This study investigates how key figures in new religious movements (NRMs) with roots in Western esotericism establish their authority on movements' websites. This study aims to provide a more comprehensive picture of ten key figures than previous research that focused on single key figures within esoteric movements. A qualitative content analysis of the websites of ten such movements has shown how a wide range of claims ultimately represent variations on a small number of themes. These are: claiming to draw upon knowledge and experiences from established traditions; having produced the key texts of the movement; possessing unique personality traits; having had important religious insights, including having received revelations; having previous success as leaders; and integrating scientific findings with their religious message. The present study on the one hand shows the utility of James R. Lewis’ typology of legitimacy strategies, together with Weber's classic tripartite classification of authority. On the other hand, it also demonstrates that a quite restricted number of themes recur on these websites, and that leaders from a diverse set of esoteric movements are primarily depicted as legitimate authorities by being presented as charismatic figures

This thesis seeks to define how Francis Barrett’s The Magus, Or Celestial Intelligencer is indicative of a transitional period (1800–1830) of English Magic. The intention and transmission of Barrett’s The Magus is linked to the revival of occultism and its use as a textbook for occult philosophy. This thesis provides a historical background preceding this revival. The aim of the thesis is to establish Barrett’s text as a hybrid interpretation of Renaissance magic for a modern audience. It is primarily by this hybridization that a series of feedback loops would begin to create the foundation for modern occultism. This study utilizes a careful study of primary sources, including a systematic examination of The Magus within its intellectual and social contexts.

This thesis seeks to define how Francis Barrett’s The Magus, Or Celestial Intelligencer is indicative of a transitional period (1800–1830) of English Magic. The intention and transmission of Barrett’s The Magus is linked to the revival of occultism and its use as a textbook for occult philosophy. This thesis provides a historical background preceding this revival. The aim of the thesis is to establish Barrett’s text as a hybrid interpretation of Renaissance magic for a modern audience. It is primarily by this hybridization that a series of feedback loops would begin to create the foundation for modern occultism. This study utilizes a careful study of primary sources, including a systematic examination of The Magus within its intellectual and social contexts.

The subject of time has long been a subject of fascination by philosophers and researchers alike: What is it? How can it be measured? Is it connected to the larger metaphysical meaning of life (e. g. eternal life, absorption, reincarnation, etc.)? Having some standard measurement of time became a pressing contemporary issue in the Victorian Era as international traveling and communications became more typical. Also, the prominent role of evolution as propagated by Charles Darwin’s ‘Theory of Natural Selection’ questioned the long accepted Christian beliefs in the biblical ‘Creation’. This forced Victorians to seriously consider the subjects of origin and chronology. It was into this shifting and modernist environment that the Theosophical Society was established emerging out of Spiritualism. H. P. Blavatsky, along with Henry S. Olcott and several other founding members, formed this organization as a means of discovering hidden truths and learning practical occult methods and exercises. Indisputably, Blavatsky was one of the leading forces of this Society and her natural intellect combined with her vast, occult writings brought about one of the most distinctive and philosophical doctrines in the Theosophical belief system — a soteriological view of time. Using her philosophy of time, Blavatsky was able to create the ultimate Victorian mythos that could combine science and world religions into one unified and religious modernist system. This thesis will diachronically study Blavatsky’s writings on time, soteriology and chronology. It will begin in the early days when her philosophy was largely borrowed from comparative mythographers, and trace her writings up until the late 1880s when it became mixed with Hindu and Buddhist notions of time and salvation. While studying the evolution of time and its role in Blavatsky’s teachings is the focal point of this study, the secondary purpose is to examine this system as a Victorian mythology that typified the time period along with its hopes, fears and social anxieties.

