Introduction: Modern Western Magic. Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, 12 ( 1 ), special issue on Modern Western Magic, guest edited by Henrik Bogdan PDF

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Aries Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism New Series, Volume   Aries, Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism Aries is edited under the auspices of the European Society for the Study of Western Esoteri- cism (ESSWE) Editor-in-chief Peter J. Forshaw Editors Antoine Faivre (École P...

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Introduction: Modern Western Magic. Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, 12 ( 1 ), special issue... Henrik Bogdan

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Aries Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism

New Series, Volume  

Aries, Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism Aries is edited under the auspices of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) Editor-in-chief Peter J. Forshaw Editors Antoine Faivre (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses, Sorbonne, Paris), Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (University of Exeter), Wouter J. Hanegraaff (University of Amsterdam) Book Review Editor Marco Pasi (University of Amsterdam); [email protected] Editorial Board / International Consultants Jean-Pierre Brach (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses, Sorbonne, Paris, consultant French-speaking countries; [email protected]) Olav Hammer (University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark, consultant Scandinavian countries; [email protected]) Arthur McCalla (Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Canada, consultant U.S.A./ Canada; [email protected]) Birgit Menzel (University of Mainz/Germersheim, Germany, consultant Russia; [email protected]) Monika Neugebauer-Wölk (University of Halle, consultant German-speaking countries; neugebauerwoelk@ geschichte.uni-halle.de) Marco Pasi (University of Amsterdam, consultant Italy; [email protected]) Jan Snoek (University of Heidelberg, consultant Netherlands, Belgium and U.K.; [email protected]) György Szönyi (University of Szeged, consultant Eastern European countries; geszonyi@ sol.cc.u-szeged.hu) Garry W. Trompf (University of Sydney, consultant Australia and New Zealand; trompf [email protected]). Editorial address Aries, c/o Hilda Nobach, Faculty of Humanities, Dept. Art, Religion and Cultural Studies. Oude Turfmarkt , NL- GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. + ()  . Fax. + ()  . E-mail: [email protected] Instructions for Authors & Open Access Please refer to the fourth page of the Volume prelims or check the publisher’s website at www.brill.nl/arie. The Instructions for Authors include details on how to publish on an Open Access basis with Brill Open. Aries (print ISSN -, online ISSN -) is published semi-annually by BRILL, Plantijnstraat ,  JC Leiden, The Netherlands, tel + () , fax + () .

Aries Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism

New Series, Volume  

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Instructions for Authors Aries welcomes articles and book reviews on all aspects of the study of esoteric currents in modern and contemporary western culture. Contributions focusing on earlier periods (antiquity, middle ages) will be considered if clearly relevant to the study of modern and contemporary western esotericism. “Western esotericism” is understood as including the revival of hermetism and the socalled “occult philosophy” in the early modern period as well as its later developments; alchemy, paracelsianism and rosicrucianism; jewish and christian kabbalah and its later developments; theosophical and illuminist currents; and various occultist and related developments during the th through the th century up and including popular contemporary currents such as New Age spiritualities. Aries concentrates on historical rather than sociological research, but encourages interdisciplinary approaches including the use of social-science methodologies within a historical framework. While critical scholarship is very welcome, Aries is not a podium for religious or ideological apologetics or polemics. The opinions expressed by authors in Aries are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors. The Editors will consider for publication articles that have not previously appeared or been submitted simultaneously elsewhere. All manuscripts will be submitted to a procedure of anonymous peer review. Authors will be required to sign a statement assigning copyright to the publisher. Online Submission Aries uses Editorial Manager, a web based submission and peer review tracking system. All manuscripts should therefore be submitted online at www.editorialmanager.com/ARIE. Please make sure to consult the Instructions to Authors prior to submission to ensure your submission is formatted correctly. General Guidelines As a rule, articles should be between , and , words. Electronic manuscripts are preferred (via e-mail attachment) in MS Word (.doc) or RTF format. If authors submit papers for consideration via surface mail, they should submit a disk plus three prints of the manuscript (double spaced, including bibliography and footnotes; with broad margins; printed on one side of the paper only). All submissions are to be sent to the Editorial Address. The text should be as “flat” as possible; please emphasize words, phrases and titles of books by italicizing but avoid boldface and underlining. Languages Articles may be submitted in English, French, German and Italian. Abstracts Articles written in French, German or Italian must be accompanied by an abstract in English between  and  words, as well as up to six selected key words. Articles written in English must be accompanied by an abstract in one of the three other languages accepted by the journal. Autobiographical Statement Every article must be accompanied by a short autobiographical statement mentioning the author’s year of birth and institutional affiliation. Illustrations Articles may contain illustrations if these are clearly relevant to the argument, and referred to in the main text. Clearing permission for reproduction falls under the responsibilities of the author.

