The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism

by Glenn Magee (Editor)

Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition. Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately. Whereas the study of Western mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism examines both of these traditions together. The volume demonstrates that the roots of esotericism almost always lead back to mystical traditions, while the work of mystics was bound up with esoteric or occult preoccupations. It also shows why mysticism and esotericism must be examined together if either is to be understood fully. Including contributions by leading scholars, this volume features essays on such topics as alchemy, astrology, magic, Neoplatonism, Kabbalism, Renaissance Hermetism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, numerology, Christian theosophy, spiritualism, and much more. This Handbook serves as both a capstone of contemporary scholarship and a cornerstone of future research.

Genres: Mysticism, Nonfiction, History, Occult, Religion, Philosophy, Esoterica

514 pages, Hardcover

Published April 18, 2016

Reviews

[Peter Faul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Secret societies, blasphemous rituals and long dark robes were all once cool but have all fallen out of fashion. Since people who like this aesthetic can no longer dabble in the occult without fear of mockery, they've had to settle for ironic appreciation of the dark arts instead (see: constructed an academic discipline around it). With some tweaking of the terminology to add a little more credibility we arrive at the field of Western Esotericism, which when it isn't trying to explain how it differs from mysticism, studies the history of the occult movements throughout history. As someone interested in esoteric societies (see: Da Vinci Code Enjoyer) I appreciate their effort as well as this introductory book.

This book appears to have two goals. On the most surface level it attempts to provide a chronological history of esoteric and mystical thought from ancient times to the modern period. But the book is also trying to showcase what this new field has to offer to the study of mysticism and western history more generally, and in so doing justify its own existence. The introduction makes this explicit but this can also be detected in many of the chapters (all written by different authors) who, much like the subjects of their essays, are displeased with the treatment of their favoured subject under the current academic status quo. This comparison between the authors of this book and the esotericists they study should absolutely not be taken seriously except for when it definitely should.

As discussed in the introduction, there is debate in the community as to whether or not actual esotericists or adjacent sympathizers should be accepted in the community. This book has sided in favour of inclusivity so long as the work remains academically rigorous. The book has not kept to this latter commitment and I believe made a grave editorial error by allowing the chapter on Pythagoreanism in its current form. It is written by a music professor and seems mostly okay until this paragraph:

"David Fideler, following the Greek letter-number correspondences known as gematria, shows in Jesus Christ, Sun of God that the numbers of the names APOLLO (1061), ZEUS (612), LYRA (531), and HERMES (353) are related as a musical twelfth, divided by its geometric and harmonic means.17 Moreover, the word TETRAKTYS sums appropriately to 1234, and PYTHAGORAS to 864 (25 × 33, divisible by the important cosmological numbers 72 and 108). Such discoveries imply that the Greek alphabet and the orthography of divine names and other important terms were deliberately “rigged” to incorporate mathematical and musical theorems."

This is NOT being presented as an example of esotericism but instead as a serious academic reference. Such discoveries certainly do NOT imply that the Greek alphabet and divine names were deliberately rigged to incorporate so called "theorems". When you are permitted to look for such complicated numerological relationships it is a given that you will be able to find many in the corpus of Greek by pure coincidence. The claim is also linguistically naive. For instance both Zeus and Hermes are inherited from older languages (Zeus in particular is of known PIE origin). We also know that each letter in ancient times corresponded to a unique sound as spelling mistakes are virtually unseen around the advent of the alphabet (sound changes in ancient Greek can actually be tracked through time by observing the introductions of common new spelling mistakes in texts). Hence it seems very unlikely that there was much flexibility regarding the orthography of divine names. Moreover the order of the alphabet was already fixed (approximately) by 800BC when it was adapted from the Phoenicians. Since the Isopsephy of the Greek alphabet depended only on the order of the alphabet and followed a predictable pattern there are no degrees of freedom to rig. (Also as a completely separate and much simpler argument note that Pythagorus was born after the introduction of the Greek alphabet).

Problems of this form can be found in a few other chapters though to a lesser degree. The chapter on Rudolf Steiner portrays Steiner's spiritual influence on medicine and agriculture as a good thing.

That aside all the other chapters seemed fine if not good and I enjoyed the book overall. I'd like to say more about them individually but this review is already too long.

[Parker Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Academic look at western esotericism. If the woo elsewhere in the esoteric currents gets to you, and you want something more rigorously academic, this is the book for you. It would open the mind of the most close minded scientismist to our real history.

[Erik Steevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough book about the history of Mysticism & Esotericism. I don't think you will find a better one!

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mysticism is, at its core, the belief and practice that the divine is One and this encompasses everything at all times. The mystic, therefore, is one that encounters this Unity where the self falls away and the connection of all unto all becomes apparent. Esotericism, which may or may not overlap with this concept, is a term that covers a wide variety of beliefs and practices that are commonly known as the occult. This book provides several essays that introduce the reader to all of this from its origins in ancient Greece down to the present. The focus of the book is more on outlining this history than the specific philosophies than I would have preferred but is nonetheless enlightening. For myself, the chapter on George Gurdjieff, who speaks of modern man as living the life of a “machine” who is “asleep” where things just happen to to their many different “I’s” that deal with different aspects of their world without any of them being truly authentic, was an eye opener and one which I intend to explore further.