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Anthroposophie / Erweiterungen / Esoterikforschung

Esoterikforschung

Esoterikforschung findet heute an einer Reihe von Universitäten bzw. Hochschulen, aber auch in institutionell unabhängigen Arbeitsgemeinschaften statt. Hier finden Sie auch Publikationen und andere Ressourcen.


European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism

The ES for the Study of Western Esotericism.

  • Organising conferences and other academic meetings;
  • Generally promoting contacts and programmes of exchange among scholars;
  • Promoting publications and rendering services in that connection;
  • Stimulating research and education;
  • Promoting academic debate, interdisciplinary and critical approaches, and the application of a variety of scholarly methods;
  • Co-operating with other scholarly associations in and beyond Europe;
  • Encouraging the appreciation of the historical, cultural and intellectual significance of Western esotericism by research institutions, scholarly policy makers, and the general public.

American Academy of Religion

In a world where religion plays so central a role in social, political, and economic events, as well as in the lives of communities and individuals, there is a critical need for ongoing reflection upon and understanding of religious traditions, issues, questions, and values. The American Academy of Religion's mission is to promote such reflection through excellence in scholarship and teaching in the field of religion.

As a learned society and professional association of teachers and research scholars, the American Academy of Religion has over 10,000 members who teach in some 1,000 colleges, universities, seminaries, and schools in North America and abroad. The Academy is dedicated to furthering knowledge of religion and religious institutions in all their forms and manifestations. This is accomplished through Academy-wide and regional conferences and meetings, publications, programs, and membership services.

Within a context of free inquiry and critical examination, the Academy welcomes all disciplined reflection on religion - both from within and outside of communities of belief and practice - and seeks to enhance its broad public understanding.

See especially: Western Esotericism Group


Cambridge Center for Western Esotericism

CCWE is independent of any academic or esoteric communities, the co-ordinators share an interest in the need for a wider dialogue between scholars and practitioners in the field of Western Esotericism and in the establishment of a secular space in which an interdisciplinary network can thrive.


Association for the Study of Esotericism

Association for the Study of Esotericism

In May, 2002, the journal Esoterica hosted the First North American Symposium on the Study of Esotericism at Michigan State University. There, the invited participants created a new scholarly organization, the Association for the Study of Esotericism [ASE], along with a mission statement and a set of goals. The primary mission of this organization is to support excellence in scholarship and to foster communication among scholars who, though their work originates from a wide range of fields, find esotericism a common theme of their research.

Zeitschrift Esoterica, herausgegeben von Arthur Versluis.

Esoterica does not endorse any particular methodological approach to the study of esoteric traditions, but does discourage reductionism - that is, the denigration rather than the study of esoteric traditions or figures. The scholarly study of esotericism as a field is still relatively new, and we encourage a variety of approaches to this rich field of inquiry as well as open discussion of methodological differences, while bearing in mind our common aim of broadening and deepening our understanding of the vast range of esoteric works and figures. This is an academic, peer-reviewed journal, and our goals are to act as a means for communication among existing scholars in the field, to be a resource for those in academia encountering this field for the first time and considering introducing their students to it, to encourage new scholars in this emerging discipline, and to offer a reliable source of knowledge to all who are interested in esoteric studies.


Rudolf Steiner Online Archiv - Salt Lake City

Brigham Young University, College of the Humanities

Die von Rudolf Steiner vertretene moderne Geisteswissenschaft oder Anthroposophie stellt einen geistig-kulturellen Impuls dar, dem an Anspruch, Tiefe und Breite weniges in der neueren Geistesgeschichte zur Seite gestellt werden kann. Wie immer man zu Steiners Anschauungen und Aussagen im Einzelnen stehen, ob man darin seriöse Wissenschaft oder ein Produkt der Phantasie (oder, wie Steiner wollte, beides zugleich) erblicken mag: die bloße Tatsache seines schriftlichen Werkes und deren weitreichende Wirkung auf Medizin, Landwirtschaft, Pädagogik, Kunst und Philosophie stellen ein einzigartiges kulturgeschichtliches Phänomen dar, welches von der Forschung bisher nur unzureichend wahrgenommen und erst in Ansätzen wissenschaftlich aufgearbeitet worden ist.

Das Werk Steiners liegt in einer relativ gut editierten Gesamtausgabe (GA) vor, die vom Rudolf Steiner Verlag in Dornach herausgegeben wird. Die über 340 Bände dieser Ausgabe sind aber für die Wenigsten problemlos zugänglich, vor allem im nichtdeutschen Sprachraum. Das Rudolf Steiner Online Archiv möchte hier Abhilfe schaffen und diesen gewaltigen Textkorpus in digitaler Form frei zugänglich machen.

Links führen den interessierten Leser zu englischen, russischen und anderssprachigen Übersetzungen der Originaltexte Steiners, sofern diese verfügbar sind.


Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO)

Director: Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (b. 1953 – d. 2012)

The Western esoteric tradition represents a distinct form of spirituality extending from Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism in the early Christian era up until the present. Diffused by Arab and Byzantine culture into medieval Europe , these esoteric currents experienced a marked revival through the Florentine neo-Platonists of the late fifteenth century. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, esoteric spirituality was carried by Renaissance magic, Christian Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy, German Naturphilosophie, theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry until the modern occult revival in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which the Theosophy of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky played an important role.

The purpose of the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO) is to foster advanced research into historical and comparative aspects of the esoteric traditions from the Hellenistic period in late antiquity through the Renaissance and early modern period to the present.

