Very good questions, Toyin. I will try to give you my opinion.

"1.To what degree is occultism different from religion? Are they not better understood as correlative and symbiotic rather than fundamentally different,even though you might not be implying that their difference is fundamental?"

The problematic distintion here is between Religion and Science. Religion is about faith and Science about knowledge, roughly speaking. I will do you another answer. Is it not prediction and manipulation of environment something Magic claims to do, and which is continue and similar with Science? Magic was at the beginning, and from it Science and Religion were developed as different parts of a same think, and Ocultism is named in this way because it has survived under the surface, as an especific subject. Religion has a lot of tools from magic, as you has pointed out, but we can say the same about Science. You can see the continuities, but if you align unilaterally Occultism with Religion, you could be opposing Occultism to Science, denying any epistemological value to Occultism. In the varied manifestation of religion, there are some which are very related to magic, and some other which are really different. Inside the varied manifestation of Occultism, there is some movements very religious, and some others more devoted to knowledge even about misticism, so you can find movements not able to be named as one or the other, but following James, if you want to know something the more useful is going to the forms which are inequivocally named like that. It is not a casuality that classical magicians and alquemist called themselves philosophers, and that the most revolutionary schools of contemporary magic uses the scientific theories to develop their own magical theories.

2. Alchemy.

About the development of chemistry from Alquemy, it is more a case of Desenchantment than a case of Inspiration, but I see your point in the case of Newton, and I agree it could be a good example his development of the laws of nature from alchemy. Another example, if you wish, to complete your thesis could be Johannes Kepler, who was an astrologer and developed the mathematical laws for inspiration as well. Sorry not giving any bibliography. I read about this long years ago.

About the world Inspiration, it works very well in the relationship between religion and science, but it is not what an occultist looks for. He looks true beliefs about the relationships of things in nature. This means that even when we are not able to know what is a god or goddess, we can know very clearly what they are useful for. So, we can have a pragmatist knowledge of those magical concept.

This is very interesting because it is corroborated by attitudes to the cosmos,to the relationships between mind and nature,including spirit,demonstrated by occultists in the two major online occult groups I belong to-Solomonic and EvocationalMagics.By the way,I wrote that essay on account of an argument on some Nigerian focused online groups about what value classical African spiritualities can have beyond their significance for their believers.The idea of the occult as you describe it above would need to be carefully described in such a context,with accounts of work by practitioners using African or African occult methods.The level of systematization,in terms of public discussions of theory and sharing of practical experience I am encountering in Western centered occult groups is something difficult to imagine for me in a Nigerian context where the occult is still largely understood as the antithesis of the rational and of public discourse partly beceause the native systems are only slowly being developed intellectually as Western occultism is doing,partly a fall out of a slower rate of recovery from the dominance of the rationalism of the of the Western epistemic paradigm

I don´t have any experience about Nigerian animism. I talk about Western Esotericism, were I think some of my thesis are aplicable. In fact, following Kingsley readings of Parmenides, from the beginning of our culture this dichotomy between rationality and religion is the biggest problem and, at the same time, the source of the majors cultural contributions we have been able to produce. I think Western Esotericism is either rational and mistical from the beginning, and we cannot take out neither of those manifestations.

Esoterism is a discipline which tries to do good inquiry with its own method...the aim of doing esotericism is the aim of finding true beliefs about reality. The only problem with esotericism is that the tool that it is developed is the own human being.

This is a beautiful conception.I wonder if I could learn how you came to see esotericism this way and if you would care to share what methods you use.

On the one hand I have more than 15 years experience in practical reading tarot, reading astrological charts, magic in the goldendawn tradition and other contemporary schools and alchemy of phisical laboratory. I have known a lot of different people in those years which probably would subscribe most of what I am saying. Making predictions, rituals or alchemy are very practical matters which works or not. Although sometimes there are errors, big errors, I found that the problem with magic is not that it does not work, but the side-effects any magical operation has, which is ever unpredictable. On the other I am a philosopher, doing my PhD in pragmatism and epistemology, which I consider a powerful philosophical tool to understand esotericism because it permits to take experience into account. The method I use is a judicial method. Everything is innocent unless there is evidence of its guilty. In pragmatist words, we have beliefs which sustains our life and we don´t suspect of them because a methodical doubt. We doubt when we have a reason to doubt, and any of our beliefs can be falsified if events show it, but if there is no reason to doubt, we don´t. In this spirit I have approximated to any esoteric discipline, and it has resulted very fruitful.

The degree to which you think your perspective on the capacity of esotericism for validation of its beliefs has been justified.

