Correspondences 7.2 (2019) Editors Manon Hedenborg White Aren Roukema Jimmy Elwing Journal for the Study of Esotericism Correspondences 7.2 Published by Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism Copyright © 2019 by contributing authors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ All articles are available at https://correspondencesjournal.com Frontispiece by James Taylor. Layout by Studio Sinjin Li, https://sinjinli.com Editorial contacts Editors-in-chief Manon Hedenborg White: [email protected] Aren Roukema: [email protected] Jimmy Elwing: [email protected] Associate Editors Robyn Jakeman: [email protected] Tommy Cowan: [email protected] Book Review Editors Egil Asprem: [email protected] Justine Bakker: [email protected] ISSN 2053-7158 (Online) Editorial board: Franscesco Baroni (Université de Lausanne), Henrik Bogdan (University of Gothenburg), Juan Pablo Bubello (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Dylan Burns (Universität Leipzig), Peter Forshaw (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Christian Giudice (University of Gothenburg), Kennet Granholm (Stockholm, Sweden), Amy Hale (Helix Education), Boaz Huss (Ben-Gurion University of Negev), Birgit Menzel ( Universität Mainz). Contents Editorial 301 Aren Roukema. Editorial Research Articles 305 Hannu Poutiainen. Tractatus Logico-Magicus: A Definition of Magic in Three Throws of the Die 339 G. J. Wheeler. The Finding of Hidden Texts in Esoteric and Other Religious Traditions: Some Notes on “Discovery Narratives” 367 Ethan Doyle White. “One Magical Movement from Kether to Malkuth”: Occultism in the Work of David Bowie 411 Alexandra Nagel. The Association of Jewish Theosophists in the Netherlands: The Efforts of Louis Vet and Others to Revive Judaism 441 Makhabbad Maltabarova. The Concept of Human Self: George Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson Book Reviews 465 J. Jeffrey Franklin. Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain. Reviewed by Jennifer Moriarty. 469 Donald A. Westbrook. Among the Scientologists: History, Theology, and Praxis. Reviewed by Aled J. Ll. Thomas. 475 Dan McKanan. Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism. Reviewed by Timothy Grieve-Carlson . 481 Susan Byrne. Ficino in Spain. Reviewed by Juan Bubello. 487 Mary-Jane Rubenstein. Pantheologies: Gods, Worlds, Monsters. Reviewed by Timothy Grieve-Carlson. 493 Markus Altena Davidsen, ed. Narrative and Belief: The Religious Affordance of Supernatural Fiction. Reviewed by Friedemann Rimbach-Sator. 499 Julie Chajes. Recycled Lives: A History of Reincarnation in Blavatsky’s Theosophy. Reviewed by Erin Prophet. 505 Emily Ogden. Credulity: A Cultural History of US Mesmerism. Reviewed by Bastiaan van Rijn. Editorial Correspondences 7, no. 2 (2019): 301–303 Aren Roukema [email protected] I encountered more responses than expected to the editorial Allan Kilner- Johnson and I wrote for last year’s annual issue, in which we set out to explain why Correspondences had decided to drop the “Western” from its title. This feed- back ranged from agreement with our position to quite justified concerns about foregoing the profile which “Western esotericism” has achieved in the academic community. A further group of responses, however, seemed to misunderstand our motivations for the change. I therefore thought a brief reiteration might be in order, with assurance that we continue to welcome informed disagreement and discussion generated by our decision. Our editorial team believes that the adjectival Western is no longer needed to demarcate the study of esotericism as a field of critical research, particularly as it continues to encode a number of questionable frameworks of identity, culture, and geographical perspective within it — the problematic heritage of rhetorical strategies that have sought to set Christendom and colonial Europe apart from the world. Most centrally, however, our decision was motivated by the nature of the research we saw emerging within the field, research which unapologetically and unproblematically finds practices, discourses, images, and concepts all over the globe which seem esoteric, or influenced by eso- teric currents, or even productively comparable to phenomena produced in cultures and geographies considered “Western.” Perhaps even more crucially, research ongoing in the study of esotericism and alternative or “new” religious movements frequently finds esotericism in cultures and subcultures within the historical and geographical boundaries of the “West,” which would not © 2019 Aren Roukema. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Published by Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism. 301 Roukema / Correspondences 7, no. 2 (2019): 301–303 themselves readily accept the ethnically European, religiously Judeo-Christian, or politically capitalist and industrialist mantles that the term contains. Our primary motivation for dropping the “Western” was therefore to proactively promote inclusive and accessible research, as has been our mandate since the journal was founded in 2012. We have no wish to limit the current scope of scholarship, indeed we continue to support researchers who believe that “Western esotericism” best defines and promotes the field. We want only to be open to whatever possible expansions, reinterpretations, and discoveries may be produced by future research. In order to achieve this we want to ensure that we do not unintentionally limit openness to diversity and heterodoxy, in terms of both the researchers and research subjects of esotericism studies. We feel that the field requires, in other words, the broadest possible church, the widest conceivable umbrella, one that reflects the loosely affiliated group of themes, subjects, and traditions we study. We worry that without this breadth the methodologies and frameworks which have thus far been established by scholars of esotericism could be tainted, or even erased, as a result of unnecessary associations with outdated ideologies and narratives. We have been fortunate to have many opportunities to pursue our mandate of inclusivity and accessibility this year. The current issue contains our usual diverse mix of articles which address strikingly different themes, periods, and cultural contexts. Even more directly, we were very pleased to work with Liana Saif on last summer’s Islamic Esotericism special issue. This issue placed the plethora of inter- and intra-cultural correspondences that lie at the heart of esotericism on full display, assessing esoteric aspects of philosophy, religious practice, and cultural expression in medieval Persia, modern day Islamicate cultures, and African-American forms of esoteric Islam. We hope to continue to publish articles and thematic issues which explore new terrain in the study of esotericism, while also continuing to feature research on and analysis of already well-known figures, traditions, and concepts. © 2019 Aren Roukema. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Published by Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism. 302 Roukema / Correspondences 7, no. 2 (2019): 301–303 Correspondences’s open access, web-based format has always allowed us to achieve this mandate of inclusivity and accessibility more easily than journals using subscription-based models. However, we were able to further expand public access to our articles and reviews this year by joining the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Affiliation with DOAJ enables broader searchability and impact as our articles are now indexed in a number of leading academic databases. It is also a stamp of approval for the quality of research we publish. In order to continue our mission to publish globally accessible and relevant research of esoteric phenomena past and present, we also expanded our team in the past year. Though we were sad to see Allan Kilner-Johnson depart our editorial staff to dedicate more time to his new job as vice-dean at the University of Surrey (congrats Allan!), we are correspondingly excited to welcome Manon Hedenborg White, who will be sharing the helm as editor. We are also saying goodbye to Egil Asprem move on this year, as he left his job as reviews editor to become editor of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism. Again, however, we are more than compensated by the arrival of Justine Bakker as our new reviews editor. She has been hard at work since January, with (I think you will find) excellent results. We also welcome Tommy Cowan as associate editor. Tommy is the fingers behind all our social media postings, as well as a diligent copyeditor. As any regular reader of Correspondences will have quickly noticed, we also got a new look this year. Many thanks to Sing Yun Lee and Jonathan Hedley, the creative braintrust behind Sinjin Li Studios, for the excellent design and patient technical support. Thanks also the University of Surrey for funding this renovation. © 2019 Aren Roukema. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Published by Correspondences: Journal for