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CHAPTER 8: Belief and Practice in
Metaphysics
Metaphysics
• challenge dominant conceptions of the divine
• saving force of the mind
• correspondence
• magic
• combination
Metaphysical Movements in America
1) elite esoteric religions from Europe
2) popular herbal & magical practices
3) 19th-century middle-class forms
4) later mind-oriented forms
Metaphysical Sources in the Western Tradition
• Hellenistic mystical systemso Hermeticism
o Neoplatonism
o Gnosticism
o astrology
o alchemy
o Kabbalah
Post-Renaissance Metaphysical Sources
• Paracelsianismo healing using correspondence theory
• Rosicrucianismo later form of Hermeticism
• Freemasonry
Metaphysical Practice in the Colonies
• elite & non-elite forms
• astrologyo judicial or natural
• witchcrafto Woman in the Wildernesso cunning folk
19th-Century Metaphysical Revival
• Transcendentalists o Emersono inspiration in natureo cultivate individual spirituality
• influence of Swedenborg
Popular Metaphysics in a New Nation
• 19th-century sources of “newness”o factories, railroads, steamboatso progress & “manifest destiny”
• immigration & migration
Spiritualism
• Andrew Jackson Davis
• séances
• female mediums
• mental or physical mediumshipo psychic phenomenao rappings, table-tipping, automatic writing
Theosophical Society
• Helena P. Blavatskyo Mahatmaso Isis Unveiledo The Secret Doctrine
• Colonel Henry S. Olcott
Goals of Theosophy
1) search for occult knowledge
2) universal brotherhood of all people
3) study of comparative religions
Spread of Theosophical Ideas
• Asian religious conceptso karmao reincarnation
• expectation for a “new age”
Theosophy after Blavatsky
• Annie Besant o 50,000 members by 1930o present in 40 countries
• multiple schismso William Judge
New Thought
• influence of Phineas Quimby
• Warren Felt Evanso The Mental Cure
• Emma Curtis Hopkinso taught many New Thought leaders
New Thought Practices
• affirmative prayer
• “self-help” bestsellerso In Tune with the Infinite
o The Power of Positive Thinking
Mystical & Psychic Frontiers
• William Jameso The Varieties of Religious Experienceo pragmatism
• Aldous Huxleyo perennial philosophy
Later American Metaphysics
• neopaganism
• scientific-technological groupso Scientology
o Heaven’s Gate
o UFO groups
OVERVIEW
• Western roots
• 19th-century developmentso Transcendentalists
o Spiritualism
o Theosophy
o New Thought