Brian
I agree -
- i see this in publishing where you can use term like 'alchemy' or 'shamanism' in a euphemistic way but its really more
about denial or taboo than objectivity.
But of course people have every right to define themselves as they will -
but should these divisions be perpetuated in the 'objective' world of academic discourse.
Self definition for one can become proscriptive for others.
bb/93
mogg
: ) .....................................: )
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-----Original Message-----
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Brian Morton
Sent: 18 April 2007 14:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] magic and logic
Oh I see mysticism as part of the magical tradition. It is a huge
historical influence on it whether it is a theoretical component or
not.
My worry was that many mystics do not see themselves as magicians, and
might deny that magic is part of their mystical tradition. Maybe Magee
is right and Hegel is a full on Hermetic, but maybe he thinks of himself
as a mystic but not a magician, I haven't looked into the details here
enough. But there are certainly people today that think of themselves
as mystics but not magicians. (For example, think of the Heyschasts of
Athos or Arizona). In that sense a wedge might be tenable. Certainly
there is a wedge in self-understanding, even if there are deeper
historical or sociological continuities. Or so it seems to me.
>>> Mandrake of Oxford <[log in to unmask]> 4/18/2007 4:14 AM
>>>
Dear Alan et al
Thanks for that -
sounds interesting - although
I sometimes think its a shame about the term
'greco-roman egypt' which gives the impression that
the greek and roman influence is more significant than the egyptian -
whilst imo it should really be the other way round -
maybe something like 'post pharaonic magick' ??
Makes a difference in that its notable that Magee's
book description mentions nearly everything apart from magick -
Brian Morton questioned the connection between mysticism (as in Hegel)
with magick. There are some theorists who in the past have tried to
drive a wedge between the two but i think thats becoming increasingly
untenable -
seems to me that a great many (although perhaps not the majority) of
magicians see mysticism as part of the 'theoretical' or 'religious'
componant of the tradition.
'love and do what you will'
mogg
Glenn Alexander Magee's controversial book argues that Hegel was
decisively influenced by the Hermetic tradition, a body of thought with
roots in Greco-Roman Egypt. In the middle ages and modern period, the
Hermetic tradition became entwined with such mystical strands of thought
as alchemy, Kabbalism, Millenarianism, Rosicrucianism, and theosophy.
Recent scholarship has drawn connections between the Hermetic
"counter-tradition" and many modern thinkers, including Leibniz and
Newton.
Magee contends that Hegel accepted the central Hermetic teaching that
God is complete only when he becomes known by the Hermetic adept. Magee
traces the influence on Hegel of such Hermetic thinkers as Baader,
Böhme, Bruno, and Paracelsus, and shows that he shared their entire
range of interests, including a fascination with occult and paranormal
phenomena.
Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition covers Hegel's entire philosophical
corpus, showing that his engagement with Hermeticism lasted throughout
his entire career and intensified during his final years in Berlin.
Viewing Hegel as a Hermetic thinker has implications for a more complete
understanding of the modern philosophical tradition, and German idealism
in particular.
Quite a bit on Leibniz.
Best wishes
Alan Pritchard MPhil FCLIP MBCS
ALCHEMY: a bibliography of English-language writings
2nd (Internet) edition at
http://www.cix.co.uk/~apritchard
On 4/17/07, Brian Morton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Oh, I guess I should introduce myself
I'm Brian Morton a professor of philosophy from Indiana State
University, with some interests in what magic and philosophy have
to say
to each other.
Hegel scholars often point to the influence of Jacob Boehme on
Hegel.
Boehme wrote often of the three principles of alchemy, so its not
impossible that Hegel was influenced by the alchemical tradition
through
Boehme on this. Likewise, a lot of Hegel's heretical protestant
stuff
about the role of geist in history, looks like Boehme or the
earlier
Joachim of Fiore. The idea in these guys is that the Hebrew's
lived
mostly under the shadow of God the Father, the early/medieval
Christians
under the shadow of God the Son, but that in the near future
(Fiore), or
present (Boehme/Hegel), the 3rd person, God the Holy Spirit will be
the
primary engine of history. Its certainly a mystical view of
history,
but magical? maybe. Right after Hegel, his follower Marx, took
the
dialectic and turned it into the Material Dialectic. Its pretty
hard to
look at Hegel these days without the shadow of Marx getting in the
way.
Likewise, Hegel was popular in late 19th century Britain, but 20th
century British philosophy was built on rejecting him. In
philosophy he
might be beginning to re-emerge from Marx's shadow again a little
(as in
the thought of Brandom, McDowell, or Singer). Fukayama had a very
Hegel
influenced (and very neo-conservative) book a few years ago, but I
haven't seen a lot of other history that was particularly
Hegelian,
(unless it was also relatively Marx-influenced) recently. Have any
of
you?
