hermes in the academy

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A M S T E R D A M U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S

Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Joyce Pijnenburg (eds.)

Hermes in the Academy

Ten Years Study of Western Esotericismat the University of Amsterdam


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Hermes in the Academy


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Hermes in the Academy:

Ten Years Study of

Western Esotericism

at the University of Amsterdam

Wouter J. Hanegraaff

and Joyce Pijnenburg, eds.

Amsterdam University Press


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Cover illustration: Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer, 1943 (ms. BPH 308),

courtesy o Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica,Amsterdam

Cover: Studio Jan de Boer, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Design: Prografci, Goes, the Netherlands

ISBN 9789056295721

E-ISBN 9789048510597

NUR 730

Hanegraa and Pijnenburg / Amsterdam University Press, 2009

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part

o this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or

transmitted, in any orm or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, re-

cording or otherwise) without the written permission o both the copyright owner and

the author o the book.


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Table o Contents

Preace / 7JosvanDiJck

Part 1History o Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents:

Origins and Development / 9

The Birth o a Chair / 11RoelofvanDenBRoek

Ten Years o Studying and Teaching Western Esotericism / 17WouteRJ. HanegRaaff

Part 2

Glimpses o Research / 31

The Pagan Who Came rom the East: George Gemistos Plethon and PlatonicOrientalism / 33

WouteRJ. HanegRaaffAstrologia Hermetica: Astrology, Western Culture, and the Academy / 51

kockuvonstuckRaDThe Modernity o Occultism: Reections on Some Crucial Aspects / 59

MaRcoPasiMathematical Esotericism: Some Perspectives on Renaissance Arithmology / 75

Jean-PieRReBRacHDanish Esotericism in the 20th Century: The Case o Martinus / 91olavHaMMeR

Part 3

Studying Western Esotericism in Amsterdam / 103On First Looking into the Halls o Hermeticism / 105

MaRiekeJ.e. vanDenDoelAn Unlikely Love Aair: Plato, the Netherlands, and Lie ater Westotericism / 107

DylanBuRnsHeterology in Amsterdam: The Academy Takes the Other Out to Dinner / 109

osvalDvasicek


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6 | hermeSINtheacademy

The Copenhagen Connection / 111saRa MlDRuPtHeJls

I You Seek / 113susannaHcRockfoRD

Part 4Western Esotericism in International Perspective / 114

From the Hermetic Tradition to Western Esotericism / 117allisoncouDeRt

From Paris to Amsterdam and Beyond: Origins and Developmento a Collaboration / 123

antoinefaivReWestern Esotericism in the United Kingdom / 129

nicHolasgooDRick-claRkeFrom Talk about Esotericism to Esotericism Research:Remarks on the Prehistory and Development o a Research Group / 135

Monika neugeBaueR-WlkSeven Epistemological Theses on Esotericism:

Upon the Occasion o the 10th Anniversary o the Amsterdam Chair / 143anDReaskilcHeR

Hermes and his Students in Amsterdam / 149JoycePiJnenBuRg

Contributors / 157


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PREFACE

JosvanDiJck

Creative innovation in the humanities is usually not a top-down but a bottom-up phenomenon. It happens when individual scholars begin to ask questionsthat have not been asked beore, and come up with new approaches that chal-lenge the academic status quo. But, in order to be successul, not only do suchnew perspectives have to be recognized as ruitul by the wider academic com-

munity, they also need to become embedded in institutional contexts, whichallow them to actively participate in scholarly debate and educate new gen-erations o students. The chair group or History o Hermetic Philosophy andRelated Currents (GHF) is a perect example o such a successul combinationo scholarly innovation and academic institutionalization. As documented inthis anniversary volume, over the last ten years it has established itsel as theleading center o a new eld o international research, reerred to as the studyo Western esotericism.

By the end o the 1990s, that term still caused some eyebrows to be raised.

It was not yet so clear to everybody that, ar rom being a synonym or New Age,the label Western esotericism covered a wide range o important and infuen-tial currents in intellectual history rom the Renaissance to the present, withroots in Late Antiquity; and there were still some suspicions, here and there,that scholars o esotericism might in act turn out to be closet esotericists...But as the high quality o research in this domain became evident, such doubtsquickly began to vanish. GHF has been consistent in setting standards o excel-lence through the many publications o its sta members, with the two-volumeDictionary o Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Brill, 2005) as a highlight that deserves

to be mentioned here in particular. As documented in this anniversary volume,the study o Western esotericism has succeeded in becoming a normal presenceon the international academic scene, with proessional research organizations,peer-reviewed journals and monograph series, many conerences and, o course,teaching programs. The eld is generating great enthusiasm and commitmentnot only among established scholars, but also among students and burgeoningacademics, many o whom have received their education in this eld at GHF andare now pursuing Ph.D. projects both in Amsterdam and at other universitiesworldwide.

In short, the rst ten years o the chair or History o Hermetic Philosophyand Related Currents have been a success story. The chair is at the very centero an exciting new development in international academic research, and or me,as dean o the Faculty o Humanities, this is a source o great pride and satisac-


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tion. On behal o the Board o the Faculty and o the University o Amsterdam, Iwish to thank the ormer and present sta members o GHF or their eorts, andcongratulate them on all that has been achieved. O course, none o it wouldhave happened without the more-than-generous donation by Mrs. Rosalie Bas-ten, and the proessionalism o the Foundation that was put in charge o it: their

collaboration with the Board o the Faculty has always been excellent, and ourappreciation extends to them as well. Given the intellectual ambitions that areobvious rom this anniversary volume, I am sure that the rst ten years o GHFhave been only the rst beginning o a development that will continue to four-ish and expand in the decades to come.


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Part 1

History o Hermetic Philosophy

and Related Currents:

Origins and Development


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The Birth o a ChairRoelofvanDenBRoek

Prior to 1999, it was impossible to study Hermetic philosophy at a Dutch univer-sity. The Hermetic combination o mysticism and philosophy smelled too mucho pre-Enlightenment times and, still worse, o modern New Age ideas to beattractive to academic philosophers let alone that they would give it a placein their teaching programs. This was Mrs. Rosalie Bastens disappointing expe-

rience as she studied philosophy at the University o Amsterdam in the mid-1980s and wanted to specialize in this special branch o mystical philosophy.But sometimes rustration about an existing situation becomes an incentive tochange it. In Mrs. Basten it raised the ambition to establish a Chair o History oHermetic Philosophy at one o the Belgian or Dutch universities.

However, ... between dream and deed, laws stand in the way, and practicalobjections, as a amous line o Dutch poetry reads and indeed, this dream wasnot an easy one to realize. Especially in academic circles, the common antipathyagainst esotericism and obscurantism made it almost inconceivable that one

could study modern Hermetic and esoteric traditions without being an obscu-rantist onesel. But, in the summer o 1997, Mrs. Basten elt that the time wasripe or a concrete and denitive proposal to a Dutch university. At that time,the terms Hermetic philosophy and Hermetic traditions were beginning tomean something to the Dutch public and to policymakers, because the threat-ening dispersion o the amous Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, ounded by Mr.J.R. Ritman, was attracting much attention in the popular media. However, Mrs.Basten also realized that university boards are willing to accept an externally -nanced chair only i the proposed teaching and research programs can be shown

to meet the academic standards o independence and good quality and ll anobvious gap in the current curriculum. It is at this point that I became involvedin this story.

Mrs. Basten knew o my existence through the Dutch translation o the Cor-pus Hermeticum that Gilles Quispel and I had published in 1990. She hoped thatI would be interested in her plan and might be o some help in its realization.

At our rst meeting, in Antwerp on July 23, 1997, she explained her intentionsand asked me to join her eorts. O course I accepted the invitation, becauseher project oered a unique opportunity to advance the study o an importantcurrent in Western culture that was widely neglected in academic research andteaching. The meeting in Antwerp had been arranged by Mrs. Bastens legal ad-visor, Mr. Willem A. Koudijs, who was to play an important role in the negotia-tions and legal documentation that would ollow. Looking back, I can only con-


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clude that the three o us ormed a perect team. Rosalie was the inspiration anddriving orce behind the entire enterprise: she not only had the vision but alsovery concrete and practical ideas, as well as the nancial means to realize them.

As a senior partner in a well known Dutch law rm, Willem was well versed inconducting complicated negotiations and drating legal documents. As or me,

as a long-time proessor and a ormer aculty dean, I knew the Dutch universitysystem quite well, while my scholarly record was not so bad that the universityauthorities would not take me seriously. We decided to take immediate actionon two ronts: Mr. Koudijs would come up with a rst drat o the Articles o theFoundation that had to be established, and I would contact the University o

Amsterdam to nd out whether it would be interested in the chair. The preer-ence or Amsterdam was primarily due to the existence o several excellent bookcollections on hermetism and related subjects in that city.

Already on August 12, 1997, I was received by Mr. K.J. Gevers, the President

o the Board o Governors o the University o Amsterdam. He proved to be veryinterested in the project, especially as he learned to his considerable aston-ishment that we were aiming at the appointment o a ull-time proessor andpossibly two other qualied scholars as his assistants. When I explained thatour only intention was purely academic research, without any ulterior motive, hesuggested we opt or an ordinary proessorship. This would imply that the pro-essor and his sta (in Dutch terminology de leerstoelgroep, or chair group),although nanced by an external institution, would all under the responsibilityand supervision o the university and be subject to all its normal regulations.

