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Academic Study of Western Esotericism (Rudbog)
Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 3:37 pm
by Nefastos
In the last ten or twenty years, occultism (under the label of Western Esotericism) has become more & more discussed part of academical studies. Since much of the literature in such academic circles is not very entertaining reading for the outsiders, I am happy to recommend Tim Rudbog's "The Academic Study of Western Esotericism – Early Developments and Related Fields" (Part one from Introduction Series to Western Esotericism series). Interesting, compact reading, giving lots of tips for further reading. And unlike most of the academical texts, also inexpensive.
Earlier I had read only Rudbog's "Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's Esoteric Tradition", snatched from "Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism". Is someone by any chance familiar with his Doctoral Thesis, or with his other texts? Rudbo[e]g's interests seem to lie much in the same direction than many of our members.
http://www.h-e-r-m-e-s.org/biotimrudboeg.htm
Re: Academic Study of Western Esotericism (Rudbog)
Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 7:13 pm
by Jiva
Well, academic study of western esotericism will hopefully describe my situation in September/October, so I ordered it immediately
. Thanks for the recommendation. I hadn’t heard of him before and as the influence of the Theosophical Society is an interest of mine I’m sure I’ll find his work invaluable.
Re: Academic Study of Western Esotericism (Rudbog)
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:47 pm
by Nefastos
That's great to hear, brother. As I too will be focusing more into that part of study (both studying & teaching & hopefully starting my own doctoral thesis this year) I think we can help each other out here. Next in my own list in this regard are the works of Hanegraaff, & Aprem-Granholm's Contemporary Esotericism. I'm also wrestling with myself whether I should buy the soon to be published The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism, which of course is an expensive opus.
And by the way - although this would certainly demand a topic of its own - Faxneld's great "Satanic Feminism" comes close to the subject, & even more so to our main interests in SoA.
Re: Academic Study of Western Esotericism (Rudbog)
Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 9:46 pm
by Jiva
I haven’t read Rudbøg’s book yet, but I got round to reading one of Hanegraaff’s books on the subject, simply called Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. It’s a pretty good introduction as it attempts to describe what ‘Western Esotericism’ actually is, its relationship with religion and philosophy, how various scholars have investigated the subject, and so on. This latter line of investigation is really useful as some of the more important pioneers in the academic research of Western Esotericism (Mircea Eliade, Antoine Faivre etc.) have/had some sort of esoteric views themselves which naturally influenced their work.
In addition to the standard bibliography, it also has a section on further reading – which is always pretty useful – and ranges from what ‘Western Esotericism’ actually is to its influence on artists and musicians. It seems Hanegraaff also has a book that investigates this first question in more depth – Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture – but I haven’t read it yet.
Re: Academic Study of Western Esotericism (Rudbog)
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:21 pm
by Mimesis
I only own, and have only read one title of theirs, but 'Brill' seem to be a valuable publisher of (not exclusively) Western Esotericism. The book of theirs that I have is 'Music and Esotericism', which is an invaluable, in-depth and comprehensive study into the titles namesake.
In addition to their published work, they are publishing a reference library.
http://www.brill.com/products/series/br ... ce-library