This thesis seeks to define how Francis Barrett’s The Magus, Or Celestial Intelligencer is indicative of a transitional period (1800–1830) of English Magic. The intention and transmission of Barrett’s The Magus is linked to the revival of occultism and its use as a textbook for occult philosophy. This thesis provides a historical background preceding this revival. The aim of the thesis is to establish Barrett’s text as a hybrid interpretation of Renaissance magic for a modern audience. It is primarily by this hybridization that a series of feedback loops would begin to create the foundation for modern occultism. This study utilizes a careful study of primary sources, including a systematic examination of The Magus within its intellectual and social contexts.

Gothicism in general, and the Swedish Gothicism in particular, had a close connection to the esoteric currents that were flourishing all over Europe in the Early Modern Period. Apocalyptic predictions and prophecies useful to Gothic propaganda were derived from contemporary esoteric streams, but alongside these came Hermetic and Neo-Platonic speculations of a more individual character that emphasized man’s gradual ascension toward a higher state. The foremost representative for this union of Gothicism and Esotericism was Johannes Bureus (1568-1652). Although a pioneer of runology and Swedish grammatical studies, Bureus felt he made his greatest contributions in the sphere of mysticism. Influenced by the concept of a Philosophia Perennis, Bureus believed this eternal philosophy was not only expressed by the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Hebrews, but also by the ancient Norse. Bureus represents what could be termed an Esoteric Gothicism. In his work, the ideal of Gothicism melds with Esotericism in the form of Alchemy, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Astrology, and Magic. Bureus himself called his esoteric system a Nordic Kabbalah, a “Notaricon Suethica,” or a “Kabala Upsalica.” Bureus’s Esotericism is explicated primarily in his manuscripts such as the Cabbalistica, Antiquitates Scanziana, and especially Adulruna Rediviva (the latter produced in seven versions over a forty-year period), but also in his major opus, dedicated to his pupil Queen Christina, the printed apocalyptic book Nordlanda Lejonsens Rytande. In examining Esoteric Gothicism we can discern a further tendency within Gothicism beyond the national chauvinism typically seen as exemplifying the movement. In Bureus’s work, Gothic motifs are combined with runes and Old Norse themes in an imaginative manner, but most characteristic of Bureus is how he uses the results to describe a highly individual path of initiation which leads to unity with God. Bureus’s ideas may seem eccentric to a modern reader, but properly situating them in their historical context reveals the role he played in an influential current in European intellectual and spiritual history, a current often referred to by scholars as Western Esotericism.

This essay examines how the Baphomet symbol is understood in three different contexts. Firstly, the understanding of the Baphomet is analysed in the book Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, written by the French 19th century occultist Éliphas Lévi. Secondly, I analyse the symbol in The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey, the person responsible for having introduced Satanism to modernity. Thirdly, the Baphomet as understood in contemporary metal music culture is analysed. Ultimately, I find the Baphomet to be viewed as a symbol associated with Satan, but in very different ways. The reason to why these differences exist I find to be partially explained by the initial mystery surrounding the Baphomet. The understanding of the Baphomet depends also on the role of Satan in each context. Due to Satan representing different things in the three different contexts, so does the Baphomet. / <p>All images removed.</p>

The concept of magic is most often considered as a foil by scholars in the fields of philosophy and religious studies, or it is discussed as part of the investigation of “primitive” systems of belief and ritual. In this essay, magic is investigated as a system of inquiry and explanation unto itself, connected to but distinct from both philosophy and religious studies, and an argument is presented for understanding systems of magic as both natural and rational outgrowths of a particular perspective on reality.