His idea was that this approach would acilitate the groups ull integration into,and acceptance by, the newly created Faculty o Humanities. Later on, in Octo-ber 1997, he repeated this suggestion in a discussion with Mr. Koudijs, but atthat time we were not yet convinced that this would be the right direction totake. We understood that i we went or an ordinary proessorship, complicatedarrangements had to be made, which would require protracted negotiations,and that in the end the university would have a greater infuence over the chairthan we had in mind at the outset. For these reasons, we also seriously consid-ered the simpler model o an extraordinary proessorship, but we nally decided

to ollow Mr. Gevers initial advice.Still in August 1997, Mr. Koudijs presented a rst drat o the Articles o theFoundation, which we discussed on the 5th o September. Much was still unde-cided at that time, but the progress we were making was refected in the revisedversions that were produced during the next months. These eorts nally led tothe ocial establishment o the Foundation Chair o History o Hermetic Phi-losophy and Related Currents, on February 20, 1998. Mrs. Basten, Mr. Koudijsand mysel ormed the rst Board o Governors o the Foundation. In this con-nection, attention has to be drawn to two aspects o the Articles. The rst is theexplicit stipulation, in Article 2.1, that the main goal o the Foundation is tourther the study o Hermetic philosophy and related currents, independent o anyview o lie (onahankelijk van iedere levensbeschouwing). O course, scholarlyindependence is a prerequisite in all academic research, but in this case we


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theBIrthofachaIr| 13

thought it wise to mention it explicitly in the Articles o the Foundation. In orderto avoid any suspicion that the chair might be a disguised esoteric mission post,we also stipulated that the University o Amsterdam has the right to appoint twomembers to the Board o the Foundation (art. 4, 3). This was brought into eecton May 27, 1999, with the appointment o Mr. Frans Ch.M. Tilman, a nancial

expert, and Dr. Sybolt J. Noorda, who, at that time, was president o the Boardo Governors o the University o Amsterdam. The second aspect that deservesattention is that the Articles explicitly dene the main goal o the chair as thestudy o Hermetic philosophy and related currents, which implies that in act theentire Western esoteric tradition belongs to the research area o the chair.

The negotiations with the University o Amsterdam and the nancial regu-lations that had to be made took the greater part o 1998. As already indicated,we nally opted or an ordinary chair within the University o Amsterdam, whichin act reduced the position o the Foundation to that o an external sponsor.

The Foundation was (and still is) able to nance a ull-time proessor, two as-sistant proessors, two doctoral candidates, and a secretarial position. Althoughthe phenomenon o an externally nanced chair was not completely unknownat that time, the university had no experience with the integration o a completeendowed chair group in act a small institute into the academic system. Indiscussions with the then dean o the Faculty o Humanities, Proessor Karelvan der Toorn, and its nancial director, Mr. Wim K.B. Koning, the main outlineswere dened. Many problems had to be solved, but the negotiations progressedin a good atmosphere and nally led to an agreement that was ocially signed

on November 12, 1998. That this agreement, which still satises both parties,could be concluded, was due in particular to the eorts and the ingenuity o Mr.Koudijs and Mr. Koning.

However, the establishment o an academic chair group alone is not a guar-antee that it will succeed: that depends on the quality o its research and teach-ing. We realized that it was absolutely necessary to develop a clear vision othe kind o research and the teaching program that was going to be carried outby the group. For this reason we organized a small brainstorming conerence,hosted by Mrs. Basten in Beaulieu, France, January 18-20, 1998. The most promi-

nent scholar invited was Proessor Antoine Faivre, who held the chair o Historyo esoteric and mystical currents in modern and contemporary Europe at thecole Pratique des Hautes tudes (Sorbonne), Paris. At that time, his chair wasthe only one in the entire world that was comparable to the chair we envisaged,which made his advice very valuable. Other scholars invited to the conerencewere Jean-Pierre Brach, who was Charg de conrences at the EPHE and a specialistin the esotericism o the early modern period; Wouter J. Hanegraa, who wasconducting postdoctoral research in modern esoteric currents at the Univer-sity o Utrecht; Cees Leijenhorst, a specialist o early modern philosophy whohad published on Renaissance Hermetism; and mysel, a specialist in ancientgnosticism and Hermeticism. The composition o the group was not random,or in this same period, Faivre, Hanegraa, Brach and Van den Broek were alsoinvolved in the early preparations o the Dictionary o Gnosis and Western Esotericism


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(Leiden: Brill, 2005). Through this work we already had a good overview o thehistory o Western esotericism as a whole, rom Antiquity to the present, ando the scholars who were pursuing serious studies in that eld. The conerenceresulted in three recommendations, which have all been adopted. The rst onewas that research and teaching would ocus on the period rom the early Renais-

sance to the present day, o course without ignoring the sources o esotericismin the Hermetic, gnostic and related currents o Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

With regard to the teaching program, the conerence advised to strive or com-plete BA and MA courses, because only then could the chair be ully eective.The third recommendation was to negotiate with the university about integrat-ing the chair into the Faculty o Humanities as much as possible, because thatwould make it much easier to realize a ull teaching program.

Immediately ater the agreement with the university had been signed,the dean o the Faculty o Humanities installed the usual selection commit-

tee, which had to nominate a candidate or the chair. Most o the memberso this six-person committee were appointed by the university; the Foundationwas represented by mysel. Through advertisements in two Dutch newspapersand direct e-mail to scholars and scholarly networks all over the world, inter-ested academics were invited to apply. The committee conducted interviewswith three qualied candidates and nally decided to nominate Dr. Wouter J.Hanegraa. He was ocially appointed by the board o the university on July 15,1999. Over the course o the year 2000, the academic sta o the chair group wascompleted, with the appointment o two assistant proessors: Dr. Jean-Pierre

Brach (Renaissance and early modern period) and Dr. Olav Hammer (19 th and20th centuries). A new chair was born and a new eld o scholarly research andteaching had become part o the academic system.

Ten years later, we can only conclude that the enterprise has been very suc-cessul. Initially, as the agreement between the Foundation and the University o

Amsterdam was made public, some skeptical and even suspicious voices wereheard, also within the academic establishment. But it did not take long or thesevoices to be silenced by the high quality o the scholarly output o the chairgroup. Within a decade, the chair has acquired an excellent national and inter-

national reputation. It has become one o the worlds most important centerso historical research in the domain o Hermetic and esoteric studies and hasproven to be very productive in producing high-standard publications and at-tracting students rom all over the world. The chairholder and the rst assistantproessors proved to be scholars o great quality: Olav Hammer is now Proessoro History o Religion at the University o Southern Denmark in Odense, Jean-Pierre Brach is proessor o History o esoteric currents in modern and contem-porary Europe at the cole Pratiques des Hautes tudes in Paris, as AntoineFaivres successor, and Wouter Hanegraa was elected as a member o the pres-tigious Royal Dutch Academy o Arts and Sciences in 2006, which not only wasa personal honor but also clear evidence that the study o Western esotericismhas become an accepted academic discipline.

In retrospect, one can indeed say that in 1997 the time was ripe, because all


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theBIrthofachaIr| 15

circumstances avorably concurred: in an atmosphere o growing public interestin the phenomena o Hermetism and Western esotericism, Mrs. Rosalie Bastenelt that the time had come to realize her ideal o an academic chair or the studyo Hermetic and esoteric traditions; she put together a capable team i I amallowed to say so that was able to bring her plans into eect; the University

o Amsterdam immediately saw the importance o this initiative and was veryhelpul in establishing the chair; and there were very competent scholars avail-able who could make, and in act did make, the chair a success rom its verybeginning. But nothing would have happened i Mrs. Basten had not taken theinitiative. By ounding the Chair o History o Hermetic Philosophy and RelatedCurrents, she has rendered an invaluable service to the development o a youngacademic discipline, and or this she deserves the gratitude o all the scholarsinvolved.


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The scholarly sta o GHF in 2009.

From let to right: Osvald Vasic ek, Tessel Bauduin, Marco Pasi, Wouter Hanegraa, Kocku von

Stuckrad, Joyce Pijnenburg, Egil Asprem.


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Ten Years o Studying and Teaching

Western Esotericism

WouteRJ. HanegRaaff

When I rst heard that there were plans or creating a chair devoted to the his-tory o Hermetic philosophy at the University o Amsterdam, I could only pinchmy arm very hard, to check whether I was dreaming. This was in the autumn o1997. Twelve years later, having seen how a dream can become reality in theprosaic context o a modern academic institution and how that reality, in turn,

can allow new generations to pursue their dreams sometimes I still eel a needto check that I am awake.

