In 1999, an innovative chair and expertise center was created at the Faculty wouter j. hanegraaff and joyce pijnenburg (eds.) of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam, focused on the history of Western esotericism from the Renaissance to the present. The label “Western esotericism” refers here to a complex of historical currents such as, notably, the Hermetic philosophy of the Renaissance, mystical, magical, alchemical and astrological currents, Christian kabbalah, Paracelsianism, Rosicrucianism, Christian theosophy, and the many occultist and related esoteric currents that developed in their wake during the 19th and the 20th centuries. This complex of “alternative” religious currents is studied from a critical historical and interdisciplinary perspective, with the intention of studying the roles that they have played in the history of Western culture. In the past ten years, the chair for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents has succeeded in establishing itself as the most important center for study and teaching in this domain, and has strongly contributed to the establishment of Western esotericism as a recognized academic field of research. This volume is published at the occasion of the 10th anniversary. Hermes in the Academy in the Hermes It contains a history of the creation and development of the chair, followed by articles on aspects of Western esotericism by the previous and current staff members, contributions by students and Ph.D. students about the study program, and reflections by international top specialists about the field of research and its academic development. Prof. Dr. Wouter J. Hanegraaff is Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. Joyce Pijnenburg M.A. is a Ph. D. student, affiliated with both the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and the University of Amsterdam. Hermes in the Academy Ten Years’ Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam isbn 978 90 5629 572 1 Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Joyce Pijnenburg (eds.) AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Amsterdam University Press • www.aup.nl Hermes in the Academy Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 1 03-08-09 09:01 Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 2 03-08-09 09:01 Hermes in the Academy: Ten Years’ Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Amsterdam Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Joyce Pijnenburg, eds. Amsterdam University Press Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 3 03-08-09 09:01 Cover illustration: Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer, 1943 (ms. BPH 308), courtesy of Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam Cover: Studio Jan de Boer, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Design: Prografici, Goes, the Netherlands ISBN 9789056295721 E-ISBN 9789048510597 NUR 730 © Hanegraaff and Pijnenburg / Amsterdam University Press, 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, re- cording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 4 03-08-09 16:52 Table of Contents Preface / 7 JOSÉ VAN DIJCK Part 1 History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents: Origins and Development / 9 The Birth of a Chair / 11 ROELOF VAN DEN BROEK Ten Years of Studying and Teaching Western Esotericism / 17 WOUTER J. HANEGRAAFF Part 2 Glimpses of Research / 31 The Pagan Who Came from the East: George Gemistos Plethon and Platonic Orientalism / 33 WOUTER J. HANEGRAAFF Astrologia Hermetica: Astrology, Western Culture, and the Academy / 51 KOCKU VON STUCKRAD The Modernity of Occultism: Reflections on Some Crucial Aspects / 59 MARCO PASI Mathematical Esotericism: Some Perspectives on Renaissance Arithmology / 75 JEAN-PIERRE BRACH Danish Esotericism in the 20th Century: The Case of Martinus / 91 OLAV HAMMER Part 3 Studying Western Esotericism in Amsterdam / 103 On First Looking into the Halls of Hermeticism / 105 MARIEKE J.E. VAN DEN DOEL An Unlikely Love Affair: Plato, the Netherlands, and Life after Westotericism / 107 DYLAN BURNS Heterology in Amsterdam: The Academy Takes the Other Out to Dinner / 109 OSVALD VASIcˇEK | 5 Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 5 03-08-09 09:01 The Copenhagen Connection / 111 SARA MØLDRUP THEJLS If You Seek / 113 SUSANNAH CROCKFORD Part 4 Western Esotericism in International Perspective / 114 From “the Hermetic Tradition” to “Western Esotericism” / 117 ALLISON COUDERT From Paris to Amsterdam and Beyond: Origins and Development of a Collaboration / 123 ANTOINE FAIVRE Western Esotericism in the United Kingdom / 129 NICHOLAS GOODRICK-CLARKE From Talk about Esotericism to Esotericism Research: Remarks on the Prehistory and Development of a Research Group / 135 MONIKA NEUGEBAUER-WÖLK Seven Epistemological Theses on Esotericism: Upon the Occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Amsterdam Chair / 143 ANDREAS KILCHER Hermes and his Students in Amsterdam / 149 JOYCE PIJNENBURG Contributors / 157 6 | HERMES IN THE ACADEMY Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 