About the degree of validation, it is part of the Western Esotericism training. Any of the big esoteric figures had a different form to validate, for example, if an entity which was in contact was a powerful entity and if you could trust in them. Dion Fortune asked the entity some kind of evidence. Aleister Crowley used to make some qabalistic proofs with the name of the entity. It can be allegued that those are not good evidence, but the aim of validation is inside the spirit of this current, and this is something Religion does not have. Once you have a revelation, you have to trust it without proofs. This does not mean there are not people who lye themselves, who looks for justification in just imagination, etc. This does not mean that all the supposed truths about esoteric movements are true. In fact, there is a lot of rubbish and very few true facts. But there is something to inquire and there are people who are doing this inquiry and who want to validate those beliefs.

I am sorry I don´t have any paper written about these subjects. I have just discovered the existence of Academic research in this matter and I am yet recovering myself of this incredible and happy event.

Best wishes,

Ana G.

On 7 July 2010 17:39, Odrade Atreed <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hello,

Thank you for sharing the paper, but I think it has some problems in its thesis. First of all, it is the identification of Religion with Occult. They are two different disciplines, and if Religion is based upon things which are not validable, Occult is a practical discipline which is able to be validate, although with different methods than empirical science.
Second problem is the affirmation that Newton developed chemist from Alchemy. It is clear that Newtonian rules of phisic are considered modern phisics, but he was not a chemist. He was looking for the philosopher´s stone until the end of his life. He was a complete alchemist.
About the world Inspiration, it works very well in the relationship between religion and science, but it is not what an occultist looks for. He looks true beliefs about the relationships of things in nature. This means that even when we are not able to know what is a god or goddess, we can know very clearly what they are useful for. So, we can have a pragmatist knowledge of those magical concept.
Although I think the approach from the study of religion can give a valuable scholar information, it is not capable of taking into consideration the most important aspect of Occult. Esoterism is capable of give true beliefs to the practicant as another scientific tool. I cannot say that Esoterism is Science, because we cannot affirm that science is the only way to adquire knowledge. See "Defending Science within reason by Susan Haack". To have true beliefs it is only needed to do a good inquiry, and Esoterism is a discipline which tries to do good inquiry with its own method. When it is not able to do that and an esoterist just believes things which cannot be validate, Esotericism becomes religion.This does not mean that all beliefs in esotericism are true, neither that they are not religious aspirations in esotericism. It just means that the aim of doing esotericism is the aim of finding true beliefs about reality. The only problem with esotericism is that the tool that it is developed is the own human being. A non-trained human being, with no skills for esotericism, is unable to distinguish between true and false beliefs and it is not able to know anything about what other claims to be true or false.

Thank you, tonya, for giving me the opportunity with your writing to develop my own thought.

Ana G.

De: toyin adepoju <[log in to unmask]>
Para: [log in to unmask]
Enviado: mié,7 julio, 2010 15:02
Asunto: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] RELIGION,THE OCCULT AND PHILOSOPHY AS CENTRALSOURCES OF INSPIRATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SCIENCE

   RELIGION,THE OCCULT AND PHILOSOPHY

   AS
   CENTRAL SOURCES OF INSPIRATION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SCIENCE

   Toyin Adepoju

Christianity and Neoplatonic philosophy were central to the Scientific Revolution through the inspiration they gave to the cosmological explorations of Jonannes Kepler,Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton as well as the occult discipline of alchemy to the chemical research of Issac Newton.Stephen Hawking,one of the leading figures in modern scientific cosmology,also invokes explicitly the inspirational relationship between religious and scientific cosmology in his  A Brief History of Time,where he explores,among other questions, the subject of gaining a unified grasp of the fundamental laws of nature, a level of knowledge he argues would enable human beings understand the mind of God.The point here is,religion, spirituality and the occult can and have inspired scientific discovery.

Religion and the Occult as Inspiring Science

This does not imply that Hawkins claimed or implied that there is a scientific basis for belief in God.I also did not state that Hawkin's book indicates that "scientific facts can be gleaned from superstitious beliefs",superstition being what I believe you mean by religion,a 'superstition' you acknowledge,however, a man of Hawkin's intelligence still considers it relevant to entertain.

What I state was that "Christianity and Neoplatonic philosophy were central to the Scientific Revolution through the inspiration they gave to the cosmological explorations of Johannes Kepler,Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton as well as the occult discipline of alchemy to the chemical research of Issac Newton.Stephen Hawking,one of the leading figures in modern scientific cosmology,also invokes explicitly the inspirational relationship between religious and scientific cosmology in his  A Brief History of Time,where he explores,among other questions, the subject of gaining a unified grasp of the fundamental laws of nature, a level of knowledge he argues would enable human beings understand the mind of God.The point here is,religion, spirituality and the occult can and have inspired scientific discovery."

Note the words emphasized in black. I repeatedly state a relationship between religion and science as one of inspiration,which is very different from stating that scientists derive facts, from the study of religion.