During my studies at the Faculty o Letters o the University o Utrecht, inthe second hal o the 1980s, I had come across a book that I now recognize asa pioneering eort in the study o Western esotericism. Written with inectiousenthusiasm and impressive erudition, Will-Erich Peuckerts Pansophie (1956)evoked an exciting intellectual culture that had fourished during the time othe Renaissance, with major representatives such as Marsilio Ficino, Paracelsusand Jacob Bhme, but that seemed to have been almost orgotten by contem-

porary scholarship. I started asking my proessors about these personalities andtheir ideas, and quickly began to make the typical experience with which allscholars in our eld are amiliar. The cultural domain discussed by Peuckertseemed to make my teachers quite uncomortable, and to my repeated requestsor inormation and suggestions, they responded by tossing the embarrassingtopic on to another colleague as i it were a hot potato. Nobody seemed willingto touch it, and it did not take me long to decide that i this were the case, thensomebody had to do it. My decision to specialize in the domain o what hassometimes been called rejected knowledge1 was the best one I have made in

my lie.Eventually I discovered that although good scholarship in this domain wasindeed not so easy to nd, it did, o course, exist. Like every novice in the eld,I devoured the pioneering books o Frances A. Yates, which had put the studyo Renaissance hermeticism on the map in the 1960s,2 and, a bit later on, I dis-covered the work o a French proessor at the Sorbonne who was just beginningto get more widely known internationally, and whose many books and articlescovered the eld rom the 15th century to the present under the rubric Lsotrismeoccidental, Western esotericism.3 At a memorable conerence in Lyon in 1992,4 Ihad the chance to meet this Antoine Faivre in person, along with other majorscholars whose work I was busy discovering. Joscelyn Godwin, Massimo Intro-vigne, Thomas Hakl and many others who would become riends and ellow-travelers in the years to come were all there. This meeting in Lyon, then, was the


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beginning o an extremely ruitul academic collaboration that has continued upto the present day in the context o the Amsterdam Center or History o Her-metic Philosophy and Related Currents (henceorth GHF, the abbreviation reer-ring to the Dutch title) and, later, the European Society or the Study o WesternEsotericism (ESSWE).5 Faivre and I agreed that something needed to be done to

create a podium or the study o Western esotericism, and together with Karen-Claire Voss we succeeded in convincing the International Association or theHistory o Religion (IAHR) to let us organize a series o sessions on this topic inthe context o its 17th quinquennial conerence in Mexico City, 1995.6 This initia-tive was well received, and has been continued at subsequent IAHR conerences(Durban 2000; Tokyo 2005).7 With hindsight, it proved to be the rst beginning owhat has become a rather big wave in the international conerence circuit: todayit is dicult or any scholar to keep track o all the academic meetings devotedto esotericism and related topics, and impossible to attend even just a ew o

them.8By the second hal o the 1990s, and as networks developed, it was becom-

ing clear that although the number o generalists was still relatively small, therewas certainly no lack o good scholars specializing in various aspects o Westernesotericism. Oten they proved very enthusiastic about meeting and collaborat-ing with colleagues within that larger context, particularly because (as manyo them have told me over the years) the price they oten had to pay or theirresearch interests was a certain degree o isolation within their own institutionsor disciplines. That good scholars in the eld o Western esotericism were avail-

able in abundance, but just needed to come out o the woodwork, was demon-strated by the circa 150 international specialists who agreed to contribute to anambitious project initiated by Hans van der Meij o Brill Academic Publishers whose continuous support or our eld has been invaluable not long beorewe heard the sensational news about the chair in Amsterdam: the Dictionary oGnosis and Western Esotericism, which would eventually see the light o day in 2005.

That it ell to me to be appointed at this unique new chair, in my very cityo birth, was another occasion or me to pinch mysel hard. And I needed to beawake, indeed, or there was work to be done! During the rst academic year

(1999-2000), I was running an academic team consisting o only mysel, assistedrom December 1, 1999 on by our rst secretary, Drs. Andra Kroon, who eventu-ally decided to pursue a dierent kind o career and was succeeded on February1, 2001, by Dr. Hilda Nobach, who is still with us today. A rst priority was, ocourse, to ll the two assistant-proessor vacancies, and, in spite o the unamil-iarity o the eld, it proved possible to nd two very good scholars. Out o 52candidates, the selection committee made a unanimous decision in avor o Dr.Jean-Pierre Brach or the history o Western esotericism rom the Renaissancethrough the 18th century, and Dr. Olav Hammer or the period rom the 19 th cen-tury to the present. Brach was able to begin his work on September 1, 2000, andHammer started a ew months later, on January 1, 2001.

While interdisciplinary by the very nature o its eld o study, GHF was em-bedded as a chair group (leerstoelgroep) in the Department o Theology and


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Religious Studies o the Faculty o Humanities, which was merged a ew yearslater with the new Department o Art, Religion and Cultural Sciences. Its courseprogram was, and still is, part o the Religious Studies program. Prior to theintroduction o the new Bachelor/Master structure, that program was still rathermodest during the rst ew years. It consisted o a minor o three modules: a

general introduction to Western esotericism in lecture ormat (Hermetica I)and two seminars on essential sources and selected themes (Hermetica II andHermetica III). The program was popular rom the beginning: up to the presentday, the number o students registering or Hermetica I has never been less than50.

The rst GHF team remained intact or about two years, ater which thereollowed a somewhat complicated period, due to several personnel changescombined with the introduction o the Bachelor/Master system in the academicyears 2002-2003. Jean-Pierre Brach was elected as Antoine Faivres successor or

the Chair o History o Esoteric Currents in Modern and Contemporary Europeat the 5th section o the cole Pratique des Hautes tudes (Sorbonne) on Sep-tember 1, 2002; and not very much later, starting on January 1, 2004, Olav Ham-mer became associate proessor and, very soon ater, ull proessor in the Studyo Religion at the University o Southern Denmark, Odense. During the sameyear when, ollowing Brachs departure, we ound ourselves temporarily reducedto only two permanent sta members, the minor was reconceptualized in viewo the new Bachelor program, and a new Master program had to be introduced.The minor now assumed the basic shape it still has: ater the general introduc-

tion o Hermetica I, Hermetica II was henceorth ocused on the early modernperiod, and Hermetica III on the period o the 19th century to the present. At alater stage, in 2006-2007, it was urther expanded with a module ocused on An-tiquity and the Middle Ages (called Hermetica II: the other two seminar modulesnow became Hermetica III and IV). The Master program came to consist o threemodules with xed titles, but each with a content (ormulated in the subtitle)that alternated on a two-year basis. The rationale or this was to maximize thechoices available or students in the 2-year Research Master Study o Religion:or example, a student with a special interest in the early modern period had the

option o ollowing Renaissance Esotericism I and II consecutively, while some-one else specializing in contemporary esotericism might decide to ollow OccultTrajectories I and II, and so on.

Obviously the teaching load was increased considerably by the introduc-tion o the new Bachelor/Master system, and it was important to have a com-plete team in place as quickly as possible. Out o 20 candidates, Dr. phil. habil.Kocku von Stuckrad was elected as Brachs successor, and he joined GHF onMarch 1, 2003. The vacancy o Hammers position occurred soon ater, and outo 21 candidates, Dr. Marco Pasi was elected, who began working with us on July1, 2004. This was the beginning o the second GHF team, which has remained in-tact or a period o ve years. Only very recently, Kocku von Stuckrad was electedull proessor or the Study o Religion at the University o Groningen. Since hisnew job begins on September 1, 2009, his departure coincides exactly with the


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end o GHFs rst 10-year period. With his imminent succession by Peter Forshaw,the beginning o the second decade will also mean the start o a new phase.

With the introduction o the Bachelor/Master system and the completiono the second team, continuity and stability had been achieved or the teachingprogram at GHF. During the rst two years, the number o Master students was

still rather small; but as the publicity machine o the Faculty o Humanities pro-essionalized and the existence o our program became quite well known inter-nationally, the number o applications increased rapidly. This made it possibleto apply quite stringent admission criteria or international students, resultingin a level o academic quality during the last ew years which, we are proud tosay, is excellent by any standard. Over these last years, the number o studentsin all Master seminars has been somewhere between 15 and (exceptionally) 25,with a majority o international students who come to Amsterdam especially orour program. The general degree o ocus and commitment among all o them

including o course the Dutch students, who have been able to prot rom oneor more o the Bachelor courses as well has been more than satisactory, and ismaking the teaching job a challenge and a pleasure. Perhaps most important oall, several students each year succeed in being admitted into a Ph.D. program,sometimes at very prestigious universities such as Yale or Cambridge. Thismeans that a new generation is now being educated with a solid knowledge o

Western esotericism, many o whom will eventually land academic positions invarious disciplines at universities worldwide. Their presence will make it mucheasier or the generations ater them to pursue studies in this domain. In this

manner, we believe that GHF, along with the programs in Paris and Exeter, is lay-ing important oundations or the uture expansion o Western esotericism as aeld o research.