>>> Mandrake of Oxford <[log in to unmask]> 4/17/2007 12:52
PM
>>>
Sebastian
Welcome - interesting thoughts - my main encounter with Hegel is
through
Borchardt's 'Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy' - which i
believe is
a Hegelian view of history with much talk of the Geist - i wonder
whether
this view of history in terms of 'spirit of an age' is also quite a
'magical' view - and how this sits with modern history writing??
mogg
: ) .....................................: )
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-----Original Message-----
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Sebastian
Alexis
Ghelerman
Sent: 17 April 2007 14:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] magic and logic
Hello everyone. I´m new on the list. I´m a social anthropologyst
from
Argentina. I´m really interested in magic and its development
along
history.
A hint regarding this topic:
Have you considered that the hegelian dialectic has much in
common
with
some philosophical bases of the alchemy?. For e.g: the process
Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis uses the same logic pattern as the
"Solve
et
Coagula", where "Solve" is the dissolution of the prime matter,
"et"
is
related to the purification process of the stone and "Coagula" is
the
solidification of the result of the other two. My thought, and
it´s
only an
hypothesis, is that during medieval times and beyond, as other
author
describe, the philosophical abstraction was integrated with the
religious
contents and magical "thought" and it´s only through Bacon,
Newton,
Descartes and so on, that the science as an abstracted system of
thought was
set appart from the "illussion" of the other ways of seeing the
universe.
Hegel, is "victim of the spirit of his times", which was the time
of
progress and rational thought.
It´s a nice discussion.
See you.
Sebastian
On 4/16/07, Brian Morton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Actually the story of Medieval Logic is pretty cool.
Dialectic was the Platonic form of logic, and that of the
Stoics
and
the Skeptics and most other Greek and Hellenistics, but
Aristotle
and
Euclid, used very monological styles even in the Ancient
world.
Right before the collapse of Rome, there was a form of heresy
called
Arianism, that became a big threat to the authorities in Rome,
and
Arians loved using Aristotle, so Clement of Alexandria decided
to
make
it a policy to teach all Christian priests just enough
Aristotlean
logic
to be able to oppose the Arians. When Rome fell, the Stoic
and
Skeptical arts of dialectic were mostly lost, and what
survived
was
Aristotelian logic, and a fair bit of Plato (via Boethius).
The medievals rebuilt a style of dialogue based argumentation
on
their
own, that had little to do with the older dialectic forms (it
was
probably partly based on Roman legal practices). This medieval
"dialectic" was the 2nd part of the trivium, and part of the
education
off all educated medievals. Aquinas, and the other
philosophers
and
theologians, are intensely dialectical in their style, but not
at
all in
the way the Stoics were. And it had lots of interesting
developments
(see http://www.pvspade.com/Logic/ for lots of detailed
downloadables
on medieval dialectics). Also the medieval faux-dialogues, are
often
edited versions of real dialogues called quodlibets, that were
ancestors
to the modern thesis defense, rather than hypothetical
dialogues.
The
Black Plague killed off this stuff, and later humanists
developed
Topical logics, and then Term logics that were quite
different.
From
1350-1800's European logics are not very dialectical.
Kant re-introduces the notion of the dialectic, which for him
means
"a
logic of appearances" rather than a logic of how things
actually
are
(related to Aristotle's grudging use). Hegel, knows enough
history
of
logic to recognize the Kantian, Medieval, and Platonic notions
and
try
to play with them all. He's drawing on Christian stuff (both
mystical
types like Boehm, and non-mystics like Ockham) and Deist stuff
like
Kant, and older pagan stuff like Socrates or Plato (but
probably
not
folks like Sextus or Chrysippus).
>>> Sharon Stravaigne <[log in to unmask]> 4/14/2007
11:06
AM
>>>
In a message dated 4/14/2007 7:59:12 A.M. Pacific Daylight
Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Presumably the Hegelian dialectic is part of that classical
(pagan)
tradition -??
i'm assuming that 'dialectic' was not such
a strong part of the christian tradition??
bb
mogg
Both styles seem to have been in use in early Christian
times,
though
in one case it may have been an actual conversation
recalled,
they
weren't much on fiction until later.
The monograph style dominated later I think, but there
is
something
I noticed which may be a kind of hybrid, or you could
view
it
as left
over from dialog style. This is where in a monograph,
the
speaker
says, "but if someone should say blah blah, then I
would
answer
blah blah." This is almost like a dialogue but one that
is
obviously
hypothetical instead of presented as if real like in a
play,
and then
of course you have the arguments between people writing
letters
and yelling at each other in debates.
I haven't read all of it, I glanced at Aquinas years
ago,
and
I
recall
that in his presentation of all the arguments pro and
con
on
every
conceivable matter, which was tedious, I suppose you
could
say
that he dialectized on both sides.
Sharon
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