Notes and Bibliography Articles must contain a complete alphabetically-ordered bibliography at the end of the main text, according to the following format. – Books: Author, A.B., This is the Title of his Book: This is the Subtitle, City: Publisher Year. – Articles in Journals: Author, A.B., ‘This is the Title of the Article’, Journal : (), –. – Articles in Books: Author, A.B., ‘This is the Title of the Article’, in: Editor, A.B. (ed.), This is the Title of the Collective Volume, City: Publisher Year, –. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively for the whole article. They must refer to the bibliography by giving the author’s family name, an abbreviated title of the publication, followed by page nr(s). For example: – Books: Author, Title Words, . – Articles: Author, ‘Title Words’, –. Style Issues Always use single quotation marks (‘’) for relatively short direct quotations. Longer quotations should be presented as a separate block of text, indented on the left, preceded and followed by a blank line, and printed in characters of normal size; such longer quotations are not enclosed in quotation marks. Double quotation marks (“”) are reserved for single words, concepts or short phrases that are not a quotation. Quotation marks should always precede punctuation marks. Footnote numbers in the text should follow both quotation marks and punctuation marks. For example: This sentence contains ‘one quotation’1; and ends with a footnote and a full stop.2 Book Reviews Title description should be according to the guidelines used for bibliographies in articles (see above), with additional mention of number of pages and ISBN number (if available). Book reviews should not normally exceed a length of appr.  words. They must contain a critical discussion of the publication(s) under review, rather than merely summarizing the contents. Reviews of considerably greater length (including reviews of several clearly related titles) may be submitted as a review article, and may or may not contain footnotes and a bibliography. News rubric Since Aries tries to keep its readership informed about recent and upcoming events relevant to the study of western esotericism, the editors welcome announcements of conferences, exhibitions etc. Books received will be mentioned in Aries. ©  by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center,  Rosewood Drive, Suite , Danvers, MA , USA. Fees are subject to change. Printed in the Netherlands on acid-free paper Visit our website at www.brill.nl

Contents  H B (G E), Introduction: Modern Western Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 G T, Modern Western Magic and Theosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . 17 H T H, Julius Evola and the UR Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 J A P, The Seeds of Satan: Conceptions of Magic in Contemporary Satanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 K G, Dragon Rouge: Left-Hand Path Magic with a Neopagan Flavour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131   E H, Federico Gualdi à Venise: fragments retrouvés (–). Recherches sur un exploitant minier alchimiste (rev. by F B) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K  S, Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities (rev. by H B) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M G. J, Frances Yates and the Hermetic Tradition (rev. by A P. C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J A P (.), Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology (rev. by P F) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Les alchimistes grecs. Recettes alchimiques (Par. Gr. ; Holkhamicus ) Cosmas le Hiéromoine—Chrysopée, texte établi et traduit par A C (rev. by C G) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M N-W (.), in collaboration with A R, Aufklärung und Esoterik: Rezeption—Integration—Konfrontation (rev. by W J. H) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Recent and Upcoming Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 

DOI: 10.1163/147783512X614803

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Introduction: Modern Western Magic* Henrik Bogdan University of Gothenburg

Abstract Einführung: Moderne westliche Magie Man kann verteidigen, dass das Konzept der Magie als Antithese zur westlichen Kultur auf vier polemischen Diskursen basiert. Zunächst gibt es die Annahme, dass Magie eine Form von ‘primitivem’ abergläubischem (oder nicht-rationalem) Denken ist. Zweitens gibt es die Ansicht, dass Magie etwas aus anderen Teilen der Welt und daher ein fremdes Element in der westlichen Kultur ist. Drittens gibt es den Diskurs über Magie als etwas, das im Gegensatz zum christlichen Glauben steht. Der vierte und letzte Diskurs ist die bezüglich der inhärent böse Natur der Magie. Die Dialektik zwischen polemischen und apologetischen Diskursen über Magie und die bedeutende Rolle der wissenschaftlichen Literatur in dieser dialektischen Beziehung sind wichtig, um Konstruktionen der modernen westlichen Magie zu verstehen. Keywords magic; Modern Western Magic; definitions, polemical discourses

This issue of Aries is devoted to “Modern Western Magic”, and contains essays by four scholars who each focus on markedly different aspects of the phenomenon, examined from equally diverse perspectives. The essays reveal the multifaceted nature of modern Western magic through their focus on, respectively, Theosophy; the work of Julius Evola and the UR Group; modern Satanism; and the Swedish new esoteric movement Dragon Rouge. As will become apparent, the continued presence of magical belief and practice in modern and late modern Western society challenges many of the

I would like to express my gratitude to Keith Richmond, Jan Snoek and Göran Larsson who, in different ways, have been very helpful in writing this introduction.