This brings me to the doctoral program. Next to the three permanent stamembers and a secretary, the available budget makes two Ph.D. positions pos-sible on a permanent basis. Finding suitable candidates was not easy during therst years, or the simple reason that there were not yet any students who hadgraduated rom the program. Fortunately, however, there are always a ew indi-viduals who discover a eld like this on their own. One morning in April 2000, I

ound mysel listening to a young art historian who had just nished her gradu-ate thesis and wanted to study the relation between hermetism and art theoryin the Renaissance. Having read her thesis, I realized that she might be just theright person or the job. Marieke van den Doel was indeed selected or the posi-tion, and was appointed as our rst Ph.D. student on April 1, 2001. Over the ol-lowing years she successully met the challenge o mastering a complicated eldo philosophical and religious speculation or which her previous studies hadhardly prepared her, and, on February 12, 2008, she deended her dissertationFicino en het voorstellingsvermogen (Ficino and the Imagination): an important eventor her personally, but also or GHF, which proudly produced its rst Doctor. Vanden Doels successor, Osvald Vasicek, has been working on his dissertation onthe Christian kabbalist Johannes Reuchlin since June 1, 2006. Having graduatedin Religious Studies at the University o Amsterdam, with a specialization in


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Western esotericism, Vasic ek was the rst o our Ph.D. students to have comeout o our own program.

The second Ph.D. position, or esotericism in the 19th and 20th centuries hashad a somewhat more uneven development. Roelie van Kreijl was appointedat GHF rom 2003 to 2007, and since January 16, 2008, her successor, Tessel

Bauduin, has been working on a dissertation about the relation between sur-realism and esotericism. Bauduins double major in Art History and CulturalStudies included several GHF modules, and one o her two theses was about anart collection grounded in esoteric symbolism. Shortly ater Bauduins appoint-ment, the number o Ph.D. students working under GHF supervision expandedquite suddenly. An international student rom Norway, Egil Asprem, nishedthe Research Master in the Study o Religion with a specialization in Westernesotericism, and succeeded (on his rst attempt) in earning one o the presti-gious Top Talent scholarships o the Dutch Organization o Scientic Research

(NWO). Having started on September 1, 2008, he is now engaged in a researchproject about the relation between esotericism and scientic naturalism in the20th century. Finally, still in 2008, the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica decided tourther expand its activities by employing a Ph.D. student as a temporary stamember. The choice ell on Joyce Pijnenburg, another Dutch student who hascompleted the Master Study o Religion at the University o Amsterdam with aspecialization in Western esotericism. Connected to GHF as a recognized ex-ternal Ph.D. student she is working on a dissertation about the role o imageryin Giordano Bruno. With these our talented young scholars all working on their

dissertations, the prospects o GHF on the Ph.D. ront are looking very healthy.The basis o any successul academic institution is the excellence o its

scholarly output. The research o GHF was registered during the rst academicyear under the heading o a new program titled Western Esotericism and Mod-ernization, which became part o the history section o the Research InstituteCulture and History (ICH). In 2006, it was succeeded by a new program titledWestern Esotericism: Continuities and Discontinuities. The publication out-put has been more than satisactory rom the beginning, as can be seen romthe lists o publications available in the online annual research reports o GHF

(www.amsterdamhermetica.nl) and the printed annual reports o ICH. In the tenyears o its existence, there have appeared 10 monographs (ve o which alsoappeared in one or more translations), 11 books (including two multi-volumeones), circa 200 articles (not counting very small dictionary entries) and circa45 book reviews. Restricting ourselves here only to book-length publicationsdevoted to esotericism specically, they all within a range o various categories:critical editions and monographs devoted to central gures (Lodovico Lazza-relli, Guillaume Postel, Emanuel Swedenborg, Aleister Crowley); general treat-ments o the history o Western esotericism, astrology, modern kabbalah, andmodern shamanism; thematic treatments o esoteric strategies o epistemology,polemics, and the role o eroticism and sexuality in Western esotericism; plus aFestschrit and a large reerence work.9

Another important dimension o academic success concerns contributions


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made to international scholarly media, research meetings, and organizations.Over the last ten years, members o GHF gave circa 150 lectures at universitiesand conerences in many countries, and they were active in organizing 11 inter-national conerences or conerence sessions themselves. Thus, in the contexto the International Association or the History o Religion (IAHR), sessions on

Western esotericism have been organized in 2000 (Durban) and 2005 (Tokyo);as part o the aliated European Association or the Study o Religion (EASR),such sessions have been organized since 2006; and in the context o the Ameri-can Academy o Religion, annual sessions with protected group status wererst introduced in 2005. Specialized conerences on Western esotericism withspecic thematic ocuses were organized as part o the organization PoliticaHermetica in 2005 (Esotericism and the Feminine), at the Esalen Institute inCaliornia during our consecutive years between 2004 and 2007 (ocusing re-spectively on Religious Experience, Eros and Sexuality, Literature, and Altered

States o Consciousness), and at the University o Amsterdam in 2004 and 2007(on astrology and modern kabbalah).

I these conerences involved GHF members traveling to conerences world-wide, well-known scholars were coming to Amsterdam as well, to give lecturesor seminars. The Canadian specialist o medieval magic Claire Fanger gave alecture on May 26, 2000; the American historian on the Enlightenment and Free-masonry Margaret Jacob on May 1, 2002; and the English expert o GiordanoBruno Hilary Gatti on June 7, 2002. From November 2-3, 2004, the Americanspecialist on the history o alchemy Lawrence M. Principe gave a lecture and a

seminar or Master students; the Israeli scholar o kabbalah Boaz Huss lecturedon September 22, 2005; and nally, the American Eliott R. Wolson, anothermajor kabbalah specialist, gave a lecture and a seminar or master students onMarch 13-14, 2008. Furthermore, several international Ph.D. candidates or post-doctoral students (or some reason, all o them rom Scandinavian countries)have spent periods o time at GHF to prot rom the opportunities it oers orcollaboration and exchange. Thus Henrik Bogdan rom Sweden was in Amster-dam during the rst hal o 2002; and two Finnish postdoctoral researchers, TitusHjelm and Kennet Granholm, were there in the academic years 2006-2007 and

2007-2008 respectively. On the editorial ront, members o GHF have been active as editors notonly o collective volumes (see above), but also o scholarly journals and mono-graph series:Aries: Journal or the Study o Western Esotericism (since 2001) and thealiated Aries Book Series (since 2006), both published by Brill;10 the seriesGnostica: Texts & Interpretations, originally published by Peeters, later byEquinox;11 the electronic journal Esoterica, the annual French series Politica Her-metica, and the journal The Pomegranate.12 But their editorial activities are not lim-ited to media devoted specically to Western esotericism: the active presenceo our sta members in broader interdisciplinary contexts, notably the studyo religion and o new religious movements, is refected in their editorship andboard membership in major journals like Numen, Religion, Journal o ContemporaryReligion, Nova Religio, Religion Compass, and Journal o Religion in Europe, and in such


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monograph series as Religion and Society (Walter de Gruyter) and the NumenBook Series (Brill).

It has now been ten years ago that due to the original vision o Rosa-lie Basten and the determination and proessional expertise o Roelo van denBroek and Willem Koudijs the Faculty o Humanities o the University o Am-

sterdam courageously embarked on a unique academic venture, the viability owhich still had to be demonstrated. At that time, the study o Western esoteri-cism was still very much an idea in the heads (and, o course, the writings) o alimited group o devoted scholars, rather than a maniest and established realityin the international academic world. Today this situation has changed irrevers-ibly. There are now three academic chairs (Paris, Amsterdam, Exeter), with suc-cessul teaching programs that produce new generations o young scholars eachyear; with the European Society or the Study o Western Esotericism (ESSWE)and the American Association or the Study o Esotericism (ASE) there are now

two proessional organizations or scholars in the eld, who meet at large con-erences each year; withAries and the Aries Book Series the eld has its ownspecialized academic journal and an aliated monograph series, next to a widevariety o other journals and series with related or overlapping interests; andthat sessions devoted to the study o Western esotericism are routinely presentat large conerences such as those organized by the AAR or the IAHR is no lon-ger surprising or controversial.

For me personally, and probably or many colleagues with me, the inaugu-ral conerence o the European Society or the Study o Western Esotericism in

Tbingen, 2007, organized by Andreas Kilcher and Philipp Theisohn, was a kindo crowning event in this context. When I walked on to the podium to give my wel-come address as the president o the society, the realization hit me o how ar wehad come. The large university auditorium was completely ull, and in the crowdI saw the aces not only o many o the most important international scholars inour eld, but those o an incredible number o young and upcoming academicsas well, including a large group o students rom Amsterdam who were now busymaking riends with their colleagues rom Exeter and elsewhere. The enthusiasmthat our eld is generating among these new generations is, without any doubt,

the most gratiying phenomenon o all, because it means that a process has beenset in motion that will be taken into the uture and is no longer dependent on thesmall group o dedicated scholars who started it in the 1990s.

Still, the act that much has been accomplished since that period, andsince the beginning o GHF in 1999, should not be a reason or complacency. Oldpatterns only change slowly, and although scholars o Western esotericism maysometimes eel that the battle or academic acceptance has been won, in act itis only just beginning: rather, what we need to do during the next decade is movethat battle to new ronts. Most attention so ar has gone to securing a place orour eld in the context o the study o religion, and with considerable success;but one o the most attractive aspects o esotericism is the act that it reuses tobe constrained within the limits o one academic domain only. As demonstratedby the many disciplinary backgrounds o the international students who come to


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Amsterdam to ollow our program each year, Western esotericism can be stud-ied rom perspectives as dierent as history, philosophy, art history, the historyo science, musicology, classics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, politicsand, occasionally, even such technical disciplines as linguistics, architecture ormathematics. There is still a world to be won in each o these domains, and

sometimes even the barest oundations still need to be created. In this sense,the rst ten years o GHF at the University o Amsterdam have been only the veryrst beginning o a development that is bound to continue and expand over thenext decades. Solid oundations have now been created, but in a eld as com-plex and endlessly ascinating as ours, only the sky should be the limit.

