Could anyone here help me with some references? I'm doing some research on
the relationship between Hoene Wronski and Eliphas Levi.
In three biographies of Levi, Wronski is held to have 'initiated' Levi into
occultism a year before he died (before that Levi was a revolutionary
socialist, albeit of a religious hue). Levi then worked on Wronski's
posthumous papers and then shortly after published his Doctrine et rituel de
la haute magie.
There are some excellent books (in French) on Wronski's philosophical
system, but none that I have read seem to say anything about any explicit
interest in the kabbalah on his part. Most of the books portray Wronski as a
philosopher in the post-Kantian tradition, with a particular interest in
mathematics. The only work I have found that stresses his esotericism is by
Francis Warrain (1925). He brings out the correspondences between Wronski's
philosophical system and the kabbalah, but even there, I can find nothing
specific about Wronski's own attitude towards the kabbalah and esotericism.
He seems to have kept it quiet, and I have found no detailed account of what
actually went on between Levi and Wronski.
I would like to hear from anyone with any knowledge of the relationship
between these two figures. More specifically, could anyone tell me of any
literature on the occult aspects of their relationship? I have access to
quite a few books at the British Library, but I do not know of any articles
as yet.
In fact - another question - is there a database for articles (not
necessarily books) on the occult?
The Wronski-Levi relationship seems very important, as it suggests a direct
line from post-Kantian idealism (Wronski wrote the first French book on
Kant, and was a follower of Schelling) to the French occult revival.
Alexandrian, in his book on the history of occult philosophy, says that
Wronski is to occult philosophy what Kant is to classical philosophy - ie he
seems to say that Wronski also brings about a Copernican revolution in
occult philosop
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