Bion, W.R., Cogitations. Edited by Francesca Bion. London: Karnac Books (1992), pp. 226-41 [Undated] Tower of Babel: possibility of using a racial myth Can we, at such a crisis as this, fall back on a racial…
Tag: rationality
David V. Barrett on contradictions
One of the most important aspects of any esoteric teaching is that the same statement may have two or more quite different meanings – factual and allegorical, exoteric and esoteric – and may reveal different…
David V. Barrett on, er, rocket science
In a curious aside, [Aleister] Crowley was a significant influence on L/ Ron Hubbard, creator of the psychoanalytic system of Dianetics and founder of the controversial Church of Scientology. In 1945 Hubbard stayed for some…
David V. Barrett on the origins and secrecy of speculative Freemasonry
Whatever its provenance, there is little doubt that Freemasonry was ‘born’ in Scotland rather than England. There were strong romantic links between Scotland, France, Freemasonry, pseudo-chivalry and the Jacobites […]. The creation of a London-based…
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Wolfram Eilenberger on Heidegger’s idea of inversion
In the euphoria of early September 1919, the “transtemporal task” that Heidegger already saw outlined ahead of him — the art of “new seeing in principle” and pushing forward into a new “problem horizon” —…
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Eric Voegelin on totalitarianism
Society resists the therapeutic activity of science. Because not only the validity of the opinions is called into question but also the truth of the human attitudes expressed in the opinions, because the effort in…
Glenn Magee on Lull & Francis Bacon
Yates devoted a chapter in her The Art of Memory to Lull and attempts to locate him withing the tradition of ars memoria. However, she notes that Lull’s art is devoid of the dramatic images…
Glenn Magee: another summary
Like Moses (according to legend), Hegel is the recipient of Kabbalistic wisdom, only it is a Christian Kabbalah, and it is received not directly from God but from Böhme, Oetinger, and the tradition of speculative…
Glenn Magee on Hegel and the equation of mysticism with rationality
Hegel’s attitude toward the Hermetic tradition was cautious, but cautiously approving. Hegel saw the Hermetic tradition as a manifestation of unconscious wisdom, of the perennial philosophy, struggling to transcend its purely sensuous form. This explains…
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Glenn Magee: more on complete speech & Hegel vs. propositional / predicative philosophy
Unlike “picture-thinking” – myth, art, etc. — Hegel’s speculation involves the use of concepts, ideas, or universals. Here, however, the dissimilarity ends, for although the matter of Hegel’s philosophy — its employment of concepts rather…
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