Notes

1 Webb, Occult Underground, 191; and c. Frenschkowski, James Webb und die

Epistemologie des Irrationalen.2 Yates, Giordano Bruno; Rosicrucian Enlightenment; Occult Philosophy. See also the

contribution by Allison Coudert elsewhere in this volume.3 Faivres major Accs de lsotrisme occidental appeared in 1986 (ollowed

by a greatly expanded two-volume edition in 1996); but his short studyLsotrisme o 1992, containing his infuential denition o Western esoteri-cism, can be regarded as the denitive starting point o the modern studyo Western esotericism (Hanegraa, Nascita dellesoterismo, 125-128).For Faivres international infuence beginning in the same year, see espe-

cially Faivre and Needleman, Modern Esoteric Spirituality; Faivre,Access to West-ern Esotericism; idem, Theosophy, Imagination, Tradition.

4 The conerence took place at the Bibliothque municipale o Lyon on April6-8, 1992. The proceedings were published two years later as Martin andLaplantine, D magique.

5 www.esswe.org.6 The proceedings were published as Faivre and Hanegraa,Western Esoteri-

cism and the Science o Religion.7 Papers presented at the Tokyo conerence became the core o Hammer and

von Stuckrad, Polemical Encounters.8 For overviews o conerences and papers presented rom 2000 to the pres-ent, see the journalAries.

9 All these titles are in the bibliography.10 Aries: Journal or the Study o Western Esotericism (Brill Academic Publishers)

is the continuation as a new series o the earlier journal ARIES, whichhad been published by the French Association pour la Recherche etlInormation sur lEsotrisme since 1985. As a new series, Aries has ap-peared since 2001, under the editorship o Antoine Faivre, Wouter J. Hane-graa (both rom 2001 to the present), Roland Edighoer (until 2008) andNicholas Goodrick-Clarke (since 2008), with Marco Pasi as book revieweditor since 2005. The aliated Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in

Western Esotericism (chie editor Wouter J. Hanegraa) exists since 2006.At the time o writing, ten volumes have appeared.


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11 The series Gnostica: Texts and Interpretations (Peeters, edited by WouterJ. Hanegraa and Garry W. Tromp) was published rom 1997 to 2003. A-ter our volumes, it was continued with a new publisher, Equinox, undereditorship o Kocku von Stuckrad and Garry W. Tromp, with two volumespublished at the time o writing.

12 Brach and Hanegraa are on the board o Esoterica (www.esoteric.msu.edu;published since 1999 under the general editorship o the American scholar

Arthur Versluis); Pasi is on the board o Politica Hermetica (published since1987 under the auspices o an association o the same name); Pasi andvon Stuckrad are on the board o The Pomegranate: The Journal o Pagan Studies(published since 1997 under the general editorship o the American scholarChas Cliton).

BibliographyBrach, Jean-Pierre (ed. and transl.), Guillaume Postel: Des Admirables Secrets des Nom-

bres Platoniciens, Paris: J. Vrin, 2001.Caron, Richard, Joscelyn Godwin, Wouter J. Hanegraa and Jean-Louis Vieillard-

Baron (eds.), Esotrisme, gnoses & imaginaire symbolique: Mlanges oerts AntoineFaivre, Louvain: Peeters, 2001.

Doel, Marieke J.E. van den, Ficino en het voorstellingsvermogen: Phantasia en Imaginatioin kunst en theorie van de Renaissance, Ph.D. dissertation University o Amster-dam, Amsterdam 2008.

Faivre, Antoine,Accs de lsotrisme occidental, Paris: Gallimard: 1986 (revised andexpanded ed. in two volumes: Paris: Gallimard, 1996).

, Lsotrisme, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992.,Access to Western Esotericism, Albany: State University o New York Press, 1994., Theosophy, Imagination, Tradition: Studies in Western Esotericism, Albany: State Uni-

versity o New York Press, 2000.Faivre, Antoine and Jacob Needleman (eds.), Modern Esoteric Spirituality, New York:

Crossroad, 1992.Faivre, Antoine and Wouter J. Hanegraa (eds.),Western Esotericism and the Science

o Religion: Selected Papers presented at the 17th

Congress o the International Associationor the History o Religions, Mexico City 1995, Louvain: Peeters, 1998.Frenschkowski, Marco, James Webb und die Epistemologie des Irrationalen,

in: James Webb, Das Zeitalter des Irrationalen: Politik, Kultur und Okkultismus im 20.Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden: Marix Verlag, 2008, 7-27.

Hammer, Olav, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies o Epistemology rom Theosophy to the NewAge: Leiden, Boston and Cologne: Brill, 2001.

Hammer, Olav and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Polemical Encounters: Esoteric Dis-course and its Others: Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007.

Hanegraa, Wouter J. & Ruud M. Bouthoorn, Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447-1500): TheHermetic Writings and Related Documents, Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center or Medi-eval and Renaissance Studies, 2005.

Hanegraa, Wouter J. (ed.) in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelo van den


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Broek and Jean-Pierre Brach, Dictionary o Gnosis and Western Esotericism, 2 vols.,Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2005.

Hanegraa, Wouter J. and Jerey J. Kripal (eds.), Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexual-ity in the History o Western Esotericism, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008.

Hanegraa, Wouter J., Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets o

Heaven, West Chester: Swedenborg Foundation, 2007.Huss, Boaz, Marco Pasi and Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Kabbalah and Modernity,

Leiden and Boston: Brill, orthcoming 2009.Martin, Jean-Baptiste and Franois Laplantine (eds.), Le d magique, 2 vols.,

Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1994.Pasi, Marco,Aleister Crowley und die Versuchung der Politik, Graz: Ares, 2006 (see also

Italian original and orthcoming English translation).Peuckert, Will-Erich, Pansophie: Ein Versuch zur Geschichte der weissen und schwarzen

Magie, 2nd ed., Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1956.

Stuckrad, Kocku von, Geschichte der Astrologie: Von den Anngen bis zur Gegenwart,Munich: C.H. Beck, 2003 (see also English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguesetranslations).

, Schamanismus und Esoterik: Kultur- und wissenschatsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen,Louvain: Peeters, 2003.

, Western Esotericism: A Brie History o Secret Knowledge, London and Oakville:Equinox, 2005 (see also German original).

, Locations o Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse andWestern Identities, orthcoming 2009.

Webb, James, The Occult Underground, La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974.Yates, Frances A., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, London and Chicago:

Routledge and Kegan Paul and University o Chicago Press, 1964., The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972., The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1979.

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Hanegraa

Brach

vStuckrad

Hammer

Pasi

Kroon

Nobach

vdDoel

vKreijl

Vasicek

Bauduin

Asprem

Pijnenburg


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Teaching Program GHF 1999-2009

1999-2000

Hermetica I: Introduction

(Hanegraa)

Hermetica III: Themes (Hanegraa)

2000-2001

Hermetica II: Sources

(Hanegraa)


(Hanegraa)

Hermetica III: Themes (Brach)

2001-2002

Hermetica II: Sources

(Brach)


(Hanegraa)

Hermetica III: Themes (Hammer)

2002-2003Hermetica I: Introduction (Hanegraa)

Hermetica III: 19th-20th cent. (Hammer)

Western Esotericism and the Quest or

Enlightenment I: Theosophy, Illuminism

and the Age o Reason (Hanegraa)

Renaissance Esotericism I: Jewish-Pagan-

Christian Syncretism (Hanegraa)

Hermetica II: Early Modern Western

Esotericism and the Visual Arts (van den

Doel)

Occult Trajectories I: Mesmerism-

Spiritualism-New Thought (Hammer)


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2003-2004

Hermetica I: Introductionto Western Esotericism (Hanegraa)

Hermetica III: 19th-20th cent. (Hammer)

Western Esotericism and the Quest orEnlightenment II: Spiritual Techniques andExperiential Phenomena (Hanegraa)

Renaissance Esotericism II: ReligiousPluralism and Esoteric Discourse (vonStuckrad)

Western Esotericism and (Post)Modernity(Hanegraa)

Hermetica II: Early Modern (von Stuckrad)

Occult Trajectories II: Charisma in 19th/20thCentury Esotericism (von Stuckrad)

2004-2005


Hermetica III: 19th-20th cent. (Pasi)

Western Esotericism and the Quest orEnlightenment I: Theosophy, Illuminismand the Age o Reason (Hanegraa)

Renaissance Esotericism I: Jewish-Pagan-Christian Syncretism (von Stuckrad)


Occult Trajectories I: Magic and Modernity(Pasi)

2005-2006


Hermetica III: 19th-20th cent. (Pasi)

Contested Knowledge II: Paganism, Images,and Christian Identities (Hanegraa)

Renaissance Esotericism II: ReligiousPluralism and Esoteric Discourse (vonStuckrad)


