Introduction to Contemporary Esoteric Scholarship

Schuon on Islamic Esotericism

2011-11-01T15:02:00.001-07:00

The Islamic religion is divided into three constituent parts: Īmān, Faith, which contains everything one must believe; Islām, the Law, which contains everything one must do; Ihsān, operative Virtue, which confers upon believing and doing the qualities that make them perfect—in other words, that intensify or deepen both faith and works. Ihsān, in short, is the sincerity of the intelligence and the will: it is our complete adherence to the Truth and our total conformity to the Law, which means that we must on the one hand know the Truth entirely, not only in part, and on the other hand conform to it with our deepest being and not only with a partial and superficial will. Thus Ihsān opens onto esoterism—which is the science of the essential and total—and is even identified with it; for to be sincere is to draw from the Truth the maximal consequences from the point of view of both intelligence and will; in other words, it is to think and will with the heart, hence with our entire being, with all we are.

Ihsān is right believing and right doing, and it is at the same time their quintessence: the quintessence of right believing is metaphysical truth, Haqīqah, and that of right doing is the practice of invocation, Dhikr. Ihsān comprises as it were two modes, depending on its application: the speculative and the operative, namely, intellectual discernment and unitive concentration; in Sufi language this is expressed precisely by the terms Haqīqah and Dhikr or by Tawhīd, “Unification”, and Ittihād, “Union”. For Sufis the “hypocrite” (munāfiq) is not merely someone who gives himself airs of piety in order to impress people, but it is the profane man in general, someone who fails to draw all the consequences implied in the Dogma and Law, hence the man who is not sincere since he is neither consequential nor whole; now Sufism (tasawwuf) is nothing other than sincerity (sidq), and the “sincere” (siddīqūn) are none other than Sufis.

Ihsān, since it is necessarily an exoteric notion as well, may be interpreted at different levels and in different ways. Exoterically it is the faith of the fideists and the zeal of the ritualists; in this case it is intensity and not profundity and thus has something quantitative or horizontal in it when compared with wisdom. Esoterically one can distinguish in Ihsān two accentuations: that of gnosis, which implies doctrinal intellectuality, and that of love, which requires the totality of the volitive and emotive soul, the first mode operating with intellectual means—without however neglecting the supports that may be necessitated by human weakness—and the second with moral and sentimental means. It is in the nature of things that this love can exclude every element of intellection and that it can readily if not always do so—precisely to the extent it constitutes a way—whereas gnosis on the contrary always contains an element of love, doubtless not violent love but one akin to Beauty and Peace.

~Frithjof Schuon

[Sufism: Veil and Quintessence]

Dan Merkur on Mystical Experience, Reification

2011-05-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

Merkur

Underhill's effort to translate a type of religiosity into a discrete psychological state was widely imitated. Prophets, spirit mediums, and shamans were each defined by reference to a distinctive religious experience. The general paradigm was tidy, but it flew in the face of the facts.

The idea that mystics must conform with a modern definition of mysticism, or are not to be counted as mystics, is a criterion for assessing authentic and inauthentic mysticism. It privileges certain experiences over against others. Mystical union has been treated as the essence of mysticism. Visions, by contrast, have occasionally been noted, but have regularly been treated as an afterthought, an addendum, a peripheral concern. It privileges certain experiences over against others. Mystical union has been treated as the essence of mysticism. Visions, by contrast, have occasionally been noted, but have regularly been treated as an afterthought, an addendum, a peripheral concern. Important as normative value-judgments may be for theologians, they express sectarian desiderata for the future. They are not impartial descriptions of the past. Historians, who define mysticism on historical principles, must instead consider the actual practices of people who have traditionally been considered mystics (pneumatics, kabbalists, sufis, yogis, and others). What the mystics of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam traditionally or presently consider to be mystical, may not be a sufficient or complete account of mysticism. But no approach to mysticism that is less extensive can pretend to adequacy. Mysticism may entail more than what the traditionally recognized mystics have practiced, but it certainly encompasses nothing less. With saints and sinners, the orthodox, heterodox, and heretical, normative and eccentric, mainstream and marginal all counted in together, we find a tremendous diversity among mystical experiences.
Comparative perspectives are not necessary to establish this point. Consider the evidence of Western Christianity alone

Interior visions are dreamlike experiences that may involve images, beings, sceneries, events, and so forth. As in dreams, the mental presentations consist primarily of visual images, but auditory or other sensory representations may occur as well.

Ecstatic religious traditions do generally favor certain experiences over against others. However, the favoritism is not the product of access to certain varieties of experience, as distinct from others. Conscious choices are made for a variety of historical factors: ideological, socio-political, economic, ecological, and so forth.

This circumstance has important consequences for historians. If the "common core" hypothesis were correct that mystical experiences are everywhere one and the same, it would no more be possible to write a history of mysticism than a history of sense perception. Histories would be restricted to beliefs and theories (philosophies, theologies, and so forth) about mysticism, but mysticism as such would be a topic for psychologists.

Because mystical experiences are various, however, it is possible to write a history of the very practice of mysticism. Just as complex mystical doctrines must be learned in order to be transmitted, so too must techniques for the induction and direction or control of mystical experiences. Choices among techniques influence the content of the resultant experiences and so contribute to mystics' doctrines.

Mystical experiences are religious uses of otherwise secular alternate states of consciousnessor more precisely, alternate psychic states. What makes an alternate state experience a religious one is its personal or cultural valuation.

In order to develop a crosscultural formulation that reflects the autonomy of contemplations, I define ecstasy as any state of involuntary belief in the reality of the numinous. Like sense perception during normal waking sobriety and dream hallucinations during sleep, the autonomous contents of an ecstasy have a compelling psychic reality for at least the duration of their occurrence. The ecstatic is then convinced that the numinous is real--as real or more
real than the perceptible world. In contrast with sober faith in the numinous, which requires an act of will, ecstatic belief in the reality of the numinous is involuntary. Whether or not the occurrence of ecstasy was voluntarily sought, once the experience is underway faith in the reality of the numinous is not subject to volition. Doubt can be entertained, but it cannot be sustained for the duration of the experience. Uniquely among the varieties of religious experience, ecstasies have the power not only to confirm religious faith that already exists, but also to induce conversions from unbelief to belief.

