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| eric voegelin gnosticism: Science, Politics and Gnosticism Eric Voegelin, 2012-03-27 Science, Politics and Gnosticism comprises two essays by Eric Voegelin (1901-85), arguably one of the most provocative and influential political philosophers of the last century. In these essays, Voegelin contends that certain modern movements, including positivism, Hegelianism, Marxism, and the God is dead school, are variants of the gnostic tradition he identified in his classic work The New Science of Politics. Voegelin attempts to resolve the intellectual confusion that has resulted from the dominance of gnostic thought by clarifying the distinction between political gnosticism and the philosophy of politics. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Science, Politics and Gnosticism Eric Voegelin, 1997-06-01 Eric Voegelin, one of today's leading political theorists and author of the contemporary classic The New Science of Politics, here contends that certain modern movements, including Positivism, Hegelianism, Marxism and the God is Dead movement, are variants of the Gnostic tradition of antiquity. He attempts to resolve the intellectual confusion that has resulted from the dominance of gnostic thought by clarifying the distinction between political gnosticism and the philosophy of politics. Highly provocative, this book is essential reading for students of modern politics, philosophy, and religion. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition Lee Trepanier, Steven F. Mcguire, 2011-02-14 Twentieth-century political philosopher Eric Voegelin is best known as a severe critic of modernity. Much of his work argues that modernity is a Gnostic revolt against the fundamental structure of reality. For Voegelin, “Gnosticism” is the belief that human beings can transform the nature of reality through secret knowledge and social action, and he considered it the crux of the crisis of modernity. As Voegelin struggled with this crisis throughout his career, he never wavered in his judgment that philosophers of the modern continental tradition were complicit in the Gnostic revolt of modernity. But while Voegelin’s analysis of those philosophers is at times scathing, his work also bears marks of their influence, and Voegelin has much more in common with the theorists of the modern continental tradition than is usually recognized. Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition: Explorations in Modern Political Thought evaluates this political philosopher—one of the most original and influential thinkers of our time—by examining his relationship to the modern continental tradition in philosophy, from Kant to Derrida. In a compelling introduction, editors Lee Trepanier and Steven F. McGuire present a review of the trajectories of Voegelin’s thought and outline what often is portrayed as his derisive critique of modernity. Soon, however, they begin to unravel the similarities between Voegelin’s thought and the work of other thinkers in the continental tradition. The subsequent chapters explore these possible connections by examining Voegelin’s intellectual relationship to individual thinkers, including Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The essays in this volume go beyond Voegelin’s own reading of the modern philosophers to offer a reevaluation of his relationship to those thinkers. In Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition, Voegelin’s attempt to grapple with the crisis of modernity becomes clearer, and his contribution to the modern continental tradition is illuminated. The book features the work of both established and emerging Voegelin scholars, and the essays were chosen to present thoughtful and balanced assessments of both Voegelin’s thought and the ideas of the other thinkers considered. As the first volume to examine the relationship—and surprising commonalities—between Voegelin’s philosophy and the continental tradition as a whole, this text will be of interest not only to Voegelin disciples but to philosophers engaged by continental modernism and all disciplines of political philosophy. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Gnostic Apocalypse Cyril O'Regan, 2012-02-01 Jacob Boehme, the seventeenth-century German speculative mystic, influenced the philosophers Hegel and Schelling and both English and German Romantics alike with his visionary thought. Gnostic Apocalypse focuses on the way Boehme's thought repeats and surpasses post-reformation Lutheran thinking, deploys and subverts the commitments of medieval mysticism, realizes the speculative thrust of Renaissance alchemy, is open to esoteric discourses such as the Kabbalah, and articulates a dynamic metaphysics. This book critically assesses the striking claim made in the nineteenth century that Boehme's visionary discourse represents within the confines of specifically Protestant thought nothing less than the return of ancient Gnosis. Although the grounds adduced on behalf of the Gnostic return claim in the nineteenth century are dismissed as questionable, O'Regan shows that the fundamental intuition is correct. Boehme's visionary discourse does represent a return of Gnosticism in the modern period, and in this lies its fundamental claim to our contemporary philosophical, theological, and literary attention. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Gnostic Return in Modernity Cyril O'Regan, 2001-07-19 Gnostic Return in Modernity demonstrates the possibility that Gnosticism haunts certain modern discourses. Studying Gnosticism of the first centuries of the common era and utilizing narrative analysis, the author shows how Gnosticism returns in a select b |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, 1998-01-01 This volume introduces what has sometimes been called the third component of western culture. It traces the historical development of those religious traditions which have rejected a world view based on the primacy of pure rationality or doctrinal faith, emphasizing instead the importance of inner enlightenment or gnosis: a revelatory experience which was typically believed to entail an encounter with one's true self as well as with the ground of being, God. The contributors to this book demonstrate this perspective as fundamental to a variety of interconnected traditions. In Antiquity, one finds the gnostics and hermetics; in the Middle Ages several Christian sects. The medieval Cathars can, to a certain extent, be considered part of the same tradition. Starting with the Italian humanist Renaissance, hermetic philosophy became of central importance to a new religious synthesis that can be referred to as Western Esotericism. The development of this tradition is described from Renaissance hermeticists and practitioners of spiritual alchemy to the emergence of Rosicrucianism and Christian theosophy in the seventeenth century, and from post-enlightenment aspects of Romanticism and occultism to the present-day New Age movement. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Eric Voegelin Michael P. Federici, 2002 Readers intimidated or puzzled by Voegelin's often daunting prose will find Federici's volume, the fourth entry in ISI's Library of Modern Thinkers series, an invaluable guide to one of the twentieth century's most imposing - and most impressive - philosophical minds.--BOOK JACKET. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Russell Kirk Bradley J. Birzer, 2015-11-09 Emerging from two decades of the Great Depression and the New Deal and facing the rise of radical ideologies abroad, the American Right seemed beaten, broken, and adrift in the early 1950s. Although conservative luminaries such as T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley Jr., Leo Strauss, and Eric Voegelin all published important works at this time, none of their writings would match the influence of Russell Kirk's 1953 masterpiece The Conservative Mind. This seminal book became the intellectual touchstone for a reinvigorated movement and began a sea change in Americans' attitudes toward traditionalism. In Russell Kirk, Bradley J. Birzer investigates the life and work of the man known as the founder of postwar conservatism in America. Drawing on papers and diaries that have only recently become available to the public, Birzer presents a thorough exploration of Kirk's intellectual roots and development. The first to examine the theorist's prolific writings on literature and culture, this magisterial study illuminates Kirk's lasting influence on figures such as T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley Jr., and Senator Barry Goldwater—who persuaded a reluctant Kirk to participate in his campaign for the presidency in 1964. While several books examine the evolution of postwar conservatism and libertarianism, surprisingly few works explore Kirk's life and thought in detail. This engaging biography not only offers a fresh and thorough assessment of one of America's most influential thinkers but also reasserts his humane vision in an increasingly inhumane time. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: American Cicero Bradley J. Birzer, 2023-06-20 Aristocrat. Catholic. Patriot. Founder. Before his death in 1832, Charles Carroll of Carrollton—the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence—was widely regarded as one of the most important Founders. Today, Carroll's signal contributions to the American Founding are overlooked, but the fascinating new biography American Cicero rescues Carroll from unjust neglect. Drawing on his considerable study of Carroll's published and unpublished writings, historian Bradley J. Birzer masterfully captures a man of supreme intellect, imagination, integrity, and accomplishment. Born a bastard, Carroll nonetheless became the best educated (and wealthiest) Founder. The Marylander's insight, Birzer shows, allowed him to recognize the necessity of independence from Great Britain well before most other Founders. Indeed, Carroll's analysis of the situation in the colonies in the run-up to the Revolution was original and brilliant—yet almost all historians have ignored it. Reflecting his classical and liberal education, the man who would be called The Last of the Romans advocated a proper understanding of the American Revolution as deeply rooted in the Western tradition. Carroll even left his mark on the U.S. Constitution despite not assuming his elected position to the Constitutional Convention: by inspiring the creation of the U.S. Senate. American Cicero ably demonstrates how Carroll's Catholicism was integral to his thought. Oppressed because of his faith—Maryland was the most anti-Catholic of the original thirteen colonies—Carroll became the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped legitimize Catholicism in the young American republic. What's more, Birzer brilliantly reassesses the most controversial aspects of Charles Carroll: his aristocratic position and his critiques of democracy. As Birzer shows, Carroll's fears of extreme democracy had ancient and noble roots, and his arguments about the dangers of democracy influenced Alexis de Tocqueville's magisterial work Democracy in America. American Cicero reveals why Founders such as John Adams assumed that Charles Carroll would one day be considered among the greats—and also why history has largely forgotten him. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: No Spiritual Investment in the World Willem Styfhals, 2019-05-15 Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob Taubes at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism Albert Camus, 2007 Contemporary scholarship tends to view Albert Camus as a modern, but he himself was conscious of the past and called the transition from Hellenism to Christianity the true and only turning point in history. For Camus, modernity was not fully comprehensible without an examination of the aspirations that were first articulated in antiquity and that later received their clearest expression in Christianity. These aspirations amounted to a fundamental reorientation of human life in politics, religion, science, and philosophy. Understanding the nature and achievement of that reorientation became the central task of Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism. Primarily known through its inclusion in a French omnibus edition, it has remained one of Camus' least-read works, yet it marks his first attempt to understand the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity as he charted the movement from the Gospels through Gnosticism and Plotinus to what he calls Augustine's second revelation of the Christian faith. Ronald Srigley's translation of this seminal document helps illuminate these aspects of Camus' work. His freestanding English edition exposes readers to an important part of Camus' thought that is often overlooked by those concerned primarily with the book's literary value and supersedes the extant McBride translation by retaining a greater degree of literalness. Srigley has fully annotated Christian Metaphysics to include nearly all of Camus' original citations and has tracked down many poorly identified sources. When Camus cites an ancient primary source, whether in French translation or in the original language, Srigley substitutes a standard English translation in the interest of making his edition accessible to a wider range of readers. His introduction places the text in the context of Camus' better-known later work, explicating its relationship to those mature writings and exploring how its themes were reworked in subsequent books. Arguing that Camus was one of the great critics of modernity through his attempt to disentangle the Greeks from the Christians, Srigley clearly demonstrates the place of Christian Metaphysics in Camus' oeuvre. As the only stand-alone English version of this important work-and a long-overdue critical edition-his fluent translation is an essential benchmark in our understanding of Camus and his place in modern thought. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin: Modernity without restraint Eric Voegelin, Gilbert Weiss, 1989 |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Exploring the "Metaxy" in Eric Voegelin's Gnosticism. Consciousness Between Myth and Transcendence Galin Penev, 2024-07-22 Scientific Essay in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 20th century, grade: 10, , language: English, abstract: In the theory of Gnosticism by Voegelin there is a Platonic category “metaxy”, which meaning get through the Cogito in the modern theories of consciousness because it keeps the talk between soul and Transcendence going. It reveals a thought pattern that moderates the extremes in the consciousness, managing an approach I called “outside and inside the myth”. With Outside and inside the myth I mean a phrase that expresses the consciousness in-between, a main insight in Erik Voegelin`s historic thought. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Anamnesis Eric Voegelin, 1990 Volume 6 of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin offers the first translation of the full German text of Anamnesis published in 1966. The previous English edition, translated by Gerhart Niemeyer, focused largely on the sections of Anamnesis dealing directly with Voegelin's philosophy of consciousness. It omitted some of the extensive historical studies on which the philosophy of consciousness was based. To properly understand Voegelin's work, however, it is essential to give equal weight to the empirical as well as the philosophical aspects. This complete version of Anamnesis captures the full integrity of his vision. It is at once scientific, in the sense of fidelity to the demands of historiographic scholarship, and philosophical, in exploring the significance of the texts for the meaning of human existence in society and history. Anamnesis is a pivotal work within Voegelin's intellectual odyssey. Alone among Voegelin's books, it reveals an author looking back and taking stock of his growth rather than customarily forging ahead into new regions and new problems. This critical work is both a recollection of Voegelin's own development, reaching back even to his infant memories, and a demonstration of the anamnetic method as applied to a wide range of historically remembered materials. Written as more than just a collection of essays, Anamnesis is the volume in which Voegelin works out for himself the reconceptualization of what Order and History, and by definition his central philosophical approach, is going to be. By revisiting his previous work--a departure from Voegelin's usual scholarly habits--he found at last the literary form for the kind of empirical philosophical meditation that had long absorbed his labors. Parts I and III contain biographical and meditative reflections written by Voegelin in 1943 and 1965, respectively. The first part details the breakthrough by which Voegelin recovered consciousness from the current theories of consciousness. Part III begins as a rethinking of the Aristotelian exegesis of consciousness, and then expands into new areas of awareness that had not come within the knowledge of classic philosophy. Between these two meditative selections are eight studies that demonstrate how the historical phenomena of order gave rise to the type of analysis which culminates in the meditative exploration of consciousness. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Eric Voegelin's Dialogue with the Postmoderns Eric Voegelin, 2004 This collection of essays endeavors to generate a dialogue between Eric Voegelin and other prominent twentieth century thinkers and explore some of the more perplexing issues in contemporary political theory. Each essay rests on the underlying question: is it possible or desirable to construct or discover political foundations without resorting to metaphysical or essentialist constructs? The introduction focuses on the two nineteenth century thinkers, Nietzsche and Husserl, who have framed the debate about modernity and postmodernity; thereafter, the book examines Voegelin's ideas as compared to those of other twentieth century thinkers. Discussed within the volume are Levinas and the precedence of ethics, Ricoeur's theory of narrative representation, Deleuze and the philosophy of immanence, Voegelin's relationship to a speech dimension theory of human behavior, and Patocka's theory of pre metaphysical transcendence in Socrates. What will impress scholars most about this collection is the provocative dialogue created between Voegelin and other major thinkers of postmodernism that addresses the issue of establishing foundations without foundationalism. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Genealogies of the Secular Willem Styfhals, Stéphane Symons, 2019-11-01 Presents a historical and philosophical overview of the twentieth-century German debates on secularization, and their significance for contemporary discussions about the relationship between theology and modernity. While the concept of secularization is traditionally used to define the nature of modern culture, and sometimes to uncover the theological origins of secular modernity, its validity is being questioned ever more radically today. Genealogies of the Secular returns to the historical, intellectual, and philosophical roots of this concept in the twentieth-century German debates on religion and modernity, and presents a wide range of strategies that German thinkers have applied to apprehend the connection between religion and secularism. In fundamentally heterogeneous ways, these strategies all developed “genealogies of the secular” by tracing modern phenomena back to their religious or theological roots. This book aims to disclose the complex prehistory of the contemporary debates on political theology and postsecularism, and to show how prominent thinkers continue this German tradition today. It explores and assesses the classic theories of secularization that are epitomized in Carl Schmitt’s writings on political theology, but also addresses German philosophers whose work has been rarely associated with secularization, including Walter Benjamin, Ernst Cassirer, Martin Heidegger, Immanuel Kant, and Hannah Arendt. Attention is also paid to two thinkers whose role in these discourses has not been fully explored yet: Jacob Taubes and Jan Assmann. By introducing their thinking on religion, politics, and secularization, the book also makes two of their own key texts available to an English-language readership. “What makes the book so valuable pedagogically is the clarity and scope of its synthetic gestures about the dense questions congealing around the topic of secularization. It offers a pronouncement of central significance, emerging from some of the most important contemporary voices in these fields. The scholarship is internationally informed and engaged, even as it feels vibrant, immediate, and agenda setting.” — Ward Blanton, University of Kent, Canterbury |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Hans Jonas David J. Levy, 2002 Setting Jonas's work in the historical and philosophical context of his life and times, Levy summarizes Jonas's original achievements in fields as apparently diverse as the history of ancient Gnosticism, the philosophical significance of biology, the problems of ethics in a technological age, and the mysteries of theology, while demonstrating the notable unity of theme and purpose that guided his various fields of inquiry. Unlike the scattered works, anthologies, and essays that are currently available, Hans Jonas: The Integrity of Thinking provides a much-needed single, coherent overview of the various fields to which Jonas's attention was drawn, bringing out the unified, systematic quality of Jonas's philosophical approach.--BOOK JACKET. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition Glenn Alexander Magee, 2008 Glenn Alexander Magee's pathbreaking book argues that Hegel was decisively influenced by the Hermetic tradition, a body of thought with roots in Greco-Roman Egypt. Magee traces the influence on Hegel of such Hermetic thinkers as Baader, Böhme, Bruno, and Paracelsus, and fascination with occult and paranormal phenomena. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition covers Hegel's philosophical corpus and shows that his engagement with Hermeticism lasted throughout his career and intensified during his final years in Berlin. Viewing Hegel as a Hermetic thinker has implications for a more complete understanding of the modern philosophical tradition, and German idealism in particular. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Order and History Eric Voegelin, Dante Germino, 1999-12-01 This third volume of Order and History completes Voegelin's study of Greek culture from its earliest pre- Hellenic origins to its full maturity with the dominance of Athens. As the title suggests, Plato and Aristotle is principally devoted to the work of the two great thinkers who represent the high point of philosophic inquiry among the Greeks. Through an absorbing analysis of the Platonic and Aristotelian vision of soul, polis, and cosmos, Voegelin demonstrates how the symbolic framework of the older myth was superseded by the more precisely differentiated symbols of philosophy. Although this outmoding and rejection of past symbols of truth might seem to lead to a chaotic and despairing relativism, Voegelin makes it the basis of a profound conception of the historical process: the attempts to find the symbolic forms that will adequately express the meaning [of a society], while imperfect, do not form a senseless series of failures. For the great societies have created a sequence of orders, intelligibly connected with one another as advances toward, or recessions from, an adequate symbolization of the truth concerning the order of being of which the order of society is a part. In this view, history has no obvious meaning, yet each society makes a similar venture after truth. Although every society works out its destiny under different conditions, each nonetheless creates symbolsin its deeds and institutionswhich bear the meaning of its own existence. History, then, acquires a unity in the common endeavor toward meaning and order. The rationality and nobility of this view of history has much to say to the present age. Dante Germino's powerful introduction to this edition of Plato and Aristotle eloquently directs the reader into Voegelin's search through the thought of Plato foremost and Aristotle secondarily and toward a full understanding of their relevance to the modern world. This masterpiece, Germino argues, provides a welcome antidote to the spirit of an era Voegelin once called the Gnostic age. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Eric Voegelin Reader Eric Voegelin, 2017-09-20 Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was one of the most original philosophers of our time, working throughout his life to account for the endemic political violence of the twentieth century, in an effort variously referred to as a philosophy of politics, history, or consciousness. Drawing from the University of Missouri Press's thirty-four-volume edition of his collected works, Charles Embry and Glenn Hughes have assembled a selection of Voegelin's representative writings, satisfying the need for a single volume that can serve as a general introduction to his philosophy. The selection demonstrates the range and creativity of Voegelin's thought, including writings that show his thinking as it developed historically in his long search for order in human society. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth Bradley J. Birzer, 2023-08-29 With a new introduction by the author Peter Jackson's film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy - and the accompanying Rings-related paraphernalia and publicity - has played a unique role in the disemmination of Tolkien's imaginative creation to the masses. Yet, for most readers and viewers, the underlying meaning of Middle-earth has remained obscure. Bradley Birzer has remedied that with this fresh study. In J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth, Birzer reveals the surprisingly specific religious symbolism that permeates Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He also explores the social and political views that motivated the Oxford don, ultimately situating Tolkien within the Christian humanist tradition represented by Thomas More and T.S. Eliot, Dante and C.S. Lewis. Birzer argues that through the genre of myth Tolkien created a world that is essentially truer than the one we think we see around us everyday, a world that transcends the colorless disenchantment of our postmodern age. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics Elizabeth Campbell Corey, 2006 Argues that Oakeshott's views on aesthetics, religion, and morality, which she places in the Augustinian tradition, are intimately linked to a creative moral personality that underlies his political theorizing. Also compares Oakeshott's Rationalism to Voegelin's concept of Gnosticism and considers both thinkers' treatment of Hobbes to delineate their philosophical differences--Provided by publisher. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Against the Protestant Gnostics Philip J. Lee, 1993-08-19 In this penetrating and provocative assessment of the current state of religion and its effects on society at large, Philip J. Lee criticizes conservatives and liberals alike as he traces gnostic motifs to the very roots of American Protestantism. With references to an extraordinary spectrum of writings from sources as diverse as John Calvin, Martin Buber, Tom Wolfe, Margaret Atwood, and Emily Dickinson, he probes the effects of gnostic thinking on a wide range of issues. Calling for the restoration of a dialectical faith and practice, the book points to positive ways of restoring health to endangered Protestant churches. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Disturbing Revelation: Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and the Bible John J. Ranieri, 2008 Ranieri shows how Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin drew on biblical texts in their philosophies to explore the relationship between religion, politics, and violence while maintaining a deep ambivalence about the Bible's vision of life and its influence on politics and finally compares their thought with that of René Girard--Provided by publisher. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Gnostics Sean Martin, 2012-02-03 Gnosticism - derived from the Greek word gnosis, to know - is the name given to various religious schools that proliferated in the first centuries after Christ and, at one time, it almost became the dominant form of Christianity. Yet some Gnostic beliefs derive from the older Mystery traditions of Greece and Rome, and the various Gnostic schools came to be branded as heretical by the emerging Christian church. Indeed, although some Gnostic beliefs are close to mainstream Christianity Gnosticism also held that the world is imperfect as it was created by an evil god who was constantly at war with the true, good God; that Christ and Satan were brothers; that reincarnation exists; and that women were the equal of men As a result, the Gnostics held the Feminine Aspect of God - whom they addressed as Sophia, or Wisdom - in very high regard. They also stressed that we each have a spark of the Divine inside us which, when recognised and developed, will ultimately liberate us from the prison of the material world. Although largely stamped out by the Church by the sixth century, Gnosticism survived underground through groups such as the Bogomils and the Cathars, and influenced the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the psychologist Carl Jung, the Existentialists, the New Age movement and writers as diverse as William Blake, W.B. Yeats, Albert Camus and Philip K. Dick. In this book, Sean Martin recounts the long and diverse history of Gnosticism, and argues for its continued relevance today. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Gnostic America Peter M. Burfeind, 2014-08-29 Gnostic America is a reading of current American culture, politics, and religious life according to the ancient movement known as Gnosticism. In it, Peter M Burfeind builds off the foundations of Hans Jonas, Denis de Rougement, Norman Cohn, William Voegelin, Carl Jung, and Harold Bloom, each of whom saw the effects of Gnosticism in contemporary American (and Western) life. He explores the spiritual mechanisms going on behind everything from transgenderism to so-called contemporary worship, from the deconstructionist movement to the role pop music and media have in our culture, from progressive politics to the Emergent Church. Particularly challenging is Burfeind's claim that both progressivism and Neo-evangelicalism -- seemingly at odds in the culture wars -- actually share the same Gnostic roots. Burfeind's book is a tour de force through contemporary rock, pop, movies, television, politics, and religion showing how many of the values driving these cultural elements are informed by the ancient esoteric teachings of Gnosticism. Burfeind marshals a ton of surprising