*)

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 

DOI: 10.1163/147783512X614812

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Henrik Bogdan / ARIES  () –

widely-held preconceptions about contemporary religion and spirituality.1 Magic has often been dismissed as either primitive and irrational and therefore alien to modern society, as inherently opposed to the Judeo-Christian traditions of the West, or as incompatible with religion in general. These antipathetic sentiments are deeply imbedded in Western culture, and the term magic has typically been used to describe non-mainstream beliefs and practices— non-Christians, heretics, non-Westerners, indigenous, ancient or ‘primitive’ cultures—any that might be considered ‘Other.’ The image of magic as inherently linked with the Other has functioned as an important factor in the construction of the self-identity of Western culture, for by defining magic as something alien, exotic, primitive, evil, deviant or even ridiculous, our society also makes a tacit statement as to its self-perceptions. It could therefore be said that in the self-conception of the West magic represents that which is not accepted, or to use the terminology of Victor Turner, magic can for analytical purposes be seen as an anti-structure to Western society. Anti-structures indirectly set the standards for the normal or structured society, and in this sense, magic can be seen as a liminal phenomenon which is not part of the structured sphere which constitutes the ideal of Western society.2 Yet, despite the construct of magic as antithetical to Western identity, magic has been—and continues to be—a significant, albeit little understood, part of Western culture and it has since Late Antiquity been interlinked with changing attitudes towards religion and science. This polemical narrative of magic has not only been important to scholarly and other etic approaches to magic, but also to emic understandings of the subject. Self-declared magicians such as Marsilio Ficio, Pico della Mirandola and Cornelius Agrippa objected to the stigmatised understanding of magic, and went to great lengths to show that magic was not dependent on the aid For a discussion of modernity in relation with religious change see, inter alia, Weber, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism; Berger and Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality; Berger, The Sacred Canopy; Hutchinson, The Modernist Impulse; Asad, Formations of the Secular; Woodhead (ed.), Peter Berger and the Study of Religion; Heelas, Woodhead, et al, The Spiritual Revolution; Heelas, The New Age Movement; Delanty, Social Theory in a Changing World ; Eisenstadt, Comparative Civilizations and Multiple Modernities; Turner, Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity. For a more specific discussion of modernity and Western esotericism, see Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Esotericism; Hammer, Claiming Knowledge; Owen, The Place of Enchantment; Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West. For a critical discussion of “Western” in the study of Western esotercism, see Granholm, ‘Locating the West’. 2) Turner, The Ritual Process. 1)

Henrik Bogdan / ARIES  () –

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of demonic powers or opposed to the Christian faith. On the contrary they argued that magic was not only compatible with the Christianity, but that it even offered a deeper and more profound understanding of the religion. Magic has therefore not only been an important factor in the construct of the Other, but has also acted as a powerful marker of the Self to Western magicians. Throughout its history Western magic has been identified with various esoteric currents and notions3 such as astrology, alchemy, and Christian kabbalah, and in order to fully understand the phenomenon it is necessary to study magic in relation to the broader concept of Western esotericism of which these are components. Western esotericism has been described as inhabiting the space between the two great epistemological pillars of Western culture: dogmatic monotheism, and rational-scientific thinking. The gnosis which the esotericist strives for is both intellectual and experiential. As discussed by scholars such as Wouter Hanegraaff and Kocku von Stuckrad, esotericism can be understood as rejected knowledge, as the “shadow side of our own official identity”.4 As the essays in this issue will show, the appeal to both faith and reason is fundamental to the understanding of emic constructs of magic, not the least in its contemporary manifestations. The word magic derives from ancient Greece, and more specifically from the term mageia (late fifth century ), which was used to describe the practices and beliefs of the wandering Magi or magoi, believed to be of Persian origin.5 These foreign magi were admired for their esoteric wisdom and knowledge of sorcery, which was quickly absorbed and reinterpreted into the Greek context, although on some levels it was still viewed as a foreign intrusion into local culture. The somewhat ambivalent relationship of the Greeks with magic became cemented into Western culture, and persists to this day, albeit in different guise. Dispute and uncertainty over the basic attributes of mageia also fuelled mistrust. One school of thought held that mageia was primarily preoccupied with metaphysical speculations concerning spiritual purification and deification, speculations that were absorbed by various philosophical schools, such as Neoplatonism. This type of magic was seen as an other-worldly or higher form of magic, often referred to as theurgy, and during the period of Late Antiquity it was perceived by many as being in harmony with the more common forms of 3) On “currents” and “notions” in the study of Western esotericism, see Faivre, ‘Questions of Terminology’. 4) Hanegraaff, ‘Bringing Light to the Underground’. See also Hanegraaff, ‘Forbidden Knowledge’; idem, ‘The Trouble with Images’; von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge. 5) Bremmer, ‘The Birth of the Term “Magic” ’, .

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Henrik Bogdan / ARIES  () –

Greek religion. In contrast others specifically identified mageia with the lower type of magic, largely concerned with the achievement of worldly objectives, that is commonly referred to as thaumaturgy. This lower type of magic was viewed with suspicion and fear, something that was alien to Greek culture, that characterised non-Greek religion; something that the Other would practice.6 During the first three centuries that followed the advent of Christianity, Apostolic miracles competed with popular magic, and abilities that had previously only been attributed to magicians were ascribed to Christians, with the significant difference being that the magician derived his powers from demons whereas the Christian miracle worker derived them ...