Catholic accounts of the scala contemplationis divide trance into a number of steps (e.g., four or seven) that commence with normal waking sobriety and culminate in intense states of trance. However, current scientific thinking endorses Ronald Shor's proposal that traditional concepts of trance depth confabulate what are in fact three independent factors.

The mystical feeling of enlargement, union, and emancipation has no specific intellectual content whatever of its own. It is capable of forming matrimonial alliances with material furnished by the most diverse philosophies and theologies, provided only they can find a place in the framework for its peculiar mood.

Introspective unions involve no experience of any actual union, uniting, or joining; neither is there a process in which subject-object distinctions disappear. There is simply and suddenly the experience that self is the unique or solitary existent, that the subject is infinite, eternal, and alone. Mystics who are theists experience introspective union as the selfhood of God. Postexperiential interpretations of the experience are much more various.

Psychoanalytic theory explains the differences among the three types of unitive experiences in developmental terms.

A psychoanalytic approach to unitive experience is reductive, but it is not necessarily inconsistent with a negative theology

The repression of the ego's reality-testing function makes it impossible for the person in trance to determine whether mental presentations are nonrepresentational. By inhibiting reality-testing, trance serves to reify whatever may be its contents. Mental presentations are assumed to represent perceptible realities, whether they do or not.

Most religious doctrines accommodate the process of reification. The unwillingness of religions to come to agreement with physical science has generally its basis in fantasies that have been reified, sometimes by trance states, and otherwise by the weight of received tradition. Reified fantasies are scarcely less than a mystical stock-in-trade.

In a few cases, the reification of fantasies by trance states is particularly noticeable because efforts have been made to struggle against it. In the Buddhist tantra of Tibet, novices are taught to meditate on topics whose very absurdity provides an object lesson of the illusory nature of the gods

Stace's formulation was inadequate to the mystical phenomena that he sought to describe. There is no such thing as "pure consciousness," "zero experience," or any such comparative construct. These formulations misrepresent the nature of consciousness. Consciousness is not analogous to a radio or television that may be on, even though no program is being received. There is no homunculus, no little person within the mind, observing the play of perceptions, memories, fantasies, and ideas as though on a movie screen. Such a postulation would imply yet another homunculus, inside the first, and so on in series through an infinite regress.79 Consciousness instead occurs when a mental presentation becomes sufficiently important to attract attention.80 In the absence of mental contents, there is no consciousness whatever.

These formulations are unacceptable, however, because they imply a homunculus. They also fail to explain why the observing self, which experiences nothingness, is experienced as the Self of an Other (atman, nirvana, keter, God, and so forth). In keeping with my general theory that autonomous trance phenomena are superego manifestations that compensate for the general repression of ego functions by the trance, I understand the experience of nothingness as an awareness of absence, specifically, the superego's awareness of the ego's absence.

The historical debt of the study of mysticism to the practice of Yoga has meant that the occurrence of ecstatic states that are not trances was unimagined until the 1950s and even today remains little acknowledged.

from Gnosis

in defense of Twitter for students of philosophy and religion (from FB)

2011-02-14T01:37:00.001-08:00

I see lots of spam, but I get a ton of useful input on Twitter. It's changed my life--having a writing community like I have long felt was missing from my life. Much of the traffic is kinda mindless, but much of it is golden, especially if you make sure to unfollow the ones that turn out to be boring. I've hooked up with lots of interesting folks who've asked penetrating questions about my work, started up correspondences, shared many a hearty link. Don't understand what people are talking about when they call it silly. It's easy to filter out the silly stuff, but hard to justify overlooking the opportunity without good reason.

got ten blogs, archive the tweets on my Livejournal. addicted to convenient web publishing formats. writing a shit ton. I don't agree there's diminishing returns. working is always better than not working. I just post stuff, archive it, forget about it. excellent practice. my readers tell me what is the best stuff by responding and retweeting.

Or, to put it quickly, "folks love one-liners."

The question comes up of whether it's worth doing this writing on Twitter, since most of the time people don't even see or reply to the post. Why put myself through the pain of rereading and editing if it's just writing practice? I don't see twitter writing as something that should be held to any kind of high standard--why not just make an appropriate demand?

I honestly don't see what is wrong with this. maybe I'm wasting my time, but it sure seems like it's helping me become a much better writer. I never had anybody reading my stuff who understood it before. everybody I know personally tells me "wish I could read it but don't care." but tons of people in the net esoterica community are eating it up. like a stand up comedian, no matter how good the material, got to have the right audience. my alchemy blog is up to 400 hits a day. things are starting to look good for me as a writer, although I just bombed out of the GTU's cold-hearted abejctly unsupportive MA process and was stressing and despairing about my failure in academia. So tell me, why do you have a negative impression of Twitter?

email me ted.hand@gmail.com if you'd be interested to see a thousand pages or so of archives of the twitter conversations, I have them archived as pdf via this great service Tweet Book

one more thing I'll mention that I really dig about Twitter -- the opportunity to popularize the research of my friends and favorite scholars.

The World's Greatest Esoteric Library is in Danger

2010-11-28T11:22:00.000-08:00

theritmanlibrarymustbepreserved.blogspot.com

Alchemy studies via google books preview

2010-11-27T14:03:00.000-08:00

Alchemy studies via google books preview

Esoteric Studies Reads via Google Books

2010-11-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1689377.html

Angelology in Pico's 900 Theses

2010-11-21T14:39:00.000-08:00

3>49 It is more improperly said that God is intellect or that which has intellect, than that the rational soul is an angel.

3>43. The act by which the angelic and rational nature is bestowed with
the greatest happiness is an act neither of the intellect nor of the will, but
is the union of the unity that exists in the otherness of the soul with the
unity that exists without otherness.

3>63. Although in the soul there exists in act an intellectual nature, through
which it convenes with the angel, just as a rational nature exists in it, through
which it is distinguished from that, there is nothing intrinsic in it through
which it is able, without the appropriate image, to understand something dis-
tinct from itself.