Cross Fertilization between Forms of Knowledge

Inspiration in this context can be described as a motive force leading to the development of knowledge.The source of inspiration does not have to be an identical form of knowledge as the knowledge it eventually inspires.A form of knowledge can be understood as one of the distinctive categories,with its own distinctive procedures,through which human beings develop,organize and apply knowledge(Paul Hirst, "Liberal Education and the Forms of Knowledge"; "The Forms of Knowledge Revisited";Knowledge and the Curriculum).

Religion is one such form,where faith,imagination and speculative thinking are central.Science is another,where a range of approaches may be employed depending on the individuality of the scientist but where they must ultimately be related to the logical structure and existing body of knowledge constituted by science.

In the light of such a situation,Hawkin might be inspired by a conception of a creator who created the laws that constitute the character of the universe and whose mind would contain a unified understanding of those laws,to explore in scientific terms the unity of those laws,so as to understand the mind of that God.The concept of God is a philosophical and religious concept,reliant on speculation and faith to be upheld.The study of the physical laws of the universe and the unity of those laws,however,is a scientific enterprise,which,even though it might derive its inspiration from philosophy and religion,is dependent on the mutually validatable logic of science,operating in relation to known scientific knowledge,even if it tries to revise or overturn that knowledge.

Respective Relationships to the idea of Validation as Distinguishing Religion,Philosophy and Science

Differences in their respective relationships to validation distinguish science,religion.and philosophy.Validation means proving the actuality of a proposition.A proposition is an assertion about the nature of a phenomenon.Phenomena are anything,concrete or abstract that can be described.The propositions of religion are often not capable of validation by everyone,regardless of how prepared they might be to validate them.The idea of God can be described as an example of a   phenomenon.The question of whether or not God exists implies propositions that assert or deny the actuality of the proposition:propositions that state that God exists;that God does not exist;that it is impossible to prove whether God exists or not.All these are possibilities,possible positions emerging from the question as to whether or not God exists.

The proposition that God exists is not one that can be validated by everybody,if it can be validated at all,beceause even if one agrees that God does exist,it can hardly be proven or proven conclusively to others.Even if it were possible to prove it for oneself as some people claim they have for themselves,it is a delicate issue whether others can also do so using the methods that anyone else might have used to prove it for themselves.On account of the difficulty or impossibility, for most,of proving the existence of God and many other religious postulates,religion often operates more in terms faith than in terms of propositions that can be mutually validated.

Philosophy might start from faith in religious ideas, from wonder at the marvels of the universe or from curiosity about its perplexities but could be described as trying to go beyond faith by reasoning about its propositions and showing how conclusions follow logically through a chain of reasoning.Even then,as evident from the history of philosophy,not everyone who follows the same chain of reasoning agrees that the conclusions reached necessarily follow from that sequence of reasoning or even that the method of reasoning is adequate to the task or even that the right question is being asked in the first place.Validation in philosophy,therefore,is more general and more widely developed than in religion but it is still not mutually binding.

Science,on the other hand,might be inspired by or even use the methods of religion and philosophy but must develop its ideas in terms that can be validated by anybody who follows the reasoning used to arrive at its conclusions.On account of the need to develop a universally acceptable style of reasoning,science  uses the artificial language called mathematics,which,in its dominant form demonstrates a degree of universality developed through centuries from early civilizations to the present.Science also uses experiment,which involves testing propositions to see whether they can be upheld under precisely worked out conditions.It is held that anyone who tests those propositions under the same conditions should get the same result.Science,therefore,operates in terms of a strict concept of mutual validation.

The Intercourse of Science and Religion in Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

A superb demonstration of the inspirational relationship between the speculative but not necessarily mutually validatable logic of philosophy,the speculative logic and faith of religion and the mutually validating aspiration of scientific logic is Isaac Newton'sMathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.In this work,described by Newton scholar Richard Westfall as the most important foundational work of modern science,Newton takes the reader through a volume of closely reasoned arguments,using mathematical proofs at every step.At the conclusion of the book,however,the Cambridge scholar departs from his mutually validating logic,a logical progression which anybody who takes the time can follow,and possibly even understand fully its mathematical details,and makes statements on relationships between these logical and mathematical conclusions about the physical laws of the universe,laws that operate throughout the material cosmos,and the creator of the universe,who, as he concludes must be the originator of those laws, which he,Newton,using his mathematical and logical methods,has discovered.

In fact,the concluding section of this book is most instructive in suggesting  how a scientist may develop scientific ideas in relation to a non-scientific cosmology,as exemplified by religion and philosophy,beceause Newton goes one to postulate further relationships,beyond gravitational theory, which the book develops, between material bodies and the cosmic force he attributes to God, but states that he is not able to proceed further to prove the unity of these effects of that cosmic force using the logical and experimental tools of his scientific discipline: "We are not furnished with with a sufficiency of experiments to prove these things..."