Occult Trajectories II: Women and GenderIssues in Modern Western Esotericism(Pasi)


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2006-2007

Hermetica I: Introduction to Western

Esotericism (Hanegraaff, von Stuckrad, Pasi)

Hermetica III: Early Modern (Hanegraaff)

Contested Knowledge I: Altered States of

Consciousness and Western Esotericism

(Hanegraaff)

Renaissance Esotericism I: Jewish and

Christian Kabbalah (von Stuckrad)

Hermetica II: Antiquity and Middle Ages

(von Stuckrad)

Hermetica IV: 19th-20th cent. (Pasi)

Occult Trajectories I: Western Esotericism in

the Mirror of Modern Literature (Pasi)

2007-2008

Hermetica I: Introduction to Western

Esotericism (Hanegraaff, von Stuckrad, Pasi)

Hermetica III (Hanegraaff)

Contested Knowledge II: Paganism, Images,

and Christian Identities (Hanegraaff)

Renaissance Esotericism II: Secrets of

Nature (von Stuckrad)

Hermetica II (von Stuckrad)

Hermetica IV (Pasi)

Occult Trajectories II (Pasi)

2008-2009

Hermetica I (Hanegraaff, Pasi)

Hermetica III (Hanegraaff)

Contested Knowledge I: Altered States of

Consciousness and Western Esotericism

(Hanegraaff)

Renaissance Esotericism I: Jewish and

Christian Kabbalah (von Stuckrad)

Hermetica II (von Stuckrad, Pijnenburg)

Hermetica IV (Pasi)

Occult Trajectories I: The Esoteric in

Modern and Contemporary Art (Pasi,

Bauduin)


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Part 2

Glimpses o Research


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| 33

The Pagan Who Came rom the East:

George Gemistos Plethon

and Platonic Orientalism

WouteRJ. HanegRaaff

Tie ist der Brunnen der Vergangenheit.Sollte man ihn nicht unergrndlich nennen?

Thomas Mann, Joseph und seine Brder

Western esotericism has much to do with the search or origins, as we will see,and scholars have been no less concerned with the origins o esotericism. 1462has oten been mentioned as a starting point, because in that year a Greek man-uscript o the Corpus Hermeticum arrived in Florence, and its Latin translation byMarsilio Ficino (1463; rst printed in 1471) led to what Frances Yates called theHermetic Tradition o the Renaissance. But in history, every origin has itsel anorigin: in this case, one that occurred 24 years earlier, with the arrival in Flor-ence o a Byzantine philosopher, George Gemistos, later known as Plethon (ca.1355/1360-1452).1

He traveled as part o a delegation under the Byzantine Emperor John VIIIPaleologus and the Orthodox Patriarch Joseph II, who had been invited to par-ticipate in a Council in Italy to discuss a possible reunion o the Eastern and

Western churches. On 4 March, 1438, the party met the Pope in Ferrara, butmainly or nancial and security reasons the Council was transerred to Flor-ence in January o the ollowing year, where it continued well into the summer.Plethon was already around 80 years old, and several o the Greek delegationsoutstanding intellectuals had once been his pupils. The impression he madeamong the humanists o Florence has become the stu o legend:

When there was a wonderul gathering in the West o wise and eminentmen, and a great debate on the matter o the Churchs doctrines, how can

one describe the admiration they elt or this mans wisdom and virtue and

his powers o argument? He shone among them more brightly than the sun.

They regarded him as their common teacher, the common beneactor o

mankind, the common pride o nature. They called him Plato and Socrates,

or he was not inerior to those two in wisdom, as everybody would agree.2

Much later, in 1492, Marsilio Ficino would evoke a similar picture in the dedica-tion to Lorenzo de Medici o his translation o Plotinus Enneads. At the timeo the Council, he writes, the young Cosimo de Medici had oten listened toPlethon, who had spoken o the Platonic mysteries like a second Plato. 3 The


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implication is that, during those meetings, Plethon had planted the seeds thathad blossomed two decades later in what has been called the Platonic Academyo Florence.4

Platonic OrientalismThe travel o this second Plato rom Byzantium to Florence is o great symbolicsignicance, or, in the person o Plethon, the humanists made their rst contactwith a living embodiment o what may be reerred to as Platonic Orientalism(or, i one preers, Orientalist Platonism).5 The origins o this phenomenon areound in Late Antiquity, when many authors belonging to the milieus o whatwe now call Middle Platonism transormed the philosophy o Plato into a reli-gious worldview with its own mythologies and ritual practices, ocused on theattainment o a salvational gnosis by which the soul could be liberated rom its

material entanglement and regain its unity with the divine Mind.6 The basic as-sumption common to these milieus is captured in an ot-quoted passage romthe 2nd-century Pythagorean Numenius:

On this point [i.e., the problem o God], ater having cited and taken notice

o Platos testimonies, one should go urther back and connect them to the

teachings o Pythagoras, calling next upon the peoples o high renown so

as to include their initiations, dogmas and cultural oundations, which they

accomplish in ull accord with Plato, in short, to all on which the Brahmans,

the Jews, the Magi and the Egyptians were in agreement.7Far rom being an isolated instance, this statement was utterly typical o theperiod: innumerable sources8 reer to the reigning idea that the most ancientbarbarian peoples possessed a pure and superior science and wisdom, derivednot rom reason but rom direct mystical access to the divine, and that all theimportant Greek philosophers up to and including Plato had received their phi-losophy rom these sources. The modalities o such transmission were not seenas problematic: ater all, countless testimonies conrmed that Plato himsel

and all o his notable predecessors had personally traveled to Egypt, Babylon,Persia and even India, where they had studied with the priests and sages.9 Inshort, not only was Greek philosophy seen as derived rom oriental sources, butthe Egyptians in particular could claim to be the true ounders o philosophy assuch.10 In this context, philosophy was well understood to be much more thanthe pursuit o knowledge by unaided human reason: its true concern was divinewisdom and the salvation o the soul.

Wise Men rom the East

As a typical modern heir o the Platonic orientalist perspective, Plethon wasrmly convinced that the true wisdom had originated with the Persian sage Zo-roaster, the chie o the magi. Now the Council o Ferrara and Florence was obvi-


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thepagaNwhocamefromtheeaSt| 35

ously not about philosophy but about church doctrine and politics; and that anancient Persian sage could have something to do with Plato may have been nei-ther apparent nor particularly relevant to the Italian churchmen and politicians.But that a suggestive parallel could be drawn between the visit o the Byzantinedelegation to the head o Western Christianity, and the biblical story o the magi

who had come rom the East to venerate the Christ child thereby conrmingthe concordance o their ancient wisdom with the teachings o Christianity wascertainly not lost on them. Hence, during the estivities around the east o St.John at the closing o the Council in 1439, the Greeks were dazzled by a luxuriousprocession o men dressed up like the magi ollowing the star.11 This spectaclewas staged presumably in honor o their own presence, but carried a subtexto Western superiority that they were unlikely to miss: or all their wisdom, theEastern sages had been obliged to travel all the way to the West, not the otherway around, and having reached their destination they had knelt and paid hom-

age to Gods representative on earth. The parallel with the Byzantines travelingto the Pope in Italy was hard to overlook.

Twenty years later, in 1459, Cosimo de Medici commissioned a great rescoby Benozzo Gozzoli called The Procession o the Magi, in which the memory o theCouncil still resonates strongly.12 As convincingly argued by Brigitte Tambrunwith reerence to this work o art, Cosimos well-attested ascination with thebiblical magi rom the East is inseparable rom his memory o the Council andthe revival o Plato that took shape under his patronage in Florence. The keyactor in that constellation was Plethon. Reerring directly to the time o the

Council, Ficino later wrote to Cosimo that Platos spirit, living in his writings,had let Byzantium to fy like a bird (advolavit) to Cosimo in Florence;13 and it wastaken or granted that the magi who venerated the Christ child could have beennone other than the disciples o Zoroaster. Hence Tambruns conclusion:

Plato makes his return because he is the inheritor at the same time o the

magi (according to Plethon) and o Hermes (according the Latin Fathers, no-

tably Augustine and Lactantius). ... The resco o Benozzo Gozzoli presents

a genealogy o wisdom: the magi Plato Christ, doubled by a geographical

orientation o temporality: the Orient Greece Florence. The processionmagnifes the point o culmination while at the same time always recalling

and reerring to the point o origin: the oriental magi are the originators o

the wisdom o which the Greeks Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, Plethon are

the inheritors, and this wisdom comes to Florence thanks to the Medici who

gather it.14

George Gemistos in Florence

Who was this second Plato who had come rom the East, and made such animpression on his audience? One o the most notable philosophers o the late-Byzantine era, George Gemistos was born in Constantinople and raised in awell-educated Christian amily. Ater studying in Constantinople and Adriano-


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ple, he established himsel as a teacher o philosophy in his city o birth. Prob-ably toward the end o the rst decade o the 15th century, Emperor ManuelII Paleologus sent him to Mistra in the southern Peloponnese, a town with arelatively ree-spirited atmosphere where the ancient Hellenic traditions stillsurvived, and which would remain his residence or the rest o his lie. Far rom

being an ivory-tower philosopher, Gemistos seems to have been active in a va-riety o public unctions: in Constantinople he was member o the Senate, andduring his lie he held various administrative positions, acted as a judge, andwas requently consulted by the Emperors and the Despots o the Morea. Evenwhen he was not consulted, he oered his advice anyway. Although the churchsuspected him o heresy, the imperial amily seems to have thought highly ohim, and he was richly rewarded or his services. Although he was a layman, hispresence in the imperial delegation to the Council o Ferrara and Florence wasthereore not surprising.