5>13. If we follow the theology of Syrianus, it is rational [to claim] that priests
in the ecclesiastical hierarchy correspond to the analogous powers in the celes-
tial hierarchy.

5>21. When Plato says that Love was bom from the union of Poverty and
Plenty in the garden of Jove, on the birthday of Venus while the gods feasted,
he means only this, that then the first love, that is, the desire of beauty, was
bom in the angelic mind when in it the splendor of ideas, though imperfecdy,
began to shine.

5>17. If we follow the doctrine of Syrianus, it is appropriate after the unity of
total intellection, which is also divided triply into substantial, potential, and
operative intellection, to posit another triad of intellection, namely, partial,
participated, and imagerial.

20.7. Man's greatest happiness exists when our particular intellect is fully
conjoined to the first and total intellect.

19.2. I believe that the active intellect that is illuminating only in Themistius
is the same as Metatron in the Cabala.

11>10. That which among the Cabalists is called Metatron
is without doubt that which is called Pallas by Orpheus, the paternal mind
by Zoroaster, the son of God by Mercury, wisdom by Pythagoras, the
intelligible sphere by Parmenides.

6.7. A superior angel illuminates an inferior not because it presents to it a
luminous object, or because it particularizes and divides for the other what is
united in itself, but because it strengthens and fortifies the intellect of the
inferior.

25.2. In participated numbers some are images of numbers, others the unions
of images.

26.5. The intelligible order does not subsist within the intellectual order, as
Ahmose the Egyptian said, but over the whole intellectual hierarchy, unparti-
cipatively hidden in the abyss of the first unity, and under the cloud of the
first darkness.

10>9. Guardians in Orpheus and powers in Dionysius are the same.

10>13. Typhon in Orpheus and Samael in the Cabala are the same.

2.18. Aeviturnity exists subjectively in more beatified angels.

2.21. No multiplicity of angels exists in the same species.

Dionysius on God+Angels in Chapter 5 of Pico's De Ente

2010-11-21T14:21:00.001-08:00

God is all things, and is all things most eminently and most perfectly. This would not be unless he so included the perfections of all things in himself that he excluded from himself whatever pertains to imperfections in things. We can, however, define what is imperfect in the things that are.
...
That human knowledge which is called rational is, in turn, imperfect knowledge because it is vague, uncertain, shifting, and laborious. Add the intellectual knowledge of divine minds, which the theologians call angels. Even that is imperfect knowledge, at least because it seeks outside itself what it does not possess fully within itself, i.e., the light of truth which it lacks, and by which is is perfected.
...
the life of the angels is not perfect. Unless the vivifying ray of divine light constantly warmed it, it would all fall into nothingness. The same is true of other things. Therefore, when you say that God is knowing and living, notice first that the life and cognition which are ascribed to him are understood as free from all these imperfections, but this is not enough. There remains another imperfection.
...
God is infinite perfection of every sort, but not merely in that he includes all such particular and infinite perfections in himself. In that case he would not be most simple, nor would those things which are in him be infinite. He would be one infinite compounded from many things infinite in number but finite in perfection. To say or think this of God is impious.
...
since God is he who is all things when all imperfection is removed, surely when you have taken away from all things both the imperfection which is under their genus and also the particularity of their genus, what remains is God. Consequently, God is being itself, the one itself, the good itself, and likewise truth itself.
We have now advanced two steps, ascending to the darkness which God inhabits, purging from the divine names all blemish that is from the imperfection of the thing signified.

Ch5 48 God is infinite perfection of every sort, but not merely in that he includes all such particular and infinite perfections in himself. In that case he would not be most simple, nor would those things which are in him be infinite. He would be one infinite compounded from many things infinite in number but finite in perfection. To say or think this of God is impious.

Ch5 48 Let us therefore remove from life not only that which makes it imperfect life but also that which makes it merely life, and likewise from knowledge and from the other names we give to God; and then what shall be left over from all these will necessarily be such as we wish God to be understood, that is, one, most perfect, inifinite, most simple.

Ch5 49 God is being itself, the one itself, the good itself, and likewise truth itself.

Ch5 50 Let us rise to the fourth step and enter the light of ignorance, and, blinded by the darkness of divine splendor let us cry out with the Prophet, “I have become weak in the courts, O Lord,” finally saying only this about God, that he is unintelligibly and ineffably above everything most perfect which we can either speak or conceive of him. Then we place God most eminently above even unity, goodness, truth, and existence, which we conceive. Dionysius the Areopagite saw this… he spoke as he could about God in a very holy way, as if he were already in the cloud. After some other things on the subject, he cried out, “He is not truth, not kingdom, nor wisdom, nor one, nor unity, nor deity, nor goodness, nor spirit, so far as we can know him… neither is there any affirmation or negation of it.” [long quote from Dionysius]

Ch5 51 Dionysius and the Platonists deny that life and intellect and wisdom and things similar to these are in God. God himself, by his unique perfection, which is his infinity, his diety, which he himself is, unites and collects all the perfection of these things, which in them is many and divided. God does not unite these perfections as one from among many, but as one prior to these many. Consequently, some other thinkers, and especially the Peripatetics, whom the Parisian theologians follow in almost all matters as far as is allowed, grant that all these perfections are in God. When we say and believe this we not only say and believe rightly, but we do this in agreement with those who deny these perfections.

Ch5 52 [on calling God intellect] Even Dionysius, although he says the same thing as Plato, also does not deny with Aristotle that God is not ignorant of himself and other things. Consequently, if he knows himself, he is intellect and intelligible… if we understand these perfections as individual, or if, when we say intellect, we signify the nature that tends outside itself to the intelligible as to another thing, then Aristotle, no less than the Platonists, will most steadily deny that God is also intellect and intelligible. [900 heretical conclusion, defended in Apology, here further explained]

limits of man vs. angels in Pico's Heptaplus

2010-11-21T14:19:00.003-08:00

129 top Following Thomas, in his Heptaplus Pico discusses angels as a “composition of act and potency

134 It is a difficult question why man has this privilege of being in the image of God. If we reject the folly of Melito, who represented God in human form, and revert to the nature of reason and mind, which like God is intelligent, invisible and incorporeal, we shall prove that man is like God, especially in that part of his soul which displays the image of the Trinity. But let us recognize that as in the angels these same things are much stronger and less mixed with the opposite nature than in us, the angels have more likeness and affinity with the divine nature.