There are three main objectives:

  1. to document and analyse new subjects (figures, groups and movements) in the history of esotericism, thereby making an original contribution to scholarly knowledge.
  2. to gain insight into the social, religious and philosophical changes, which are conducive to esotericism and to assess its influence on culture, politics and society.
  3. to develop an understanding of the fundamental characteristics which define esoteric spirituality, which often manifests as a form of religious experience, while offering a perspective upon the individual soul in the context of nature and the universe.

Theosophical History. Zeitschrift und Forschungsruppe

Founded in 1985 by Leslie Price and edited since 1990 by James A. Santucci. Theosophical History is now in its 25th year. Theosophical History is an independent scholarly journal devoted to all aspects of theosophy (with and without a capital T). It is unaffiliated with any Theosophical organization.


Swedenborg Foundation. West Chester, Pennsylvania

Housed in a historic building in West Chester, Pennsylvania, is the Swedenborg Foundation, publisher of the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg in the U.S. for over 150 years. This nonprofit profit organization also publishes works that relate to Swedenborg's influence on the arts, religion, theology, psychology, and literature. His work covers such areas as the afterlife, heaven and hell, dream imagery, angels, and a new understanding of Christianity. People such as Helen Keller, Johnny Appleseed, William Blake, Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and D.T. Suzuki were all influenced by his insights. Currently, in addition to other publications, the Foundation is in the process of preparing a new translation of all of his writings, now called the New Century Edition.

Hier findet man eine PDF-Version der gesamten Schriften Swedenborgs in englischer Übersetzung.


CESNUR. Zentrum für das Studium Neuer Religiöser Bewegungen

Il CESNUR (Centro Studi sulle Nuove Religioni), fondato in Italia nel 1988 da un gruppo di accademici e studiosi di scienze religiose europei e americani interessati allo studio delle minoranze religiose e spirituali di qualunque genere e tipo e alla costruzione di "mappe" delle appartenenze religiose in tutti i paesi del mondo, è attualmente presieduto dal professor Luigi Berzano, ordinario di Sociologia generale presso l’Università di Torino, e diretto dal professor Massimo Introvigne, autore di una trentina di volumi in tema di minoranze religiose e noto specialista del settore. Il Comitato Scientifico che dà impulso alle sue iniziative comprende, con altri, la professoressa Eileen Barker, ordinario di Sociologia presso la London School of Economics, il dottor J. Gordon Melton, presidente dell’ Institute for the Study of American Religion di Santa Barbara (California), il professor Jean-François Mayer, docente di Storia delle religioni presso l’Università di Friburgo (Svizzera), il professor Reender Kranenborg, docente di Religioni comparate presso l’Università Libera di Amsterdam.


The Zurich Paracelsus Project

Although Theophrastus of Hohenheim (1493/94-1541), called Paracelsus, belongs to the most well known figures of history, the scientific research regarding his works is surprisingly neglected. They cover a vast range including medicine, natural philosophy, alchemy, astronomy, magic and theology. The scholarly focus of the last decades was rather on Paracelsus's influence on the development of the sciences than on the very origins: his life and works. This is drastically reflected by the fact, that a whole quarter of his numerous writings - mostly theological ones - have never found their way into print. The situation looks hardly better for the printed medical and philosophical writings. For the most part they lack a scientific edition coming with a critical apparatus and extensive explanations. The Zurich Paracelsus Project and the New Paracelsus Edition were founded to give an impetus to meet these pending problems.


The John Dee Society

The John Dee Society has been formed to accomplish several general and specific goals.

Primary purpose is to produce a standard edition of the published and unpublished works of Elizabethan England's great polymath, antiquarian and magus Dr. John Dee, to make available to students of Renaissance philosophy and of Dee's Enochian magical system a coherent data base of primary source material for their researches.

Secondly, the Society seeks to reconstruct John Dee's Library, based on his Catalogue of manuscripts and books of 1583, prior to its dispersal throughout Europe. Dee's library, at 4000 volumes, was the largest philosophical and scientific library collection in Elizabethan England, and arguably the greatest in all of Renaissance Europe, as is generally agreed by scholars; thus its reconstruction should be of interest to a broad cross-section of the academic community, as well as to students of the Western magical tradition.

Thirdly, the John Dee Society hopes to be a useful source-point for networking with others interested in pursuing such work, and for publishing original studies by individuals and groups furthering the researches begun by Dee in the 16th Century.


Temenos Academy

In 1980 the poet and scholar Kathleen Raine, together with Keith Critchlow, Brian Keeble and Philip Sherrard, launched Temenos, a journal devoted to the Arts of the Imagination. The journal sought to give space to poets, artists, writers and thinkers who subscribed to the belief that man is firstly a spiritual creature with spiritual needs which have to be nourished if we are to fulfil our potential and be happy.

From these early beginnings the Temenos Academy was launched in 1990 as a teaching organisation dedicated to the same central idea that had inspired the Journal. Scholars and teachers, committed to what is known as 'the perennial philosophy' - the learning of the Imagination - were invited to lecture and hold study groups to teach an ever-growing number of students.

The Academy was originally housed in His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture in Regents' Park. Now it holds its meetings in a variety of venues in London.



Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism


Published by Brill Academic Publishers under the auspices of the ESSWE, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism is a scholarly journal devoted to the study of Western Esotericism. Ariesaccepts articles written in English, German, French, and Italian. ESSWE members receive a 35% discount on private subscriptions. To receive your discount please mention with your order the special code, which can be found on the 'Members only' part of the site.

Please click on the links below for lists of Aries articles:
 


Embassy of the free Mind

Webseite der Ritman Library, Amsterdam, der weltweit größten Sammlung von Esoterika. Dank einer Stiftung durch Dan Brown (The Davinci Code) wird derzeit ein Großteil dieser Sammlung digitalisiert und damit online zugänglich.

https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/

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