W. Hanegraaff / P. Forshaw / M. Posi ----------------- Hermes Trismegistus und heutige Esoterik (aktualisiert)

Wouter Hanegraaff /
Peter Forshaw /
Marco Pasi (eds.):

Hermes Explains

Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism

Amsterdam University Press
2019, 336 pp., indices
ISBN 978-9463720205

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See also: 

Wouter Hanegraaff, Joyce Pijnenburg (eds):
Hermes in the Academy
Ten Years' Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam University press 2009, 168 pp.
See more >>> here

Further Informations:

• Christian H. Bull: The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus - The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom.
  Leiden: Brill 2018, XVI+532 pp., indices
• Christoph Elsas: Mystik in der Globalisierung.
  Diskurs und Traditionen der Chaldäischen Orakel im Kontext heutiger Religionsbegegnung. Rückfragen an Zarathustra, Gnosis, Platonismus und Augustin mit Übersetzung der Orakelfragmente und erläuternder Texte des Christen Psellos und des Hellenisten Numenios
  Berlin: EB Verlag 2017, 432 S., reiches Literaturverzeichnis, Register  --- Ausführliche Rezension >

Information of the publisher
Few fields of academic research are surrounded by so many misunderstandings and misconceptions as the study of Western esotericism. For twenty years now, the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (University of Amsterdam) has been at the forefront of international scholarship in this domain. This anniversary volume seeks to make the modern study of Western esotericism more widely known beyond specialist circles, while addressing a range of misconceptions, biases, and prejudices that still tend to surround it. Thirty major scholars in the field respond to questions about a wide range of unfamiliar ideas, traditions, practices, problems, and personalities that are central to the field. By challenging many taken-for-granted assumptions about religion, science, philosophy, and the arts, this volume demonstrates why the modern study of esotericism leads us to reconsider much that we thought we knew about the story of Western culture.

Wouter Hanegraaff is Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam.

Peter J. Forshaw is Associate Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period at the University of Amsterdam.

Marco Pasi is Associate Professor for History of Western Esotericism in the Modern and Contemporary Period at the University of Amsterdam.

Inhalt / Table of Contents 

Introduction: 9 

Thirty red pills from Hermes Trismegistus
Aren’t we living in a disenchanted world? 13 

Egil Asprem
Esotericism, that’s for white folks, right? 21 

Justine M. Bakker Surely
modern art is not occult? It is modern! 29 

Tessel M. Bauduin
Is it true that secret societies are trying to control the world? 39 

Henrik Bogdan
Numbers are meant for counting, right? 47 

Jean-Pierre Brach
Wasn’t Hermes a prophet of Christianity
who lived long before Christ? 54 

Roelof van den Broek
Weren’t early Christians up against a gnostic religion? 61 

Dylan M. Burns
There’s not much room for women in esotericism, right? 70 

Allison P. Coudert
The imagination… You mean fantasy, right? 80 

Antoine Faivre
Weren’t medieval monks afraid of demons? 88 

Claire Fanger
What does popular fiction have to do with the occult? 95 

Christine Ferguson
Isn’t alchemy a spiritual tradition? 105 

Peter J. Forshaw
Music? What does that have to do with esotericism? 113 

Joscelyn Godwin Why all that satanist stuff in heavy metal? 120 

Kennet Granholm Religion can’t be a joke, right? 127 

J. Christian Gree
Isn’t esotericism irrational? 137 

Olav Hammer
Rejected knowledge… 

So you mean that esotericists are the losers of history? 145 

Wouter J. Hanegraaff
he kind of stuff Madonna talks about –
that’s not real kabbala, is it? 153

Boaz Huss
Shouldn’t evil cults that worship satan be illegal? 161 

Massimo Introvigne
Is occultism a product of capitalism? 168 

Andreas B. Kilcher
Can superhero comics really transmit esoteric knowledge? 177 

Jeffrey J. Kripal
Are kabbalistic meditations all about ecstasy? 184 

John MacMurphy
Isn’t India the home of spiritual wisdom? 191 

Mriganka Mukhopadhyay
If people believe in magic,
isn’t that just because they aren’t educated? 198 

Bernd-Christian Otto
But what does esotericism have to do with sex? 207 

Marco Pasi
Is there such a thing as Islamic esotericism? 216 

Mark Sedgwick
Doesn’t occultism lead straight to fascism? 225 

Julian Strube A man who never died, angels falling from the sky… 

What is that Enoch stuff all about?  232

György E. Szönyi Is there any room for women in Jewish kabbalah? 243 

Elliot R. Wolfson
Surely born-again Christianity has nothing to do
with occult stuff like alchemy? 252 

Mike A. Zuber: Bibliography 261 

Contributors to this volume 305 

Index of Persons 309 

Index of Subjects 317