134 Let us recognize that as in the angels these same things are much stronger and less mixed with the opposite nature than in us, the angels have more likeness and affinity with the divine nature.

135 We seek something peculiar to man in which we may ascertain both the dignity proper to him and the image of the divine substance which he shares with no other creature. What can it be but the substance of man which (as some Greek commentators intimate) encompasses by its very essence the substances of all natures and the fullness of the whole universe? I say by its very essence, moreover, because not only the angels, but any intelligent creatures whatever include all things in themselves in some degree when, filled with their forms and reasons, they know them.

135 The difference between God and man is that God contains all things in Himself in their origin, and man contains all things in himself as their center.

Man elevated above the angels in Pico's Heptaplus

2010-11-21T14:19:00.001-08:00

115 Finally Moses mentions man - not because he is an angel, but because he is end and terminus of the angelic world, just as when discussing corruptible nature he presents man not as part of that nature, but as its beginning and head. From this it comes that the discussion of man pertains to the three worlds, to that which is proper to him and to both extremes, the incorporeal and the elementary, between which he is placed so that he is the end of one and the beginning of the other. But I see a trap prepared for our interpretation, since it may be pointed out that man is set over the fish of the sea, the birds, and the beasts. If these signify the angelic natures, how can what is written be true, that over them is set man, who, the philosophers know and the Prophet testifies, is lower than the angels? Let Him who also ground Satan under our feet, Jesus Christ, the first-born of all creatures, aid us and destroy the trap. He surely destroys the trap and loosens and bursts every knot, not only because in Him, in Whom all divinity dwelt corporeally, human nature is so elevated that Christ as a man, so far as He is man, teaches, enlightens, and perfects the angels, if we believe Dionysius (CH IV), being made according to Paul much better than the angels, (Hebrews 1:4), as He inherited a more excellent name than they but also because all of us, to whom the power is given to become sons of God through the grace whose giver is Christ, can be raised to an honor above that of the angels.

Man and Angels in Pico's Oration

2010-11-21T14:15:00.000-08:00

little lower than the angels

God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear fruit in him...if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God.

even the esoteric theology of the Hebrews at times transforms the holy Enoch into that angel of divinity which is sometimes called malakh-ha-shekhinah and at other times transforms other personages into divinities of other names

Moses loved the Lord Whom he saw and, as a judge, he administered to the people the things that he earlier saw on the mountain as a contemplator.
Hence the Cherub, located in the middle position, prepares us for the Seraphic fire and likewise illuminates us for the judgment of the Thrones.
This is the bond of the First Minds, the order of Pallas, the guardian of contemplative philosophy. First we must emulate him, thirst after him and to the same degree understand him in order that we may be raised to the heights of love and descend well taught and prepared to the duties of action.
And so it is valuable, if our life is to be modeled on the example of the Cherubs' life, to have before our eyes an idea of what their life is and what it is like, what their actions are and what works are theirs.
Because we, who are flesh and know only earthly things, are not permitted to follow their model of our own accord, let us consult the ancient Fathers for they, to whom these things were common and well known, can provide us with certain and abundant evidence of its nature.

Let us ask the Apostle Paul, that vessel of election, in what activity he saw the armies of the Cherubim engaged when he was rapt into the third heaven. He will answer, according to the interpretation of Dionysius, that he saw them first being purified, then illuminated, and finally made perfect. We, therefore, imitating the life of the Cherubim here on earth, by refraining the impulses of our passions through moral science, by dissipating the darkness of reason by dialectic --- thus washing away, so to speak, the filth of ignorance and vice --- may likewise purify our souls, so that the passions may never run rampant, nor reason, lacking restraint, range beyond its natural limits. Then may we suffuse our purified souls with the light of natural philosophy, bringing it to final perfection by the knowledge of divine things.

Let us also cite Moses himself, who is but little removed from the living well-spring of the most holy and ineffable understanding by whose nectar the angels are inebriated.

If, by moral philosophy, the power of our passions shall have been restrained ... raised to the most eminent height of theology, ... we shall become the winged lovers of theology... smitten by the ineffable love as by a sting, and, like the Seraphim, filled with the godhead, we shall be, no longer ourselves, but the very One who made us.

Once we, inspired by the Cherubic spirit, have reached this point through the art of speaking or of reasoning, that is, philosophizing according to the grades of Nature, penetrating the whole from the center to the center, we will then descend, dashing the one into many with Titanic force like Osiris, and ascend, drawing together with Apollonian force the many into one like Osiris' limbs6 until at last, resting in the bosom of the Father Who is at the top of the ladder, we will be made perfect in theological bliss.

For we, raised to her most eminent height... roused by ineffable love as if by a sting, and borne outside ourselves like burning Seraphim, filled with the godhead, we shall be no longer ourselves, but He Himself Who made us.
...

These are the books of cabalistic wisdom. In these books, as Esdras unmistakably states, resides the springs of understanding, that is, the ineffable theology of the supersubstantial deity; the fountain of wisdom, that is, the precise metaphysical doctrine concerning intelligible and angelic forms; and the stream of wisdom, that is, the best established philosophy concerning nature.

Excerpts from Pico's Heptaplus on Angel

2010-11-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

107 God alone, who is derived from nothing and from whom all things are derived, is a wholly simple and individual essence… Therefore an angel is not unity itself, or else he would be God, or there would be many gods, which cannot even be conceived. For what will be one if not a unity? It is left for an angel to be a number. But if it is, it is a number in one aspect and a multiplicity in another. Every number, however, is imperfect insofar as it is a multiplicity, but perfect so far as it is one. Therefore, whatever is imperfect in an angel let us ascribe to the angels’ multiplicity, which it has from being a number, that is, a creature; and whatever is perfect to its participation in unity, which it has from being associated with God.