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2017-01-18T14:28:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 5375250 bytes, checksum: d10017173e98e4382e54b9c7b5c32085 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-18T14:28:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 5375250 bytes, checksum: d10017173e98e4382e54b9c7b5c32085 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-06-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation has as object to show the Hermeticism not only as an ancient philosophical movement, but as a current of thought that breaks with the classical Greek rationality, directing him to a religious philosophical view, or a philosophical religiosity through a unification of the philosophical doctrines and Greco-Egyptian religious. The philosophical problems of theoretical are opposed to the problems about the divine and an experience with divinity, in short a “theologi”. The Hermeticism has as its patron and founder the mythical figure of Hermes Trismegistus, who together survived with Platonism, Middle-Platonism, Middle Stoa and Aristotelianism to the average age because some transmission channels. The Hermeticism rises again with greater force and fury in the Renaissance, shaping or presenting a pre-Christian primordial revelation called prisca theologia or ancient theology. Hermeticism became the Renaissance center of a revival or reediting the theological-metaphysical ancient thought that it intended to seek a new way of interpreting Christianity then. Thus was the basis of a generating hermeneutics of meaning and unification, as well as a sponsor of affirmative relations between philosophies and religions, diversity and religious tolerance. It will also be the source of a form of thought called Western Esotericism, working with one of the cultural and present engines in the history of called esoteric current subsequent to the fifteenth century, presenting itself as the most current research in the area as a rejected knowledge in the history of the West. It will be understood as a key element in the sense that it collaborated heavily for the establishment of an imaginary and an episteme in the Renaissance period, while its epistemological structure survived as a form of thought, while it was rejected by the academy. Thus, Hermeticism has, as a form of thought, an extremely complex logic and epistemological constituent and dynamic which can serve us today as an epistemological and hermeneutic relief as occurred in front antiquity to the decline of Greek rationalism and Renaissance front need for reform in Christianity. / Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de apresentar o Hermetismo não somente como uma corrente filosófica antiga, mas como uma corrente de pensamento que rompe com a racionalidade clássica grega, direcionando-o a uma visão filosófico-religiosa, ou a uma religiosidade filosófica, através de uma unificação entre as doutrinas filosóficas e religiosas greco-egípcia. Os problemas filosóficos de ordem teórica são contrapostos aos problemas acerca do divino e de uma experiência com a divindade, em suma a uma “teologia”. O Hermetismo possui o patrono e fundador a figura mítica de Hermes Trismegistos, que sobreviveu conjuntamente com o Platonismo, o Médio-platonismo, o médio Estoicismo e o Aristotelismo até a idade média graças alguns canais de transmissão. O Hermetismo ressurgirá com maior força e furor no Renascimento, conformando ou apresentando uma revelação primordial pré-cristã chamada de prisca theologia ou primeira teologia. O Hermetismo se tornou no Renascimento o centro de um reavivamento ou reatualização do pensamento teológico-metafísico antigo que pretendia buscar uma nova maneira de interpretar o Cristianismo de então. Desta forma foi a base de uma hermenêutica geradora de sentido e unificação, além de promovedora de afirmativas relações entre as filosofias e religiões, de diversidade e tolerância religiosa. Será também a fonte de uma forma de pensamento chamada de esoterismo ocidental, funcionando com um dos motores culturais e presente na história das ditas correntes esotéricas posteriores ao séc. XV, apresentando-se conforme as mais atuais pesquisas da área como um conhecimento rejeitado na história do ocidente. Será entendido como elemento fundamental no sentido em que ele colaborou fortemente para o estabelecimento de um imaginário e de uma episteme no período do Renascimento, enquanto que sua estrutura epistemológica sobreviveu enquanto uma forma de pensamento, ao mesmo tempo em que foi rejeitado pela academia. Sendo assim, o Hermetismo possui, enquanto uma forma de pensamento, uma constituinte lógica e epistemológica extremamente complexa e dinâmica a qual pode nos servir hoje enquanto socorro epistemológico e hermenêutico assim como ocorreu na Antiguidade frente à decadência do racionalismo grego, e no Renascimento frente à necessidade de reforma na cristandade.

This essay will attempt to explore esoteric elements and connections in Hermann Hesses' final novel Das Glasperlenspiel and whether the narratives and beliefs held by the fictional realm of Castalia and the protagonist Josef Knecht fit into the tradition of western esotericism as defined by Kocku von Stuckrad and Antoine Faivre respectively. An attempt will also be made to explore why the novel has come to influence modern esoteric movements in what Wouter Hanegraaff defines as "New Age religion".