u/Significant-Ant-2487

“If any one attitude united the astrologers of the seventeenth century it was an overwhelming intellectual curiosity… [John] Goad’s book [Astro-Meteorologica] was published, ironically enough, in the year when Newton’s Principia was presented to the Royal Society, and it would be easy for us to dismiss it as the jetsam of an obsolete system of thought. Yet anyone who reads this forgotten work cannot fail to be impressed by its conscientious and empirical approach, and its occasional flashes of genuine prescience.”
- Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

What I find remarkable about this tribute to the occult science of astrology is that Thomas was a conventional historian writing in 1971; he is not a scholar or partisan of esotericism. The publisher, Penguin, categorizes this book under Religion. It’s a mainstream work and something of a classic and it takes the occult very seriously, giving it full credit for its role in the foundation of modern science.

I ran across this essay, quoted in part below, which I found intriguing and I’d like to share:

The recent acceleration of technological development and scientific progress has reawakened our wonder at humanity’s great potential and our perception of its greatness. Yet, there is no lessening of dismay at humanity’s fragility, subject as it is to death and disease, as demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as temptation to resignation to the seemingly inevitable evil of wars and conflicts, inequalities and indifference. Thus, the ambivalence of greatness and fragility remains, and this cannot be denied.

Transhumanism* *is a philosophical movement that operates on the belief that human beings can and should use the resources of science and technology to overcome the physical and biological limitations of the human condition, in particular ageing and even death, thus shaping their own evolution and maximising their own potential to the point of redesigning human beings to make them fitted to ‘go beyond’. With its programmatic emphasis on increasing individual human capabilities, it develops a distinctly anthropocentric perspective, subscribing to an ideological and naively uncritical view of scientific and technological progress.

Transhumanism* imagines a future in which human beings will perfect the current biological form that defines human nature, in order to achieve the goal of individual immortality, supported by technology. In the utopian scope of its quest for immanent immortality, transhumanism *can be interpreted as the existential expression of a presumption that is both naive and arrogant.

Posthumanism, understood in the strict sense, criticises traditional humanism, questioning the specificity of human beings and the existence of a ‘human form’ that, as such, deserves to be preserved because it carries a universally valid meaning. It therefore emphasises the ‘hybrid’ (cyborg) to the point of deconstructing the human subject, making the boundary between humans and machines completely fluid, and rejecting the anthropocentrism that remains characteristic of transhumanism. Ultimately, posthumanism* *in the strict sense can be understood as an existential expression of escapism, which starts from a radical devaluation of the human.

Development: Humanism and Posthumanism
The impact of the anthropological transformation linked to scientific and technological development is already leaving its mark on the social imaginary of mass culture, but it finds its strongest expression in the movements of transhumanism and posthumanism. The study of the myths developed by mass culture regarding the future of humanity (science fiction, dystopias) and the critical analysis of the founding principles of the transhumanist and post-humanist movements highlight the significance and scope of the anthropological changes taking place.

A first element that is problematic is the negative judgement on the human condition as it is, and ultimately on its identity. This leads to the dream of reinventing it, a dream motivated by dissatisfaction with what it is, with its limitations and defects. We must ask ourselves, however, whether ‘resentment’ towards real life is a good starting-point for progress or rather a temptation to rebel against or escape from reality. This is not about the necessary struggle to change unjust conditions and structures, but about the rejection of the nature of things and of oneself. In particular, it is necessary to warn against a fundamentally negative perception of corporeality, which can be seen more as an obstacle than as an integral part of human identity.

The second aspect, connected to the first, is the dream of individualistic and elitist perfectionism. It seems that every concrete human being can exist or be accepted only on condition that they ‘become more perfect’, so much so that one might wonder whether the current human condition still has a right to exist or whether particular human beings have become ‘superfluous’. Some hyper-technological theories seem to challenge the fundamental principle inherited from humanism: ‘Act so that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of an authentically human life on earth. Act so that the effects of your actions are not destructive of the future possibility of such a life.’ This principle can even be considered to be a useless and harmful limitation on technological progress.

A third factor is the social impact of this view of humanity. In fact, it can lead to the assertion of a separation between a superior form of humanity, equipped with tools that empower it to the point of immortality, and a primitive, pre-technological humanity ultimately doomed for extinction. It is not clear on what basis the different conditions that humanity can achieve will be established: wealth, culture, heritage, openness to experimentation or invention. Nor is it clear who will have the power to make decisions. In this perspective, the bonds between people are in danger of disappearing, as is belonging to a people and a culture on the basis of which the common good can be assessed.