In an angel we find a double imperfection: the one, that it is not being itself but only an essence to which being comes by participation, so that it may be; the other, that it is not intelligence itself but only happens to understand, since by its nature it is an intellect capable of understanding. The second imperfection, however, depends on the first, since what does not exist of itself, certainly does not understand by itself, since there can be nothing where being itself is not. Therefore both of these imperfections befall an angel insofar as it is a multiplicity. It remains for its perfection and completion to be produced by unity coming from above. God is the unity from which angels draw their being, their life, and all their perfection.

Any number, after unity, is perfected and completed by unity. Unity along, completely simple, perfected by itself, does not go beyond itself but in its individual and solitary simplicity is composed of itself, since it is self-sufficient, in want of nothing, and full of its own riches. Since number by its nature is manifold, it is simple--so for as it is capable of simplicity--only by virtue of unity; and although every number falls into ever greater multiplicity the further it is removed from unity, and the more diversity, the more parts, and the more compoundness there is in it; nevertheless, none is so close to unity as not to be a multiple, having only an accidental unity and being one not by nature but by composition.

Let us apply these notions to divine things, after the Pythagorean custom. God alone, who is derived from nothing and from whom all things are derived, is a wholly simple and individual essence. Whatever he has, he has from himself. For the same reason that he exists, he knows, wills, and is good and just. We cannot understand any reason why he exists except that he is being itself. Other things are not being itself, but exist by means of it.
-108

109 An angel, from what we have said, has perfectly realized his own nature and intellectual qualities. Nevertheless, he does not have a way to fulfill his functions of understanding and contemplation unless he is first surrounded by God with intelligible forms. For this reason the darkness has hitherto been upon the face of the deep.

excerpts from Pico's Commento on the Angelic Level of Being (Jayne translation)

2010-11-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

77 The Platonists hold as a fundamental postulate that every created thing has three kinds of being. The three are given different names by different Platonists, but they all mean the same thing. For present purposes we can use the following terms for them: causal being, formal being, and participated being.

77 The sun, according to philosophers, is not itself hot, for heat is an earthly property and not a heavenly one, but the sun is nonetheless the cause and source of all heat. Fire is hot, both by virtue of its level of being and by virtue of its own form. A piece of wood is not hot of itself, but it certainly can be heated by fire, in which case it participates the aforementioned property from the fire. Thus this thing called heat has causal being in the sun, formal being in fire, and participated being in wood or other such material.

77 Of these three kinds of being, the highest and most perfect causal being. Accordingly the Platonists believe that all of the powers which are commonly attributed to God exist in Him only in the causal mode of being. Thus they say that God is not Himself being but the cause of all being, and similarly that God is not Himself intellect. Statements such as these can give a modern Platonist a good deal of trouble if he does not understand the principle behind them. I remember that a great Platonist once told me that he was amazed by a passage in which Plotinus says that God understands nothing and knows nothing. It is perhaps even more amazing that my Platonist did not understand in what sense Plotinus means that God does not understand: Plotinus simply means that the attribute of understanding exists in God in its causal being rather than in its formal being. Plotinus is not denying that God understands; he is only attributing to him understanding of a higher and more perfect kind. That this is the case can be clearly understood from the following. Dionysius the Areopagite, the prince of the Christian theologians, says in one place that God knows not only Himself but also every smallest particular thing; but elsewhere Dionysius uses the same manner of speaking that Plotinus uses, saying that God is not an intellectual or intelligent creature, but is ineffably exalted above all intellect and cognition.

78 This distinction among three kinds of being should be noted carefully, for it sheds much light on the understanding of Platonic philosophy, and we shall refer to it often. [end first chapter]

78 [Second Chapter] That every creature falls into one of three classes. The Platonists divide all creatures into three classes. Two of these classes are extremes. In one class is included every creature which is corporeal and visible, such as the sky, the elements, the plants, and everything which is composed of the elements. In the other class is included every creature which is invidible and not only incorporeal but also entirely free and separate from any body. This latter class is properly called the intellectual level of being, and our theologians call it the Angelic level of being.

Between these two extremes there is an intermediate level of being which, although it is itself incorporeal, invisible, and immortal, is nevertheless burdened with the function of giving motion to the corporeal world. This intermediate level of being is called the Rational Soul; it is lower than Angelic being, but higher than corporeal. It is subject to the former, but mistress over the latter.

Above these three hypostases is God Himself, the author and cause of every creature. The Attribute of divinity has its causal being in God, its original source. Proceeding directly from Him, divinity has its second or formal being in the Angelic hypostasis

79 Finally, divinity appears again in the Rational Soul, participated there from the Angelic hypostases. Thus the Platonists say that divinity is limited to three hypostases, namely, God, the Angelic Mind, and the Rational Soul) the first, God, cannot be multiplied, and that one God alone is the source and cause of every other kind of divinity.

81 The Platonists and the ancient philosophers Hermes Trismegistus and Zoroaster call this first creature sometimes “son of God,” sometimes “Wisdom,” sometimes “Mind,” and sometimes “Divine Reason,” which some even interpret as “the word.” But everyone should be careful not to suppose that this “word” is the “Word” that our theologians call the “Son of God.” For what we mean by “the Son” is of one and the same essence as the Father, is equal to him in everything, and, lastly, is a creator and a creature; whereas what the Platonists call “the son of God” must be identified with the first and noblest angel created by God.
[interesting to compare Zosimos on “Hermes and Zoroaster” in his discussion on the letter Omega]

81-82 In order to understand what follows, it is necessary to know that every cause which produces a certain effect, whether through art or through intellect, first contains within itself the form of the thing which it wishes to produce, just as an architect has within himself, in his mind, the form of the building which he wants to build, and following that form as his model, designs and contructs his work in imitation of it. This kind of form the Platonists call an Idea or exemplar, and they say the form of the building which the builder has in his mind must be truer and more perfect than that of the building subsequently constructed by him in the appropriate material, such as stone or wood or the like. The first form of being they call ideal or intelligible being; the other they call material or sensible being. Thus if a builder builds a house, the Platonists would say that there are two houses; one intelligible, the one which the builder has in his mind, and the other sensible, the one which he has constructed out of marble or stone, expressing as fully as he can in that material the form which he has conceived within himself.

