и почему онъ читаетъ мой дискъ
Before moving on to the anti-apologetic reaction, it is important to provide a brief evaluation of what the preceding discussion contributes to the leading problematics of this book as a whole. I have been arguing…
Read more of Wouter Hanegraaff on the historiographical foundations of the Western esotericism
As Chaim Wirszubski remarks in his classic study [Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter. – GF], Pico set out to prove the Christian truth by means of Jewish kabbalah, but “as thesis after thesis yields up its…
Read more of Wouter Hanegraaff on Pico della Mirandola & concealment
What we find, therefore, is a strong tension between two opposed tendencies: on the one hand, a historically/chronologically oriented narrative of ancient wisdom which held considerable revolutionary potential, and, on the other, an essentially conservative…
Read more of Wouter Hanegraaff on prisca theologia, philosophia perennis & pia philosophia
Англичане помогали русскому народу освобождать польских братьев от царских сатрапов, ну так и мы поможем английскому пролетариату. Идея, между прочим, носилась в воздухе. Достоевский писал: “Вот что мне кажется: не сказалась ли в этом факте…
Read more of Д.Е. Галковскій (и Ф.М. Достоевскій) о всеслуженіи человѣчеству
Later in the afternoon Jenny Randles speaks of “an interesting study in which individuals were asked to describe imaginary abductions.” She explains that if such a study indicated there were significant similarities between a “fantasized…
The most immediate advantage for New World Order ideas of being placed in a UFO context has been a reduction in stigma. Although UFO ideas have often been the target of ridicule, the enormous size…
Read more of Michael Barkun on the fusion of the NWO conspiracies and UFO beliefs
By the late eighteenth century, however, a second form of millennialism was developing, unconnected to religious concepts. This consisted of secular visions of a perfect future — ideas propelled by faith in transcendent but not…
Read more of Michael Barkun on secular millennialism & New Age
He [conspiracy theorist Stan Deyo, author of The Cosmic Conspiracy (1978), “fus[ing] Illuminati theory with dispensational premillennialism and a variety of UFO speculation generally referred to as Alternative 3”, ibid., p. 57] enters new territory,…
Read more of Michael Barkun on miscellaneous conspiracy theories
By stigmatized knowledge I mean claims to truth that the claimants regard as verified despite the marginalization of those claims by the institutions that conventionally distinguish between knowledge and error — universities, communities of scientific…
Read more of Michael Barkun comes up with a categorization of the stigmatized-knowledge domain
Paradoxically, although science has contributed to the decline of religious authority, science too has seen its standing decline, especially in the last three decades of the twentieth century. The fruits of scientific research — whether…
Read more of Michael Barkun on the authority of science vis-à-vis religion