It might seem strange or a man approaching his 80th birthday, but theCouncil was undoubtedly the turning point o his lie, as indicated not only byhis adoption o a new pen name Plethon (probably with deliberate reerence tohis status as a second Plato15), but most signicantly by the act that his majorwritings were produced during and ater his trip to Italy. Although, as an op-ponent o Union, he made some active contributions to the ocial proceedingso the Council, their theological hairsplitting let him rather indierent; but heimmediately elt at home among the Florentine humanists, who eagerly soughthis advice about Greek philosophy. Plethon must have been fattered by their at-

tention and admiration, but shocked by their lack o knowledge about Plato andAristotle. The ormer had only just begun to be rediscovered, with pioneeringbut as yet limited translation eorts by Uberto Decembrio, Leonardo Bruni anda ew others;16 and the latter was poorly understood not only by the humanists,but even by the scholastics, who claimed his authority but actually knew himmainly through Latin and Arab sources, reading him through the lenses o Aver-roes who had not even known Greek. To correct such misunderstandings, dur-ing his sojourn in Florence Plethon wrote a short text in Greek,Wherein Aristotledisagrees with Plato, usually reerred to as De dierentiis. It purported to demonstrate

that Aristotle went wrong whenever he departed rom Plato and is consideredthe opening shot in the amous Plato-Aristotle controversy o the Renaissance,which lasted until the early 1470s.17

The Religion o Fire and Light

Much more important in reerence to our concerns is Plethons version o theChaldaean Oracles and his commentaries on them. This collection amouslyreerred to by Franz Cumont as the Bible o the late antique theurgists isamong the most important textual reerences o orientalist Middle Platonismand had enjoyed an exalted status in the late neoplatonist curriculum.18 Plethonknew it rom the 11th-century collection preserved by Michael Psellus, but elimi-nated six oracles rom it and presented the result together with his commentary


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and a brie explanation under a new title: Magical Sayings o the Magi, Disciples oZoroaster.19 From Chaldaean the oracles had thereore become magical; andor the rst time in history20 they were attributed to Zoroaster, the chie o themagi.

Whence this attribution, and what is its signicance? Most specialists to-

day explain it in terms o a specic chain o transmission rom pagan antiquity toIslamic culture, rom where it could have reached Plethon, who was raised as aChristian, by means o a Jewish intermediary: a combination which derives mucho its ascination rom the suggestion that Platonic Orientalism could unctionas a privileged medium enabling discursive transer across the boundaries oall the three great scriptural traditions.21 Crucial to this story o transmission22 isthe shadowy gure o a certain Elissaeus, a Jewish teacher mentioned in two let-ters by George Scholarios. Scholarios had been Plethons student and thereoreknew him well, but eventually turned against his teacher and attacked him as a

heretic and a pagan inspired by demons:

The climax o his apostasy came later under the inuence o a certain Jew

with whom he studied, attracted by his skill as an interpreter o Aristotle. This

Jew was an adherent o Averroes and other Persian and Arabic interpreters

o Aristotles works, which the Jews had translated into their own language,

but he paid little regard to Moses or the belies and observances which the

Jews received rom him.

This man also expounded to Gemistos the doctrines o Zoroaster and

others. He was ostensibly a Jew but in act a Hellenist. Gemistos stayed withhim or a long time, not only as his pupil but also in his service, living at

his expense, or he was one o the most inuential men at the court o these

barbarians. His name was Elissaeus.23

In another letter, Scholarios repeated most o these elements, reerring to Elis-saeus as a polytheist and adding that he met his end in the fames. He writesspecically that Plethon had no previous knowledge o Zoroaster beore beingintroduced to the Persian sage by his Jewish master.24

Plethon himsel never mentions Elissaeus, and his enemy Scholarios re-mains our only direct source, but the latters statements make sense i they areplaced in context. The court o the barbarians (that is to say, the Muslims) inthis period could only be Andrianople, which had been captured by the Turks in1360, and where many Jews enjoyed high unctions in the Ottoman magistratureand administration. That Elissaeus was an adherent o Averroes and other Per-sian and Arabic interpreters o Aristotles works identies him as a philosophertypical o this time and place, who combined the occidental Aristotelianism inthe tradition o Averroes (imported and translated by Spanish Jews) with its ori-ental and Avicennian counterpart in the infuential illuminationist philosophyo Suhraward and his ishr aqi school.25 That the latter was wholly grounded inGreek philosophy, and, more specically, Platonic Orientalism, has been dem-onstrated exhaustively by John Walbridge.26 At the very opening o Suhrawards


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Philosophy o Illumination we indeed nd a passage that might almost be called aPlatonic orientalist credo:

In all that I have said about the science o lights and that which is and is not

based upon it, I have been assisted by those who have traveled the path o

God. This science is the very intuition o the inspired and illumined Plato,

the guide and master o philosophy, and o those who came beore him

rom the time o Hermes, the ather o philosophers, up to Platos time,

including such mighty pillars o philosophy as Empedocles, Pythagoras, and

others. The words o the Ancients are symbolic and not open to reutation.

The criticisms made o the literal sense o their words ail to address their

real intentions, or a symbol cannot be reuted.27

In an analogous passage, Suhraward emphasized the limits o peripatetic rea-

son when it comes to understanding the science o lights, whose nature andreality can ultimately be known only by the direct intuition o pure souls dur-ing a state o divine ecstasy:

All those possessing insight and detachment bear witness to this. Most o

the allusions o the prophets and the great philosophers point to this. Plato,

Socrates beore him, and those beore Socrates like Hermes, Agathodae-

mon, and Empedocles all held this view. ... Whoso questions the truth o

this let him engage in mystical disciplines and service to those visionar-

ies, that perchance he will, as one dazzled by the thunderbolt, see the lightblazing in the Kingdom o Power and will witness the heavenly essences and

lights that Hermes and Plato beheld. He will see the spiritual luminaries, the

wellsprings o kingly splendor and wisdom that Zoroaster told o [A]ll

the sages o Persia were agreed thereon. These are the lights to which

Empedocles and others alluded.28

I Elissaeus was indeed a Platonic orientalist and an adherent o Suhrawardsscience o lights and all our inormation seems to support that assumption

this provides us with a background or better understanding how Plethon couldhave arrived at his ideas about the Chaldaean Oracles as the most ancient sourceo the universal wisdom tradition. With their pervasive symbolism o light andre as representing the divine, they would be considered highly representa-tive not only o Suhrawardis ancient pre-Platonic science o lights but also,more specically, o the re cult that had always been associated with Zoro-astrian religion. In the Introduction to his Philosophy o Illumination, Suhrawarddistinguished explicitly between the true doctrine o light that was taught bythe ancient Persian philosophers, the alse doctrine o the indel Magi, andthe heresy o Mani.29 Furthermore, anybody looking at the Greek sources romthat perspective and everything Plethon writes about Zoroaster can ultimatelybe traced to them30 could not ail to notice that the term magos had a doublemeaning there as well: it could mean a sage practicing the ancient cult o the


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true gods or it could have the negative meaning o a sorcerer, a practitioner ogoeteia.31 Plethon, or his part, now seems to have concluded that, whereas Zoro-aster and the magi were the depositors o the ancient, true and universal religiono Zoroaster, the Chaldaeans represented a later development that had cor-rupted the truth, leading to the alse doctrine o dualism and practices o sorcery.

Hence, all three oracles that dealt with goeteia were removed by him rom Pselluscollection32 along with the adjective Chaldaean, and the remaining series wasattributed to Zoroaster and the magi. In this manner, Plethon believed he hadrestored the most ancient source o the Platonic tradition to its original purity.