82 Now the Platonists say that although God created only one creature, the First Mind, nevertheless in effect He created all creatures, for in that First Mind, He created the Ideas or Forms of all things. For in that Mind is the Idea of the sun, the Idea of the moon, of men, of all the animals, of the plants, of the stones, of the elements, and of everything in the world. And since the Idea of the sun is a truer sun than the visible sun is, and so on with all of the other things in world, it follows not only that God created all things, but also that he created them in the truest and most perfect kind of being they can have, that is, in true, ideal, and intelligible being. For this reason the Platonists call the First Mind the intelligible world.

84 Because the contemplative life is concerned with beings which are superior to the one who does the contemplating, whereas the active life is concerned with beings which are inferior to, and ruled or governed by, the one who is superior to them, any being resembles the active life to the extent that it turns in some way towards beings inferior to itself. Now that we have explained these three names, we have only to analyze the various functions of each of the three hypostases and it will be clear which name is applicable to each function of each hypostasis, and for what reason.

85 In the case of the first hypostasis, it cannot be supposed that He contemplates, because this is the property of the First Mind, of which God is the source and cause; God thereby cannot be called Saturn. The only one of these functions that can be attributed to God is that he is the beginning of everything; but in this attribution are included two properties. The first is pre-eminence and superiority, and for this attribute He can be called Uranus. The second is the fact that he produces creatures. In this creation there is implied a turning toward things which are inferior to Him while He is creating them. Such turning, we said above, is like the active life, and for this reason in some sense the name Jupiter does apply to God, especially with the addition of the other attribute of pre-eminence, as in saying, “Jupiter, Optimus Maximus.”

85 To the First or Angelic Mind, more names apply, because it is less simple than God, and it has more functions. First, one must remember that every creature consists of two components, one of which, the inferior part, is called its potency, the other, the superior part, is called its act. In the Philebus, Plato calls the first component infinity, and the second, boundary or limit; Avicebron and many others call the two components respectively matter and form. There is a difference of opinion among philosophers as to whether the matter component is the same in all creatures… Nevertheless all authorities agree on this, that everything which falls between God and prime matter in the scale of being is composed of potency and act.

86 The Mind is thought to carry out these three functions in the following way: it turns itself toward its father by means of that part in it called its act; it stoops to the making of inferior things by means of its other part, called its potency; and it stays within itself by using both parts together. By virtue of its first two functions it may be called Saturn, because both of these functions are forms of contemplation. By virtue of its third function it may be called Jupiter. Since the function of creating the physical world has been assigned to the Mind on account of the part called its “potency,” it is chiefly that part in it which is called Jupiter.

87 …therefore the elements have their causal being in the heavens, as Plato says, but not their formal being, as Aristotle rightly denies.

106 [The Ideas] are simply ideal forms of the natures of things. Every mind is provided with them, and understands by means of them. In the Liber de Causis it is said of them that every mind is full of forms… these forms, called Ideas, exist causally in God; they exist formally in the Angelic Mind, in which they are first created by God; and finally they exist participatively in the Rational Soul, which, in participating the substance of the First Mind, also participates in the Ideas, and consequently, their beauty.

107 The form which God gives to the Angelic Mind consists of the Ideas, which, as I have said, constitute the highest form of Beauty. Thus the Ideas descend from God to the Angelic Mind. Since everything becomes imperfect as they move away from its cause and source and mixes with other kinds of things, so the Ideas necessarily become imperfect as they move away from God, their source and cause, and mix with the unformed substance of the Mind, which had theretofore been completely untouched by the form-giving power of the Ideas. At that stage, the Angelic Mind contains the beauty of the Ideas within itself, but that beauty is imperfect and is obscured by the opacity of the Mind’s own substance. Hence a desire inevitably arises in the Angelic Mind to possess the Ideas in their perfect form.

108 the ancients called the Angelic Mind, adorned with the Ideas, paradise… they referred to people as being “in Paradise” if they lived a completely non-physical intellectual life, and, having already risen above human nature and become like angels, lived in contemplation alone.

collections of my Tweets on various topics

2010-11-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Collected Tweets on Angelology of Aquinas, Biblical Angel (mostly Summa Theologiae)
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1685450.html#cutid1
Pico tweets collected -Fall 2010 (more on my MA thesis, lots that won't be in it)
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1684778.html#cutid1
Collected Tweets on Philip K. Dick (notes for my soon-coming PKD+Religion blog)
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1684183.html#cutid1
Art of Memory Tweets
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1682856.html#cutid1
Large Collection of all recent tweets that fit in LJ boxes
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1685588.html#cutid1
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1683152.html#cutid1

Proclan Conclusions from Pico's 900 Theses

2010-11-21T14:06:00.000-08:00

Pico -- selected Proclus conclusions

24.3. The name of God applies simply and absolutely to one, who is the God
of gods; simply not absolutely to anything supersubstantial; according to
essence to anything intellectual; according to participation to divine souls;
according to contact and conjunction to demons; according to similitude to
human souls.

24.5. In intelligibles number does not exist but multitude, and the paternal and
maternal cause of numbers; but in intellectuals number exists according to
essence and multitude communicatively.

24.7. By the one/many, whole/parts, finite/infinite, in the Parmenides, we
have to understand the second order of the intelligible-intellectual trinity, fol-
lowing the triple division of that order.

24.17. Granted, as theology teaches, the divine hierarchies are distinct, it
should be understood that all exist in all in their own mode.

24.18. Just as the paternal property exists only in intelligibles, so the produc-
tive or formative property exists only in the new gods; the paternal and
productive property simultaneously in the intelligible exemplar; the productive
and paternal property in the demiurge.

24.21. It is the property of the supermundane gods to assimilate and transmit
to beings that sympathy and reciprocal communion that they possess firom
their similarity to one another.

