Correspondences Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism Editors Jimmy Elwing and Aren Roukema 3 (2015) © Contributing authors 2015 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 http://www.correspondencesjournal.com Editorial contacts: Jimmy Elwing: [email protected] Aren Roukema: [email protected] Book Review Editor Egil Asprem: [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 (St. Petersburg College), Boaz Huss (Ben-Gurion University of Negev), Birgit Menzel (Universität Mainz). Contents Editorial 1 Research Articles CHRISTOPHER A. PLAISANCE. Israel Regardie and the Psychologization of 5 Esoteric Discourse WOUTER J. HANEGRAAFF. The Globalization of Esotericism 55 Review Articles PETER STAUDENMAIER. The Higher Worlds meet the Lower Criticism: 93 New Scholarship on Rudolf Steiner DAVID W. WOOD. Exoteric & Esoteric: Methodological Reflections on Vol. 7 of the Rudolf Steiner Critical Edition 111 EGIL ASPREM. Patterns of Magicity: A Review of Defining Magic: A Reader 127 Book Reviews Damon Zacharias Lycourinos (ed.). Occult Traditions Reviewed by MANON HEDENBORG-WHITE 141 Frank Klaassen. The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and the Renaissance Reviewed by EGIL ASPREM 147 Sheila A. Spector (ed., trans.). Francis Mercury van Helmont’s Sketch of Christian Kabbalism Reviewed by GEORGIANA D. HEDESAN 152 Angel Millar. The Crescent and the Compass: Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism, and Revolution in the Modern Age Reviewed by JUSTINE BAKKER 156 Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Mito, Magia, Qabbalah Reviewed by ALESSANDRO VIGORELLI PORRO 160 Ithell Colquhoun. I Saw Water: An Occult Novel and Other Selected Writings Reviewed by AREN ROUKEMA 164 Thomas Karlsson. Amongst Mystics and Magicians in Stockholm Reviewed by HARRI LINNERA 169 Correspondences 3 (2015) 1–3 ISSN: 2053-7158 (Online) correspondencesjournal.com Editorial Jimmy Elwing E-mail: [email protected] Now that the holiday season is behind us, we bring you one last gift: the third volume of Correspondences. This volume marks the end of the third year of our open access adventure, a year which has included some important changes for the journal. We began our new publication model in which articles go online in advance form as soon as they are ready (which has proved to be a success); we migrated our webpage to a new server which will stabilise the journal and allow us to add new features which will further help its maintenance in the future; and we welcomed Kennet Granholm as an editorial board member. The current volume of the journal contains research articles by a junior and a senior scholar in the field of Western esotericism. In “Israel Regardie and the Psychologization of Esoteric Discourse,” Christopher A. Plaisance re-examines and clarifies the relationship between esoteric and psychological discourses in the works of Israel Regardie, thereby contributing to the theoretical discussion on the “psychologisation” of esotericism that has been underway for quite a while. It also provides a historical exposition of Regardie’s life and work. Wouter J. Hanegraaff follows with the “The Globalization of Esotericism,” an expansion of his keynote lecture delivered at the Fifth International Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism in Riga (April 2015). After examining the scholarly discussions concerned with letting the study of “Western esotericism” part with its geographical or cultural denominator, Hanegraaff concludes that it is advisable to keep the concept as it was originally construed, “not for reasons of conceptual theory © 2015 Jimmy Elwing. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. 2 Elwing / Correspondences 3 (2015) 1–3 but for reasons of historical method.” Together, these two articles provide theoretical discussions that we hope to see more of in forthcoming issues of Correspondences, and we are looking forward to any responses they may provoke. In this volume we also introduce three review articles—a new format for Correspondences. The first two both deal with volumes of Christian Clement’s Rudolf Steiner: Schriften – Kritische Augsgaube—a venture that has sparked much debate in the German speaking world. Peter Staudenmaier and David W. Wood, respectively, plunge us into the Steiner debate, taking two somewhat different sides on key questions in Rudolf Steiner research; we are happy to present these side by side in this volume. Our book review editor, Egil Asprem, provides the third review article: a final, updated, and standardised version of his essay on Michael Stausberg and Berndt-Christian Otto’s Defining Magic: A Reader. We feel that the review article format offers a very good space for providing deeper analysis than fits a more traditional book review, and we are looking forward to exploring this format more in the future. Alongside the review articles, we are happy to provide a dense book review section with reviews by no less than seven authors. We offer more traditional academic reviews, such as Allessandro Vigorelli Porro’s review of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Mito, Magia, Qabbalah, but have also decided to include reviews of primary texts such as Thomas Karlsson’s Amongst Mystics and Magicians in Stockholm, and scholar-practitioner books, such as Damon Zacharias Lycourinos’s Occult Traditions. Ever since its foundation, Correspondences has been an academic peer-reviewed journal that has insisted on not being bound by traditional academic publishing models. We deem it important to review books which may not normally be given attention in an academic setting, but which are still important for specialists, researchers and enthusiasts of the study of Western esotericism. Although we are not committed to a view of “esotericism” as something that exists as an object, it becomes an object when esoteric actors become increasingly familiar with scholarship from the field of Western esotericism.1 This calls for an increased emphasis on scholarly reflexivity—it is important to remember the role scholars have played, and are playing, in the continual development of “esotericism” as object.2 By offering reviews of scholar- 1 For a discussion of this, see Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm, “Constructing Esotericisms: Sociological, Historical and Critical Approaches to the Invention of Tradition,” in Contemporary Esotericim, eds. Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm (Sheffield: Equinox, 2013), 43–45. 2 Asprem and Granholm, “Constructing Esotericisms,” 48. For a discussion of reflexivity Elwing / Correspondences 3 (2015) 1–3 3 practitioner books,3 Correspondences provides an academic forum in which to critique not only the merits of particular texts, but also the ways in which scholars participate in creating the very object that they have set out to analyse. We think this enables a much-needed awareness of the discursive processes at work. First hand sources may not first and foremost be important on the basis of their academic merit, but can still be reviewed based on what they offer to researchers, or how they may potentially contribute to deepening academic discussion. Ever since we started this journal we have intended Correspondences to form a forum in which meaningful (and non-polemical) interaction between research- ers from all disciplines, outlooks and backgrounds can be held. We deem it important to allow researchers from all levels and backgrounds to dialogue with others inside and outside the field, inside and outside the so-called “ivory” tower. We hope that this third volume will provide a good foundation for research as we enter the fourth year of the journal’s existence, and that it will host many new fascinating discussions in forthcoming volumes. and praxis in Western esotericism and Pagan Studies, see Amy Hale, “Navigating Praxis: Pagan Studies vs. Esoteric Studies,” The Pomegranate 15, no. 1–2 (2013): 151–163. 3 For another example of a scholar-practitioner book that we’ve published a review of, see Ethan Doyle White, Review of Pathways in Modern Western Magic, edited by Nevill Drury, Correspondences 2, no. 1 (2014): 115–118. Correspondences 3 (2015) 5–54 ISSN: 2053-7158 (Online) correspondencesjournal.com Israel Regardie and the Psychologization of Esoteric Discourse Christopher A. Plaisance E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This is an article in the history of Western esoteric currents that re-examines and clarifies the relationship between esoteric and psychological discourses within the works of Israel Regardie. One of the most common ways in which these two discourses have been found to be related to one another by scholars of the esoteric is through the process of “psychologization”— with Regardie often being put forth as a paragon of the process. This paper argues that a unitary conception of psychologization fails to adequately describe the specific discursive strategies utilized by Regardie.