The prospect of a transhumanist anthropological transformation, as well as dreams of posthumanism, may seem like a remote possibility, like an exaggeration far removed from the real condition of humanity. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has greatly diminished confidence in unlimited technological progress, and it is better understood that humanity needs above all a solidarity that cares for everyone and thanks to which each people can live in peace. Yettranshumanism’s demands for progress, especially when they encourage the drive towards posthumanism, exert a strong impact on the common imagination and risk acting as a sort of mass distraction from humanity’s most urgent problems, diverting resources and energy from the daily struggles for the possible good of so much of suffering humanity, on the one hand, and favouring distortions in the perception of the real conditions of experience, on the other.

It is therefore necessary to recall some fundamental dimensions of human experience that are compromised or overshadowed by a certain idea of technological progress. We shall focus first on two constitutive dimensions: thehistorical dimension of human experience, which requires knowing how to inhabit time and space; and the intersubjective dimension, which brings into play the sense of belonging to a family, a community, a people and to the whole of humanity, where we are ‘all brothers and sisters’.

These situations are also the result of a globalised economy, which favours a single, mass-produced cultural model, in which powerful forces assert themselves, protecting their own interests at the expense of weaker cultures. The result is the loss of the integral meaning of history.

One of the first repercussions of recent technological developments concerns the experience of time. Today, there is a loss of the sense of history and a reduction of experience to the fleeting moment, together with an ambiguous focus on the present. Digital culture tends to dissolve the ‘anamnestic culture’ of history and transform the living culture of memory and hope into a postmodern culture of a present closed in on itself.

The organisation of information on the internet is concerned with collecting and organising immense amounts of data based on probability calculations, rather than with seeking hypotheses of understanding or explanation. Even the question of the foundation of experience, the explanatory cause or a founding meaning, is now considered a matter superseded by the analysis of connections between data. Instead of living memories and traditions forged by memories, the processing of available data through computerisation takes over, data that can then be retrieved at any time. But computers do not remember; they merely store data. This can result in the elimination of the consciousness of time and the transposition of different times into the space of an indefinite contemporaneity, leading to what has been described as a spatialisation of the world. Through technology, we can presume to overcome the power of time (fleeting and at the same time open to eternity) and make all times contemporary. But a present that no longer knows the past no longer has a future either. And the lack of an end, which opens us up to eternity, becomes a ‘bad infinity’.

All this weakens people’s confidence in their ability to interpret and shape the world, which escapes practical understanding and social control and is left in the hands of gigantic bureaucracies overloaded with information thanks to complex, interdependent and ungovernable technological systems, by which individuals often feel besieged and threatened. Total dependence on these complex and sophisticated systems, over which the individual has no influence, creates feelings of powerlessness and pushes people to close themselves off in limited and protected horizons of meaning and life.

The entire document can be found at https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_doc_20260304_quo-vadis-humanits_en.html#Chapter_I

Keith Thomas’s classic study, originally published in 1971, contains lots of fascinating information about the practice of esoteric arts in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. It covers the activities of cunning women and men, “village wizards” and the services they provided in healing, finding lost objects, thief detection, prognostication, spells and talismans. There are sections on astrology and on witchcraft. It goes in depth into the interrelation of religion and magic, both before the Reformation and after. It’s a far more complex relationship than I had assumed and I had never assumed it was simple. The book is replete with references and footnotes.

I’m finding this book invaluable as I delve deeper in my journey into the fascinating subject of esotericism. I think it’s a great next step after reading a couple of introductory books on Western esotericism (I started with Hanegraaff and with Versluis, and of course Justin Sledge’s videos.)

Keith Thomas’s classic study, originally published in 1971, contains lots of fascinating information about the practice of esoteric arts in England during the 16th and 17th centuries. It covers the activities of cunning women and men, “village wizards” and the services they provided in healing, finding lost objects, thief detection, prognostication, spells and talismans. There are sections on astrology and on witchcraft. It goes in depth into the interrelation of religion and magic, both before the Reformation and after. It’s a far more complex relationship than I had assumed and I had never assumed it was simple. The book is replete with references and footnotes.