The Hidden Pagan

Back in Mistra, Plethon wrote his major philosophical synthesis, the Nomoi(Laws), which seems to have been made accessible only to the select member-

ship o his intimate circle o pupils. When Plethons manuscript turned up in thepossession o Princess Theodora in c. 1460-1465, his enemy Scholarios (now Pa-triarch o Constantinople) had most o it burned and ordered the destruction oany surviving copies on pain o excommunication. Scholarios himsel, however,preserved those parts he elt he needed to back up his accusations against hisormer teacher. In the surviving opening chapters o the work, the Platonic ori-entalist perspective is developed in some detail, beginning with an introductiono the major ancient lawgivers and sages who came ater Zoroaster: Eumolpus(ounder o the Eleusinian mysteries), Minos (the Cretan lawgiver), Lycurgus

(the Spartan lawgiver), Iphitus (the reviver o the Olympic Games) and Numa(who had instituted religious laws among the Romans). Plethon continues bystating that the Indian Brahmans and the magi are to be preerred among thebarbarians, and the kouretes among the Greeks; and he nishes with a urther listo authorities, including the priests at the oracle o Dodona, inspired men likePolyides, Tiresias, Chiron and the Seven Sages, and nally Pythagoras, Plato andother philosophers belonging to their school, notably Parmenides, Timaeus,Plutarch, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus.33

At least three things must be noted about this list. First, Plethon is ex-

plicit in opposing his list o lawgivers and philosophers as a positive categoryagainst its negative counterpart, consisting o poets and sophists. This latterterm turns out to be a code or the ounders o revealed religions, and Chris-tians in particular.34 Second, as the very title o the work also suggests, the com-bination o philosophers and lawgivers has evident political implications: bypreaching a return to the ancient wisdom away rom the sophists, Plethonwas advocating a reorm not only o religion but o the state and its laws aswell.35 And third, on his list o ancient authorities there are some surprisingabsentees. Orpheus is not mentioned among the early Greek sages,36 nor is Pro-clus among the Neoplatonists;37 but most striking is the absence o Hermes andMoses. In trying to explain this omission, we come to the heart o the matter: therelation between paganism and Christianity in Plethons version o the ancientwisdom discourse.


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Plethons genealogy is a deliberate alternative to the Christian apologeticliterature since Justin Martyr, according to which the Greeks were dependentupon Moses.38 Brigitte Tambrun has plausibly argued that the rst chapters ohis Nomoi are modeled ater the Prologue o Justins Dialogue with Tryphon, argu-ing that in writing them, Plethon took inspiration rom the satirical writings o

Lucian o Samosata, with which we know him to have been amiliar.39 With theexperience o the Council resh in his mind, the supremacy o Greek traditionhad to be rearmed; but the origins o true philosophy were traced back notto Moses but to a rival legislator, Zoroaster. The polemical intention cannotpossibly be overlooked: in clear contradiction to the entire tradition o patristicapologetics, Plethon was trying to replace the religion grounded in Mosaic Lawby a dierent one grounded in Zoroasters ancient philosophy o re and light.40In doing so, he was essentially adopting Celsus strategy o excluding Mosesrom the genealogy o wisdom.41 That he also ignored Hermes is slightly more

puzzling but may be explained by a combination o actors: a traditional Greekdisrespect or the ancient Egyptians,42 the act that Hermes was also known asa legislator and might thereore weaken the claim Plethon was making or Zoro-aster,43 and, most importantly, the act that Hermes could always be presentedas having learned his wisdom rom the Egyptian Moses, which would weakenthe strength o Plethons argument by re-introducing the patristic alternative viathe back door.44

Plethon, deending a universal and perennial tradition o ancient wisdomgrounded in the religion o Zoroaster and the magi, was so deliberately breaking

with the patristic apologetic tradition that the conclusion cannot be avoided:what he had in mind was nothing less than a revival o Hellenistic paganism indeliberate opposition to Christianity. A typical maniestation o Platonic Ori-entalism, it was to replace the exclusive monotheism linked to the name oMoses by an inclusive or qualitative monotheism along the lines o Celsus andProclus.45 I we give credence to the testimony o George o Trebizond, Plethonbelieved that his philosophy was destined to replace Christianity and Islam asthe religion o the uture. In Georges words:

I mysel heard him at Florence asserting that in a ew more years thewhole world would accept one and the same religion with one mind, one

intelligence, one teaching. And when I asked him Christs or Muham-

mads?, he said, Neither; but it will not dier much rom paganism. I was

so shocked by these words that I hated him ever ater and eared him like a

poisonous viper, and I could no longer bear to see or hear him. I heard, too,

rom a number o Greeks who escaped here rom the Peloponnese that he

openly said beore he died that not many years ater his death Moham-

med and Christ would collapse and the true truth would shine through every

region o the globe.46

There is almost universal agreement among specialists about the act thatPlethon was indeed a neo-pagan opponent o Christianity (although he obvi-


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ously had to conceal this, since preaching his views openly would have been acapital oense in Byzantium).47 It is important to emphasize how unique andexceptional this was. The historiographical clich o a Pagan Renaissance iscertainly misleading in its suggestion that the Platonic and Hermetic revival othe later 15th century involved a conscious rejection o Christianity on the part

o its major representatives.48 On the contrary, the Renaissance Platonism thatwould emerge rom Marsilio Ficinos translations was, and would always remain,a deeply Christian phenomenon. I Plethon was certainly the crucial pioneer oPlatonic orientalism in the 15th century, he seems to have remained virtuallyalone in his radical departure rom Christianity.49

Fiction and History

Nevertheless, one might say that with Plethon, the pagan cat was out o the

box. His case shows that once the basic textual sources o the Platonic traditionbecame available to a Christian culture where the need or religious reorm waswidely elt, paganism became a religious option, at least in theory. The impor-tance o Plethon does not lie primarily in his immediate infuence, which hasremained quite limited,50 or even in the impact o his writings during the later15th century. His true signicance lies in the domain o cultural mnemonics,51that is to say, in his symbolic status as the second Plato rom the East whosememory was eminently suited or being romanticized or demonized dependingon ones perspective. The idealizing perspective is evident, or example, in the

passage quoted above rom Charitonymos Hermonymos and in the amous im-age, conjured up by Ficino, o the young Cosimo de Medici conceiving the ideao a Platonic Academy while sitting at Plethons eet. As recently as 1986, in theopening passages o his monograph, Woodhouse reerred to this as the legendo Plethon, which still dominated the philosophers memory among historianso the late-Byzantine Empire and the early-Renaissance.52 Among many exam-ples o the romanticized Plethon in modern scholarship, a perect example isthat o Will-Erich Peuckert in his Pansophie o 1936:

[the Italian humanists] had heard o Plato as o a land that is magical.The name had ascinated the spirits o the young new age, and created the

highest expectations. And now, here is somebody who knows him, who

knows everything, and whose age he is almost ninety years old glows

upon him like ripening wine [dessen Alter an ihm erglht wie greisender

Wein]. Ater having sown his seed, he returned back to Misithra. But what

remained was his idea 53

Scholars have been ar rom immune to the attraction o this image, and haveonly reluctantly given it up in avor o less romantic although more accuratedescriptions. But the negative image o Plethon contributed to his notorietyas well. We already saw that in the (rankly paranoid) imagination o Georgeo Trebizond, who believed in a ull-blown conspiracy o Platonists seeking the


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destruction o Christianity, Plethon was a poisonous viper hiding behind themask o a venerable philosopher.54 In a very similar vein, Scholarios describedPlethon as a man who had been dominated by Hellenic ideas since his youthand was reading the Greek poets and philosophers not or the sake o their lan-guage but in order to associate himsel with them. As a result, he had come

under the infuence o demons and had allen into the same errors as Julianthe Apostate. This development had culminated in his apprenticeship with thelapsed Jew Elissaeus. Ever since, he had been trying to conceal his true ideas oropportunistic reasons, but was unable to do so while teaching his pupils.55

Besides the idealized picture o the wise philosopher and herald o ancienttruth, then, we have its counterpart: the sinister picture o the pagan subversive,a kind o secret agent o demonic orces hiding behind a mask o benevolence.

Applied to a wide range o personalities, the history o Western esotericism isreplete with endless variations on both images, and they contribute in no small

measure to how the eld is oten perceived in the popular imagination: romthe positive notion o inner traditions and venerable teachers o ageless spiri-tual wisdom that might heal the alienation o the modern world, to its negativecounterpart o occult orces o darkness and its sinister representatives, whotry to draw their victims towards the abyss o insanity and immorality. The aca-demic imagination is not immune to either o these two, but tends towards athird perspective inherited rom the Enlightenment, which perceives the eldand its representatives as neither good nor evil, but simply questions their seri-ousness. From such a point o view, a gure like Gemistos Plethon would appear

as neither wise nor demonic, but merely deluded or conused: a bearded oldman with strange ideas, engaged in utile attempts to restore ancient supersti-tions.

None o these pictures is historically accurate, but each o them catchesthe imagination and can be eectively transmitted through the popular media.To a considerable extent, the study o Western esotericism is an exercise in de-construction and disenchantment, because it requently proves necessary toreplace attractive myths by more precise but perhaps more prosaic analyses.Scholarly research in these areas thereore comes with a certain price, but it car-

ries benets as well: by deconstructing the simplications on which our culturalcertainties are built (see, or example, the disjunctive strategies mentioned byvon Stuckrad in his contribution to this volume), we discover how much we hadorgotten, and it becomes possible to discover new patterns o connections anduncover levels o historical complexity to which earlier generations were largelyoblivious.

The Origin beyond Origins

We have seen that some 24 years ater Plethons trip rom Byzantium to Flor-ence, a Greek manuscript containing 14 Hermetic tractates made a similar jour-ney. These two East-West transmissions stand at the historical origin o theRenaissance revival o Platonic Orientalism, rom which emerged a complex


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series o historical currents, which are now studied under the rubric o Westernesotericism. Today we know that the Platonic orientalist milieu was a product oLate Antiquity, which may thus be seen as the historical origin o our eld. But,according to the texts themselves and those who read and commented uponthem, the real origin o origins went back much urther, indeed. The ancient

wisdom had been born in the east, that is to say, in a myste