24.55. Just as a perfect understanding should be sought firom intelligibles, so
the power that leads upwards should be sought firom intellectuals; an operation
that is absolute and cut off firom matter firom the ultramundanes; a winged life
fi-om the mundanes; the true expression of the divine firom the angelic choirs;
its fulfillment, whose inspiration comes firom the gods, firom good demons.

current state of my argument on Pico and theurgy

2010-11-21T14:05:00.001-08:00

To clarify: I don't think that theurgy was a term Pico used. I'm responding to the use of theurgy to describe Pico by modern scholars. My own definition of theurgy comes from Iamblichus and Dionysius. It seems to me that the "conjuring" perspective on theurgy dates to medieval grimoire magic which uses "theurgia" as a term for conjuring--see Agrippa's critique in De Vanitate. My biggest bone to pick with contemporary uses of theurgies is with the tradition inaugurated by E.R. Dodds, who in "The Greeks and the Irrational" described theurgy as a superstitious magic and "failure of nerve" whereas I see it (following Shaw et al) the way Iamblichus described it, as a religious ritual given by the gods. Whether or not Dionysian theurgy is the same as Neoplatonic theurgy (a controversy I'll cite but not take a side in) it seems clear that neither theurgy was angel magic in the "conjuring sense" although angels are certainly part of the story. I'm writing so much to counter these contemporary scholars on Pico and "the theurgic" because I feel theurgy is a term that hasn't been clarified and thus is responsible for wild misinterpretations of Pico's system. Pico didn't associate theurgy with his concept of magic, which is restricted to the sublunar world, but scholars have assumed he was invoking angels to do magic at supercelestial levels (Yates, Farmer, even Stuckrad seems to fall into this trap). Pico doesn't discuss angels at the same time that he discusses magic, and I don't think angels are implicated in Pico's magic. I'm not saying Pico isn't doing magic, but my understanding is that his magic is closer to the science of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus than any sorcery. Like Iamblichus (who's rabidly anti-magic in De Mysteriis) Pico wanted to be clear that he wasn't talking about the bad kind of magic, i.e. conjuring. As for Dionysian theurgy, I don't think Pico was even talking about that. He doesn't discuss the Dionysian liturgical theurgy theory, which is where we see most of Dionysius' talk on theurgy. Pico doesn't use the term theurgy, or talk about the Dionysian model of reading scripture as theurgy. He does, on the other hand, go into great detail on Dionysian angelology (following the modifications of Thomas Aquinas to Dionysius' system). My argument is that Pico's angel needs to be disentangled from all this speculation about theurgy--perhaps once we can understand how the angelology works on its own terms (standard Christian Neoplatonism with some original modification from Pico post-Aquinas and in the light of Plato's recently discovered texts) then we can return to the possible "hints of theurgy" which still might be traceable. I think Copenhaver is correct to point to Neoplatonic (but not Kabbalistic!) theurgy as something that might help us understand Pico's mystical ascent, but I think theurgy is a misleading term if not carefully defined. Copenhaver is the only scholar I'm aware of whose use of theurgy to describe Pico's mysticism works. Nobody else has made a convincing argument that Pico should be understood as a proponent of "the theurgic."

Journals and Scholarly Organizations

2010-01-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism
Association for the Study of Esotericism
Societas Magica
Aries Journal - Western Esotericism
Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft Journal

Two Livejournal Communities I've been running for years

2010-01-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

These online communities, which turn out to be mostly me dumping links, began as courses I designed and taught as a student-teacher to grad students at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley from 2004-2005. If you have the patience to go through back posts you will find years of interesting links and quotes/excerpts, as well as a few of my efforts at study questions, pop quizzes, etc. Even maybe a few discussions! Anybody who reads this who also does Livejournal is welcome to join either group. Drop me a line if you have any questions.

http://community.livejournal.com/alchemy_class/
http://community.livejournal.com/magictraditions/

Update on my Master's Thesis

2010-01-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

I will be finishing the writing by February for a defense in March. I have posted a ton of my notes and quotes, including a hundred pages or so of material that got cut from last year's attempt at finishing. Long story about why I didn't finish, but the good news is that I've had another year to catch up on all the latest research on Pico and reconsider my project from the ground up. What started as my ASE conference paper on "Pseudo-Dionysius and the Christian Cabala" has become a heavy metaphysical study on Pico's angelology and the global influence of Dionysius in Pico's angelological texts. My narrow focus is now on the originality of Pico's "Angelic Mind" as a development of the Christian Neoplatonic tradition. I have largely abandoned my project of interpreting Pico's views on magic in terms of neoplatonic theurgy. Theurgy now plays a limited role as an example of the kind of neoplatonic theme that gets the Dionysian treatment. Theurgy is still important for the interpretation of Pico, especially considering the explosion of Dionysius+Theurgy studies recently, but I don't think we should call Pico a theurgist. I'll defer to the wisdom of Brian Copenhaver and Michael Allen and describe what Pico is doing as a mystical theology along Dionysian lines, and side with scholarship that downplays the magical element in Pico's thought. I think that Frances Yates mischaracterized Pico as exalting magic to the theological/metaphysical level and tapping supercelestial powers. Also what's not going into my paper is a ton of work I've done on the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius on later Christian Cabalists Reuchlin, Agrippa, and John Dee, as well as figures I know less about like Lazarelli and LeFevre. I've already got several ideas for future Pico papers in the works, on his initiation and transmission of Christian Cabala, on his Theology of Numbers, and on his views on Kabbalist Magic (following the excellent studies of Moshe Idel). This week I'm trying to finish the literature review section of my introductory chapter but I've been spending a lot of time fooling around with all the material that will be going into the chapters. My structural plan is to do mostly Pico quotes referencing Dionysius as a figure and the specific neoplatonic themes associated with his Dionysian angelology. Throughout the paper I will refer to scholarship on Dionysius and neoplatonism that ought to be considered in order to better understand the influence of Dionysius. Each chapter deals with one of the three key texts of Pico's angelology: the Oration, Heptaplus, and On Being and Unity. In the first two chapters I will deal with the neoplatonic metaphysics behind Pico's Angelology, which is rooted in Dionysius but looks for confirmation to the late neoplatonists, chiefly Iamblichus, Proclus, and Syrianus. In the third chapter I will look more deeply into the Thomistic background to Pico's metaphysical treatise, summarizing recent scholarship on the influence of Dionysius on Aquinas in order to better understand the influence of Aquinas' Dionysius on Pico. I will conclude by arguing that like Aquinas Pico's originality can best be understood in terms of the profound influence of Dionysius, who is arguably more important than even Plato or Aristotle as a source both metaphysical and theological.