6 03-08-09 09:01 PREFACE JOSÉ VAN DIJCK Creative innovation in the humanities is usually not a top-down but a bottom- up phenomenon. It happens when individual scholars begin to ask questions that have not been asked before, and come up with new approaches that chal- lenge the academic status quo. But, in order to be successful, not only do such new perspectives have to be recognized as fruitful by the wider academic com- munity, they also need to become embedded in institutional contexts, which allow them to actively participate in scholarly debate and educate new gen- erations of students. The chair group for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (GHF) is a perfect example of such a successful combination of scholarly innovation and academic institutionalization. As documented in this anniversary volume, over the last ten years it has established itself as the leading center of a new field of international research, referred to as the study of Western esotericism. By the end of the 1990s, that term still caused some eyebrows to be raised. It was not yet so clear to everybody that, far from being a synonym for New Age, the label “Western esotericism” covered a wide range of important and influen- tial currents in intellectual history from the Renaissance to the present, with roots in Late Antiquity; and there were still some suspicions, here and there, that scholars of esotericism might in fact turn out to be closet esotericists... But as the high quality of research in this domain became evident, such doubts quickly began to vanish. GHF has been consistent in setting standards of excel- lence through the many publications of its staff members, with the two-volume Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Brill, 2005) as a highlight that deserves to be mentioned here in particular. As documented in this anniversary volume, the study of Western esotericism has succeeded in becoming a normal presence on the international academic scene, with professional research organizations, peer-reviewed journals and monograph series, many conferences and, of course, teaching programs. The field is generating great enthusiasm and commitment not only among established scholars, but also among students and burgeoning academics, many of whom have received their education in this field at GHF and are now pursuing Ph.D. projects both in Amsterdam and at other universities worldwide. In short, the first ten years of the chair for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents have been a success story. The chair is at the very center of an exciting new development in international academic research, and for me, as dean of the Faculty of Humanities, this is a source of great pride and satisfac- | 7 Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 7 03-08-09 09:01 tion. On behalf of the Board of the Faculty and of the University of Amsterdam, I wish to thank the former and present staff members of GHF for their efforts, and congratulate them on all that has been achieved. Of course, none of it would have happened without the more-than-generous donation by Mrs. Rosalie Bas- ten, and the professionalism of the Foundation that was put in charge of it: their collaboration with the Board of the Faculty has always been excellent, and our appreciation extends to them as well. Given the intellectual ambitions that are obvious from this anniversary volume, I am sure that the first ten years of GHF have been only the first beginning of a development that will continue to flour- ish and expand in the decades to come. 8 | HERMES IN THE ACADEMY Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 8 03-08-09 09:01 Part 1 History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents: Origins and Development Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 9 03-08-09 09:01 Hermes academy_hanegraaff.indd 10 03-08-09 09:01 The Birth of a Chair ROELOF VAN DEN BROEK Prior to 1999, it was impossible to study Hermetic philosophy at a Dutch univer- sity. The Hermetic combination of mysticism and philosophy smelled too much of pre-Enlightenment times and, still worse, of modern New Age ideas to be attractive to academic philosophers – let alone that they would give it a place in their teaching programs. This was Mrs. Rosalie Basten’s disappointing expe- rience as she studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in the mid- 1980s and wanted to specialize in this special branch of mystical philosophy. But sometimes frustration about an existing situation becomes an incentive to change it. In Mrs. Basten it raised the ambition to establish a Chair of History of Hermetic Philosophy at one of the Belgian or Dutch universities. However, “... between dream and deed, laws stand in the way, and practical objections,” as a famous line of Dutch poetry reads – and indeed, this dream was not an easy one to realize. Especially in academic circles, the common antipathy against esotericism and obscurantism made it almost inconceivable that one could study modern Hermetic and esoteric traditions without being an obscu- rantist oneself.