations of the two practices in the hope of gaining insights into their work. While many of these figures were engaged in the broader concerns of Paracelsian philosophy, those experimenting with combinations of alchemy and Cabala nevertheless spanned the spectrum from metallic transmutation to chemical medicine. While focusing on the investigation of kabbalistic elements in alchemical texts produced by Christian authors, rather than the discussion of alchemical material in Jewish Kabbalistic sources, I also briefly consider one apparently authentic Jewish combination of alchemy and Kabbalah: the Aesch Mezareph, published by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth in the Kabbala Denudata.
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Post by Admin on Sept 22, 2021 16:59:43 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 24, 2021 17:30:00 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 25, 2021 15:51:36 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 28, 2021 17:55:09 GMT
From Synarchy to Shambhala: The Role of Political Occultism and Social Messianism in the Activities of Nicholas Roerich Occult and esoteric ideas became deeply embedded in Russian culture long before the Bolshevik Revolution. After the Revolution, occult ideas were manifested in literature, the humanities and the sciences as well. Although the Soviet government discouraged and eventually prohibited metaphysical speculation, that same government used the Occult for its own purposes and even funded research on it. In Stalin's time, occultism disappeared from public view, but it revived clandestinely in the post-Stalin Thaw and became a truly popular phenomenon in post-Soviet Russia. From cosmism to shamanism, from space exploration to Kabbalah, from neo-paganism to science fiction, the field is wide. Everyone interested in the occult and esoteric will appreciate this book, because it documents their continued importance in Russia and raises new issues for research and discussion. www.academia.edu/2319078/From_Synarchy_to_Shambhala_The_Role_of_Political_Occultism_and_Social_Messianism_in_the_Activities_of_Nicholas_Roerich
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Post by Admin on Sept 29, 2021 16:23:58 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 30, 2021 16:45:30 GMT
Instilling in humanity warmth and a new spiritual light - Theosophy and Modern Art in Harald Szeemann ’s exhibitions. www.academia.edu/10872605/Instilling_in_humanity_warmth_and_a_new_spiritual_light_Theosophy_and_Modern_Art_in_Harald_Szeemann_s_exhibitionsEnchanted Modernities: Theosophy and the arts in the modern world. University of Amsterdam, 25-27 September 2013. Harald Szeemann (1933-2005) was one of the most prominent curators of his generation, having organized more than 150 art shows during a career that spanned almost 50 years. Far from being concerned only with contemporary art, he organically worked on a body of exhibitions characterized by a vivid interest for topics such as utopia, Gesamtkunstwerk, the history of intentions and obsessions, trying to build an European history of alternatives based on a multi-disciplinary approach and on the study of Art brut, psychoanalysis, pataphysics, religious devotion and, last but not least, Theosophy and Anthroposophy. In this context, a special role is played by his lifelong project of building a museum on Monte Verità, the hill in Ticino which hosted from the second part of the XIX century onwards different groups and colonies of anarchists, vegetarians, nudists, artists and life reformers. In my paper, I will address the role of Theosophy and Anthroposophy in Szeemann’s practice as a curator, as well as in his thinking about modern art, particularly focusing on the exhibitions in which he presented works by Rudolf Steiner, or had Theosophy as a central theme: the already mentioned Monte Verità (1978), Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk (1983) andMoney&Value–The last taboo (2002), that represent mayor examples of mainstream temporary display of Theosophy-related material in the last decades. Special attention will be devoted also to the relationship and professional collaboration with Joseph Beuys, presented in 17 of Szeemann’s mayor exhibitions and considered by the curator to be the most important artist of the second half of the XX century, and to an unrealized project dated 1975, La Mamma, meant to focus on the idea of a feminine deity and to the body of women, which was supposed to present also the life and work of Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant.
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Post by Admin on Oct 3, 2021 15:52:48 GMT
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Post by Admin on Oct 7, 2021 15:50:49 GMT
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Post by Admin on Oct 8, 2021 17:34:08 GMT
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