I’m finding this book invaluable as I delve deeper in my journey into the fascinating subject of esotericism. I think it’s a great next step after reading a couple of introductory books on Western esotericism (I started with Hanegraaff and with Versluis, and of course Justin Sledge’s videos.)

“As each of us dwindles in size by comparison to the cosmic stretches of space and of time, our individual lives, our improbable existence becomes more and more important. With the understanding of my great good fortune, I also feel a sense of responsibility. But to whom, or to what, am I responsible?”

In my search for a good introductory book on esotericism I first read Wouter Hanegraaff’s Esotericism in Western Culture, and was somewhat disappointed in his rather polemical viewpoint that esotericism is and long has been suppressed by a dominant, “normative”, power-centered Western culture. He uses the language of marginalization and repression and even colonialism and goes so far as to accuse the Enlightenment of having to define itself by its rejection of esoteric knowledge (presumably, it had nothing else to offer…) Now I get that Enlightenment values are in bad odor in academia these days, which always seemed odd to me, since the Enlightenment championed values like freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the idea that the governed should have a say in their government, and the value of education for all. Hanegraaff has no patience for the Enlightenment, that’s plain.

He defines the esoteric as rejected knowledge, knowledge that was suppressed by rationalism, which in turn was an instrument of power. This is the rhetoric of post-modern pseudo Marxism, and I’m disappointed that Hanegraaff goes there. The gloves really come off in his concluding chapter where he lets loose on “Eurocentrism”, “dominant elites”, “the fundamental problem of normativity”, the “global decolonial agenda”. In the section labeled“Extermination” he states, “rejecting knowledge means rejecting people”. Hyperbolic, maybe?

The political agenda sometimes dominates the presentation of the history of esotericism in western culture, which is the ostensibly subject of the book.

When Hanegraaff gets down to presenting this history, it is well done and informative. The bibliography is invaluable and it alone justifies having this on my bookshelf. But the fact that all these published works exist, including works published during the Enlightenment, the 18th century, 19th and 20th centuries, into the present kind of work against Hanegraaff’s claim that the occult has been dismissed, repressed, marginalized, rejected and exterminated. That this material has always had a flavor of the underground about it is hardly surprising, since occult means in the shadows, and esoteric means just that- it’s esoteric knowledge. Plus much of this is explicitly encoded, highly metaphorical, and for initiates only (Rosicrucianism, alchemy, Masonic ritual…).

I don’t get what Hanegraaff is so angry about.

This may seem off topic but I post it here to show how wonderfully compassionate humans can be; I see a lot of despair online, a lot of hatred towards humanity, a lot of focus on wars and the evils of capitalism etc., a lot of lazy negativity. But there is so much love in the world. So much compassion, devotion to doing what’s right. It’s inherent in our humanity, this love and kindness, even for other species. These small acts- often not so small too- testify to humanity’s essential goodness.

With a little help sometimes we can aspire to be as good as this wonderful person.

I finally got around to reading this most humanist essay, written in 1486, on the dignity of man, celebrating the power of reason and intelligence and the utility of free will. I believe that humanity is to be celebrated for its potential and its accomplishments over the centuries, and humans are rational beings at heart.

Quoting:

“ I have come to some understanding of why man is the most fortunate of living things and, consequently, deserving of all admiration; of what may be the condition in the hierarchy of beings assigned to him, which draws upon him the envy, not of the brutes alone, but of the astral beings and of the very intelligences which dwell beyond the confines of the world. A thing surpassing belief and smiting the soul with wonder. Still, how could it be otherwise? For it is on this ground that man is, with complete justice, considered and called a great miracle and a being worthy of all admiration.”

“…man is the intermediary between creatures, that he is the familiar of the gods above him as he is the lord of the beings beneath him; that, by the acuteness of his senses, the inquiry of his reason and the light of his intelligence, he is the interpreter of nature, set midway between the timeless unchanging and the flux of time; the living union (as the Persians say), the very marriage hymn of the world, and, by David's testimony but little lower than the angels.”

“Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be! The brutes, from the moment of their birth, bring with them, as Lucilius says, ‘from their mother's womb’ all that they will ever possess. The highest spiritual beings were, from the very moment of creation, or soon thereafter, fixed in the mode of being which would be theirs through measureless eternities. But upon man, at the moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot of all creatures, he should recollect himself into the center of his own unity, he will there become one spirit with God”

Such a fine essay.