Newton does not claim to prove that God is the creator of those laws.He merely asserts his faith.In that regard,he shares a similarity with the German philosopher Immanuel Kant,whom I understand postulates the value of the idea of God while stating that he cannot prove the existence of God and that efforts to do so so far are faulty.His religious consciousness,however, seems to suffuse his work becaeuse he develops a kind of a kind of religiosity within the logical and speculative structures of his philosophy.

Relationships between Theory and Fact in the History of Science and Scientific Methodology

You focused on Hawkin but went so far as to deride the notion of religious ideas inspiring the development of scientific facts.Your conception is mistaken on two grounds.It is mistaken on the grounds of historical accuracy. It is also problematic because it seems to be based on limited conception of science as different from its actual practice.

To take the second one first.Science is not only about fact.It is to a large degree about theory,which itself demonstrates a complex relationship to fact.Theories are general statements about phenomena, their intrinsic or internal characteristics and the conditions that hold between them.Theories are useful in science because they facilitate the understanding of relationships among broad groups of phenomena,and indicate how such relationships enable us to describe and predict particular instances.The relationship between particular examples that demonstrate a theory can be arrived at through induction or deduction.To deduce is to "infer (something) about a particular case from a general principle that holds of all such cases".Inductive reasoning is reasoning "from a part to the whole,from particulars to generals,or from the individual to the universal".Specific example- "a process of mathematical demonstration in which the validity of a law is inferred from its observed validity in particular cases by proving that if the law holds in a certain case it must hold in the next and therefore in successive cases" (Both definitions from Webster's Third New International Dictionary)

An example of a theory is Newton's theory of gravitation.Another is Darwin's theory of evolution.Both these conceptions represent lofty levels of abstract generalization.In the case of Newton he developed an idea that deals with the relationships of bodies to each other throughout space   and developed an understanding of the laws that are demonstrated in such relationships,central to which is the inverse square law which describes in quantitative,measurable terms,the relationship between gravity,mass and distance.From this theory it is possible to work out gravitational relationships between the celestial bodies and between artifical forms such as human made satellites and those natural celestial bodies.

Darwin worked out an idea in relation to biological developments of animate species,his theory of evolution.From that theory scientists   are able to work out ideas about particular examples of evolution in specific species.

A fine work on relationships between theory and fact in science is P.B.Medwar,The Art of the Soluble. I also understand that Karl Popper,as in The Logic of Scientific Discovery addresses the subject. Also striking, I am informed, is the more modern James Gleick,Chaos.

Scientific theory, being abstract and general,has drawn inspiration from bodies of generalisation about the nature of the universe which are not scientific,specifically religion and the occult.This is because religious cosmology,a description within a religion of the general character of the universe, represents the earliest and longest existing form of large scale generalization in many societies.Kepler sums up the relationship between the religious philosophies of Plato and Pythagoras which understood numbers as the structural foundations of the universe,in its combination with the theistic Christian characterization of the creator of the universe, in stating that "In the beginning,God geometrised".Johannes Kepler,whose work is a turning point in scientific cosmology,was inspired by an effort to understand the motions of the celestial bodies in terms of the geometric postulates of Platonism,Platonism being a central inspiration to Western philosophy,religion and science(Frances Yates,Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition; Alexander Koyre,In Praise of Measurement).Newton was not only inspired by the occult practice of alchemy,described by historians of science as the mother of chemistry,his gravitational theory is described by Westfall as being essentially a scientific transposition of an occult concept-the idea of action at a distance without visible means of conduction,a basic concept in magic and possibly new in science at that time( "Newton,Isaac",Encylopedia Britannica 1992; Isaac Newton and Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton)

All in all,Kepler sums up the difference between a completely religious or philosophical approach to the universe and an approach which, though inspired by occult,philosophical or religious ideas,develops its conceptions in terms of mutually validatable scientific logic often represented by mathematics, in stating that he approached his scientific work in a spirit "more gemetrico" (more geometrical) (Yates,Giordano Bruno).

The fact that religion and the occult have inspired Western science has been a mainstay of modern Western philosophy of science since the work of Frances Yates.The relationship between philosophy and science has always been acknowledged.These philosophies have often demonstrated a relationship with religion.

A beautiful modern summation of these relationships between domains of knowledge in the history and philosophy of science is the work of Tian Yu  Cao,as his Conceptual Developments in Twentieth Century Field Theories.

I would have liked to further develop these points by  addressing the following topics emerging from the critique of Benin Olokun belief and practice [on Nigerian internet groups]  but I don’t seem have the energy for that now:

Basic Cognitive Implications of Benin Olokun Graphic Symbols

       Spatial and Temporal Division and Unity through Geometric Abstraction

Relating Space, Time, Ultimate and Contingent Reality, Ultimate and                       Derived Spirit through Geometric Abstraction