Ten Books/Articles on Giordano Bruno

2010-01-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science by Hilary Gatti
Giordano Bruno and the Geometry of Language by Arielle Saiber
Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah: Prophets, Magicians, and Rabbis by Karen Silvia de Leon-Jones
Giordano Bruno, his life and thought: With annotated translation of his work ; On the infinite universe and worlds by Dorothea Waley Singer
Giordano Bruno and the Logic of Coincidence: Unity and Multiplicity in the Philosophical Thought of Giordano Bruno (Renaissance and Baroque Studies and Texts) by Antonio Calcagno
The Concept of Contraction in Giordano Bruno's Philosophy by Leo Catana
"Simulacra et Signacula: Memory, Magic and Metaphysics in Brunian Mnemonics" (Stephen Clucas) in Gatti (ed.) Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno: Neoplatonism and the Wheel of Memory in the De Umbris Idearum
by Alessandro G. Farinella; Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 55, 2002
Hermes to his son Thoth: being Joyce's use of Giordano Bruno in Finnegans wake by Frances Motz Boldereff
The alchemy of extremes: the laboratory of the Eroici furori of Giordano Bruno‎
Eugenio Canone, Ingrid Drake Rowland - Philosophy - 2007

Articles on Pico della Mirandola --Available Online!

2010-01-11T20:30:00.000-08:00

Four excellent articles on Pico's Oration, Magic+Kabbalah by Brian Copenhaver
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/brian/research/finished_research/finished_articles/i23_secret_pico.pdf
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/brian/research/finished_research/finished_articles/i18_number_shape.pdf
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/brian/research/finished_research/finished_articles/i24_dignity.pdf
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/brian/research/finished_research/finished_articles/i25_a_pico_cabala_eng.pdf
many more articles on Renaissance Magic by Copenhaver (some deal more with Pico, the above are the four most Pico-focused articles he has up there)
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/brian/research/finished_research/finished_articles/research_articles.htm

Negative view of Pico in Neoplatonism article from another Online Philosophy Encyclopedia
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/neoplato.htm
The Morality of Rhetoric in Pico's Oration -- a Master's thesis on Pico!
http://de.scientificcommons.org/35937366
Wouter Hanegraaf "Sympathy or the Devil" (a few paragraphs on Pico from a master theorist of Western Esotericism)
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeII/Sympdevil.html
link to a Google Books preview of Anthony Grafton "Commerce with the Classics" Pico section
http://t3dy.livejournal.com/1514296.html
Google Books preview of Species Intelligibilis by Leen Spruit which contains analysis of Pico's interpretation of Aristotle's De Anima--his views on soul, philosophy of mind, de anima, etc.
http://books.google.com/books?id=CUb572-eZ_8C&lpg=PA29&dq=pico%20spruit&pg=PA29#v=onepage&q=pico%20spruit&f=false
Theosophical article on Pico
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/his/PicoDellaMirandola.htm
Moshe Idel article on Alemanno, an important Jewish source for Pico
http://www.springerlink.com/index/K4W7090481040PMJ.pdf
Study Questions on Heptaplus
http://map.cas.nyu.edu/docs/CP/2254/0402krabbenhoft033.pdf
Short article on Heptaplus
http://www.reneemattila.com/Alterpiece.htm
Walter Pater (Renaissance studies heavy) on Pico

My "Ten Best Links" on Pico della Mirandola

2010-01-11T20:26:00.001-08:00

Among these links you'll find translations of Pico's major texts and a great deal of information about secondary sources, including the full text of a couple encyclopedia articles.

On Being and Unity
http://esotericarchives.com/pico/beinguni.htm
Oration translation by multiple scholars with lots of notes
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/pico/text/ov.html
Copenhaver translations of Oration and 900 Conclusions (see also the excellent papers he posted on Pico and Renaissance magic)
http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/brian/research/unfinished/unfinished_books/pico_book.htm
Copenhaver's Philosophy Encyclopedia article on Pico
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pico-della-mirandola/
Bibliography
http://www.mvdougherty.com/pico.htm
Introduction to Pico della Mirandola: New Essays
http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521847360&ss=fro
Kabbalah and Christian Cabala bibliographical surveys
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/karr/index.htm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23376801/Pico-della-Mirandola-CARD-From-Dictionary-of-Gnosis-and-Western-Esotericism
Pico and Biblical Hermeneutics by Crofton Black
http://www.brill.nl/product_id26013.htm
Heptaplus in a Google Books Preview
http://books.google.com/books?id=tctGRGkCRBQC&lpg=PP1&dq=pico%20heptaplus&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q=pico%20heptaplus&f=false

bonus link: ("this one goes to Eleven")

Pico's Commento aka A Platonick Discourse on Love

Frances Yates and the Name-Dropping of History

2008-01-30T15:18:00.000-08:00

The first reliable memory I have of hearing of Frances Yates was during a visit to the office hours of one of my more distinguished undergraduate professors, Raymond Waddington, who recommended I read her Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition when I kept asking about Milton's esoteric pretensions. Years later, I gave my first paper at a conference at the same school on Esotericism hosted by one of Yates' own students, Dr. Allison Coudert.

Yates' "GBHT" and of course The Rosicrucian Enlightenment and The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabeth Age still serve as a key introduction for many students to the "big names" in the academic study of Renaissance Magic. Some of her positions have become controversial and others superseded, but these texts continue to deserve a primary place in the curriculum as classics.

resources
http://www.robotwisdom.com/jorn/yates.html
critical article
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2004/03/frances-yates-and-scientific.html