Open AccessDissertation
Western esoterism : Ultimate Sacred Postulates and Ritual Fields
Lars Steen Larsen
- Vol. 25
TLDR
The dialectical relationship between the "lower" (man, earth) and the "higher" (heaven, the divine, God) of Western esoterism is discussed in this paper.Abstract:
The greater part of Western Esoterism holds beliefs in five important matrices. This branch of esoterism, rooted in a Hermetic milieu, is labelled dialectical esoterism because of the dialectical relationship between the ‘lower’ (man, earth) and the ‘higher’ (heaven, the divine, God). These five matrices are:
I: Purpose (pronoia), rather than karma or sin.
II: The dialectical relationship between Man and God (or the divine), including the healing of other people, society and/or the Earth.
III: The inter-dependency of Dualism and Monism, including the mind and/or the world as a stairway to heaven.
IV: Scientific laws are synonymous with spiritual principles.
V: The holistic cosmos, including the concept of ‘sympathy’ between its parts.
The aim of this thesis is to make clear that Western Esoterism is unique because of the presence of the five matrices and deals with both ‘beliefs’ (recognition) and ‘doing’ (religious practices, e.g. astrology, alchemy, magic and clairvoyance). As a consequence it is also demonstrated that foreign religious ideas and practices can be assimilated because they are transformed and hence adopt new meanings in order to fit the important USP of Western Esoterism.read more
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References
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BookDOI
The order of things : an archaeology of the human sciences
TL;DR: The Prose of the World: I The Four Similitudes, II Signatures, III The Limits of the world, IV the Writing of Things, V The Being of Language 3.Representing: I Don Quixote, II Order, III Representation of the Sign, IV Duplicated Representation, V Imagination of Resemblance, VI Mathesis and 'Taxinoma' 4. Speaking: I Criticism and Commentary, II General Grammar,III The Theory of the Verb, IV Articulation, V Designation, VI Derivation,
Book
The Order of Things
TL;DR: The Order of Things as mentioned in this paper is one of the most significant works of the twenty-first century, and it was the seminal work of Foucault's later work on power and discourse that established his reputation as an intellectual giant.
Book
The philosophy of history
TL;DR: The question of what is the best political constitution for a given country is also addressed in this article, where it is argued that the substance of that for which subordination is necessary, even in its most important bearings, should be decided and resolved on by the people.
Book
A history of Greek philosophy
TL;DR: The third volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought, entitled The Fifth-Century Enlightenment, deals in two parts with the Sophists and Socrates, the key figures in the dramatic and fundamental shift of philosophical interest from the physical universe to man as discussed by the authors.