evidence to make his case, taking us through ancient and Medieval history, through the Enlightenment and Romantic periods, to today. Those willing to grapple with the philosophical and spiritual positions of the fathers of contemporary American life will be rewarded. Gnostic America is a must read for those who sense a new spiritual but not religious religion has arisen in America, but who can't put their finger on what exactly this religion is. Burfeind commits the sacrilege of defining a religion that claims to be beyond definition. More importantly, he poses the question, if the spiritual trends of contemporary culture are indeed a religion, what First Amendment safeguards remain for those who haven't evolved with the emerging new consciousness, but choose to remain stuck in supposedly retrograde paradigms of thought? |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon's Thought Stephen A. McKnight, 2006 Presents close analysis of eight of Francis Bacon's texts in order to investigate the relation of his religious views to his instauration. Attempts to correct the persistent misconception of Bacon as a secular modern who dismissed religion in order to promote the human advancement of knowledge--Provided by publisher. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Odyssey of Love Paul Krause, 2021-07-08 Tolle Lege, take up and read! These words from St. Augustine perfectly describe the human condition. Reading is the universal pilgrimage of the soul. In reading we journey to find ourselves and to save ourselves. The ultimate journey is reading the Great Books. In the Great Books we find the struggle of the human soul, its aspirations, desires, and failures. Through reading, we find faces and souls familiar to us even if they lived a thousand years ago. The unread life is not worth living, and in reading we may well discover what life is truly about and prepare ourselves for the pilgrimage of life. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Sanctifying the World Bradley Birzer, 2022 English historian and Christian humanist Christopher Dawson stood at the very center of the Catholic literary and intellectual revival in the four decades preceding Vatican II. One can find his influence throughout the twentieth-century Catholic Right, and T. S. Eliot considered Christopher Dawson the foremost thinker of his generation. This book offers the first study of Dawson's life and thought as a whole. It is especially poignant as a post-9/11 reexamination of the meaning of Western civilization.Sanctifying the World was named by biographer Joseph Pearce as the best book of 2008, and the National Catholic Register named it one of the top eleven books of the year. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Hitler and the Germans Eric Voegelin, 1999 Annotation Between 1933 & 1938, Eric Voegelin published four books that expressly stated his opposition to the increasingly powerful Hitler regime. As a result, he was forced to leave his homeland in 1938. Twenty years later, he returned to Germany as a professor of political science at Ludwig-Maximilian University. Voegelin's homecoming allowed him the opportunity to voice once again his opinions on the Nazi regime & its aftermath. In 1964 at the University of Munich, Voegelin gave a series of memorable lectures on what he considered the central German experiential problem of his time: Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the reasons for it, & its consequences for post-Nazi Germany. For Voegelin, these questions demanded a scrutiny of the mentality of individual Germans & of the order of German society during & after the Nazi period. Hitler & the Germans, published here for the first time, offers Voegelin's most extensive & detailed critique of the Hitler era. Voegelin interprets this era in terms of the basic diagnostic tools provided by the philosophy of Plato & Aristotle, Judeo-Christian culture, & contemporary German-language writers like Heimito von Doderer, Karl Kraus, Thomas Mann, & Robert Musil. His inquiry uncovers a historiography that was substantially unhistoric: a German Evangelical Church that misinterpreted the Gospel, a German Catholic Church that denied universal humanity, & a legal process enmeshed in criminal homicide. Hitler & the Germans provides a profound alternative approach to the topic of the individual German's entanglement in the Hitler regime & its continuing implications. This comprehensive reading of the Nazi period has yet to be matched. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: A Guide to Understanding Eric Voegelin's Political Reality Montgomery Erfourth, 2018-07-30 This guide is an exploration of political reality as understood by Eric Voegelin. Voegelin employed the revolutionary concepts found in ancient Greek noetic and Christian pneumatic philosophy that describe political reality and the means to know it. This guide begins with a biographical sketch of Voegelin, the historical milieu that inspired his resistance to unreality and terms and symbols he uses to identify the spiritual sickness he believes is destroying Western civilization's traditional basis of order, it then examines Voegelin's theories of consciousness, philosophy and science fundamental to understanding reality. Given the extensive nature and volume of his work, a consolidation and explanation of it is offered, and an example on how to apply it is outlined. Critiques of Voegelin's work are detailed to outline weaknesses in his theories and methods. This guide concludes by defining political reality, how to use Voegelinian techniques to analyze reality, and how to live a life that cultivates the pursuit of human knowledge in keeping with Western philosophic traditions. Book jacket. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Plato Eric Voegelin, 1966 |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Forbidden Faith Richard Smoley, 2009-10-29 Scholar Richard Smoley reveals the secret history of the religious doctrines of Gnosticism in Forbidden Faith. The success of books such as Elaine Pagels's Gnostic Gospels and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code proves beyond a doubt that there is a tremendous thirst today for finding the hidden truths of Christianity—truths that may have been lost or buried by institutional religion over the last two millennia. In Forbidden Faith, Richard Smoley narrates a popular history of one such truth, the ancient esoteric religion of Gnosticism, which flourished between the first and fourth centuries A.D., but whose legacy remains even today, having survived secretly throughout the ages. “Smoley elegantly tracks one of our wildest and most vital inner lineages, the one that comes down through Plotinus, the Gospel of Thomas, the Cathar Perfects, Pico, Blake, Madame Blavatsky, Jung, and the Matrix films.” —Coleman Barks, author of The Essential Rumi “This clear, concise primer traces the Gnostic threads of philosophy, religion, science and popular culture from their biblical references through to their 21st-century appearances in novels and film. Moving easily from one century to the next while at the same time connecting them to each other, Smoley is at once thoughtful and thought-provoking . . . He paves a wide, clear path to understanding it, accessible even to the weekend seeker.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) “Drawing on an impressive mastery of the subject matter, Smoley traces Gnosticism from the first century CE to the present. A compelling and accessible argument. A thoroughly enjoyable read; highly recommended.” —Library Journal |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin Eric Voegelin, 1989 |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Problem of Atheism Augusto Del Noce, 2022-01-05 In 1964, Augusto Del Noce assembled in a book some of his best works on Marxism, atheism, and the history of modern philosophy. The result was Il problema dell’ateismo, which he always regarded as foundational to his way of thinking. The book remains his best-known work and is still in print in Italy almost sixty years later. The Problem of Atheism offers the first English translation of this landmark book, one of the earliest works to recognize the new secularizing trends in Western culture following World War II. Del Noce situates atheism historically, reconstructing its philosophical trajectory through European modernity. Documenting the author’s entire intellectual experience, these essays explore the birth of modern philosophy, reckon with the great European crisis of 1917 to 1945 and the Cold War that followed, and mine the opposition between Marxism and the rise of the affluent society. The result is rich with premonitions of the cultural landscape that would take shape throughout the 1960s and the decades that followed. Proving its English translation to be long overdue, The Problem of Atheism remains relevant to contemporary debates about secularization, political theology, and modernity. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Transcendence and History Glenn Hughes, 2020-11-23 Transcendence and History is an analysis of what philosopher Eric Voegelin described as “the decisive problem of philosophy”: the dilemma of the discovery of transcendent meaning and the impact of this discovery on human self-understanding. The world’s major religious and wisdom traditions are built upon the recognition of transcendent meaning, and our own cultural and linguistic heritage has long since absorbed the postcosmological division of reality into the two dimensions of “transcendence” and “immanence.” But the last three centuries in the West have seen a growing resistance to the idea of transcendent meaning; contemporary and “postmodern” interpretations of the human situation—both popular and intellectual—indicate a widespread eclipse of confidence in the truth of transcendence. In Transcendence and History, Glenn Hughes contributes to the understanding of transcendent meaning and the problems associated with it, assisting in the philosophical recovery of the legitimacy of the notion of transcendence. Depending primarily on the treatments of transcendence found in the writings of twentieth-century philosophers Eric Voegelin and Bernard Lonergan, Hughes explores the historical discovery of transcendent meaning and then examines what it indicates about the structure of history. Hughes’s main focus, however, is on clarifying the problem of transcendence in relation to historical existence. Addressing both layreaders and scholars, Hughes applies the insights and analyses of Voegelin and Lonergan to considerable advantage. Transcendence and History will be of particular value to those who have grappled with the notion of transcendence in the study of philosophy, comparative religion, political theory, history, philosophical anthropology, and art or poetry. By examining transcendent meaning as the key factor in the search for ultimate meaning from ancient societies to the present, the book demonstrates how “the decisive problem of philosophy” both illuminates and presents a vital challenge to contemporary intellectual discourse. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Gnostic Pynchon Dwight Eddins, 1990-09-22 The appearance of Vineland, his first novel in seventeen years, has rekindled critical debate on Thomas Pynchon. Written before the publication of the new novel, but remarkably prescient about its themes, The Gnostic Pynchon is a provocative reading of Pynchon's work. Where most critics find in Thomas Pynchon a postmodern writer of indeterministic, relativistic, contingent fiction, Dwight Eddins also finds a man on a religious quest. Pynchon's quest, Eddins shows, is for some principle of organic order that will provide an alternative to hopeless ambiguity, or an equally hopeless choice between total chaos and total control. The Gnostic Pynchon is a profoundly revisionist view of one of this century's most important writers. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: The Gnostic Jung C.G. Jung, 2013-11-19 Gnosticism was for C.G. jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. In this volume Robert Segal, an authority on theories of myth and Gnosticism, has searched the Jungian corpus for Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality. The progression in Gnosticism from sheer bodily existence to the release of the immaterial spark imprisoned in the body - and the reunion of that spark with the godhead - represents for Jung the psychological progression from ego consciousness to the ego's rediscovery of the unconscious, and the ego's integration with the unconscious to forge the self. Included in this volume are both Jung's sole work devoted entirely to Gnosticism, Gnostic Symbols of the Self, and his own Gnostic myth, Seven Sermons to the Dead. The book also contains key essays by Father Victor White and Gilles Quispel, whose C.G. Jung und die Gnosis is here translated for the first time. In his extensive introduction Segal discusses the parallel for Jung between ancient Gnostic and contemporary Jungian patients, the Jungian meaning of Gnostic myths and of the Seven Sermons, Jung's possible misinterpretation of Gnosticism, and the common characterization of Jung himself as a Gnostic. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: History of Political Ideas Eric Voegelin, 1997 Annotation. Examining the emergence of modernity within the philosophical and political debates of the sixteenth century, Religion and the Rise of Modernity resumes the analysis of the great confusion introduced in Volume IV of History of Political Ideas. Encompassing a vast range of events ignited by Luther's Ninety-Five Theses, this period is one of controversy, revolution, and partiality. Despite the era's fragmentation and complexity, Voegelin's insightful analysis clarifies its significance and suggests the lines of change converging at a point in the future: the medieval Christian understanding of a divinely created closed cosmos was being replaced by a distinctly modern form of human consciousness that posits man as the proper origin of meaning in the universe. Analyzing the most significant features of the great confusion, Voegelin examines a vast range of thought and issues of the age. From the more obvious thinkers to those less frequently studied, this volume features such figures as Calvin, Althusius, Hooker, Bracciolini, Savonarola, Copernicus, Tycho de Brahe, and Giordano Bruno. Devoting a considerable amount of attention to Jean Bodin, Voegelin presents him as a prophet of a new, true religion amid the civilizational disorder of the post-Christian era. Focusing on such traditional themes as monarchy, just war theory, and the philosophy of law, this volume also investigates issues within astrology, cosmology, and mathematics. Religion and the Rise of Modernity is a valuable work of scholarship not only because of its treatment of individual thinkers and doctrines influential in the sixteenth century and beyond but also because of its close examination of those experiences that formed the modern outlook. |
| eric voegelin gnosticism: Eric Voegelin James Joseph Jarman, 1993 |
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Eric (TV series) - Wikipedia
Eric is a 2024 British psychological thriller television drama created by Abi Morgan for the streaming service Netflix. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a distraught puppeteer whose …
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ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center)
ERIC is a freely available, searchable, Internet-based bibliographic and full-text database of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences within …
Eric - Wikipedia
Eric, a character in the 2002 American coming-of-age romantic drama movie A Walk to Remember; Eric, a character in the 2014 American comedy-drama The Skeleton Twins; Erik …
Eric Dane Sheds Light on His Relationship with Wife Rebecca ...
12 hours ago · In a June 16 interview with Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer, Eric Dane opened up about his reconciled relationship with wife Rebecca Gayheart. The 'Euphoria' actor …
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Eric Dane Says He Only Has '1 Functioning Arm' Amid ALS ...
1 day ago · Eric Dane shared an emotional update on his recent ALS diagnosis while appearing on Good Morning America. Dane, 52, sat down with Diane Sawyer for an interview that aired …
Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) | IES
ERIC is an internet-based digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, providing access to …
ERIC - Education Resources Information Center
ERIC is an online library of education research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.
Eric (TV series) - Wikipedia
Eric is a 2024 British psychological thriller television drama created by Abi Morgan for the streaming service Netflix. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a distraught puppeteer whose …
ERIC - EBSCO
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) is an authoritative database of indexed and full-text education literature and resources. Sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of …
Education Resource Information Center (ERIC) Documents
Feb 18, 2025 · ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), a freely available online library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the …
ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center)
ERIC is a freely available, searchable, Internet-based bibliographic and full-text database of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences within …
Eric - Wikipedia
Eric, a character in the 2002 American coming-of-age romantic drama movie A Walk to Remember; Eric, a character in the 2014 American comedy-drama The Skeleton Twins; Erik …
Eric Dane Sheds Light on His Relationship with Wife Rebecca ...
12 hours ago · In a June 16 interview with Good Morning America's Diane Sawyer, Eric Dane opened up about his reconciled relationship with wife Rebecca Gayheart. The 'Euphoria' actor …
Search ERIC Educational Information Resource Center
This page provides access to ERIC's bibliographic database of over one million abstracts of journal articles and reports in education
Eric Dane Says He Only Has '1 Functioning Arm' Amid ALS ...
1 day ago · Eric Dane shared an emotional update on his recent ALS diagnosis while appearing on Good Morning America. Dane, 52, sat down with Diane Sawyer for an interview that aired …
Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) | IES
ERIC is an internet-based digital library of education research and information sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education, providing access to …
