![]() ![]() esse-essentia composition and the principle of individuation), and theories of time, knowledge, freedom, and linguistics-issues which, for the most part, are still highly relevant for contemporary philosophy. In fact, angelology provided an ideal context for discussing issues such as the structure of the universe, the metaphysical texture of creatures (e.g. Humanist prejudice famously made medieval angelology the paradigm of ludicrous speculation with its caricature of “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” The truth is quite the opposite: many of medieval philosophy’s most original and ingenious contributions actually came to light in discussions of angelology. Gerson’s sermon highlights the delicate role that cognition plays in assessing supernatural experiences and helps to explain the criticisms of ascetic practices included in his later treatises on spiritual discernment. ![]() While these doubts are also articulated in his later, better-known treatises on discernment, he describes how he came to those conclusions here, in an exploration of the physiology of visions and demonic deception. The related challenges of authenticating true religious visions and exposing demonic or naturalistic fakes led Gerson to doubt some would-be visionaries and even question the role of visionary evidence in canonization trials. In it, Gerson explains how angels instruct and demons seduce the cognitive faculties of men and women. Jean Gerson (1363–1429), theologian and chancellor of the University of Paris, is well known for his writings on the “discernment of spirits.” Gerson’s Sermon on Angels (1392), translated here, provides his earliest thoughts on judging the supernatural. This study utilizes a careful analysis of primary sources including the original manuscripts of the Sloane archives, the most recent scholarly editions of Dee’s works, authoritative editions of original documents linked to Rosicrucianism, and Israel Regardie’s texts on Golden Dawn practices. The rituals of the Golden Dawn utilized Dee’s angel magic, in addition to creative Kabbalistic elements, to form a singular practice that has influenced Western esoterica of the modern age. Figures such as Elias Ashmole, Ebenezer Sibley, Francis Barret, and Frederick Hockley were crucial in the transmission of interest in Dee’s practical angel magic and Hermetic philosophy to the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Through Johann Valentin Andreae’s Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459, the emphasis on a spiritual, inner alchemy became attached to Dee’s philosophy. It is primarily by the Neoplatonic, Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and alchemical philosophy presented in the Monas Hieroglyphica that interest in Dee’s angel magic was transmitted through the Rosicrucian movement. The aim of this dissertation is to establish Dee’s conversations with angels as a magic system that is a direct descendant of Solomonic and Ficinian magic with unique Kabbalistic elements. The intention and transmission of John Dee’s angel magic is linked to the philosophy outlined in his earlier works, most notably the Monas Hieroglyphica, and so this dissertation also provides a philosophical background to Dee’s angel magic. This dissertation seeks to define the importance of John Dee’s interpretation of mediaeval and Renaissance esoterica regarding the contacting of daemons and its evolution into a body of astrological and terrestrial correspondences and intelligences that included a Biblical primordial language, or a lingua adamica. ![]()
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