Sufficient days have now passed, since the final session of the ContEd course on Esotericism, for my thoughts to settle down and allow me to consider my verdict.
Without doubt the greatest benefit to me has been the consequent conversations with Susan Leybourne. We’d begin by talking about the session just concluded and then let our thoughts develop as the evening went on. We dug deep. Proposing and answering some very fundamental questions.
Which reminds me .. ..
When the course was about to begin, I was asked ‘What is it about?’ - and I couldn’t answer. I had no lexicon in common with with my questioner. Now the course is ended, I’m not that much better off. I might start by saying ‘It’s what we used to think of as The Western Mystery Tradition. (See also: the ancient Greek Mystery Religions, where only the initiates knew what it was about.’)
That’s no longer the case. Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s book of the PhD - New Age Religion and Western Culture : Brill 1996, SUNY 1998 - takes us onto ground that some of the older ones among us will find familiar.
He was born in 1961. His book is a very detailed methodical analysis of New Age phenomena from about 1975 to about 1995. His formative years. Chapter One is about Channeling. I find Edgar Cayce and Shirley MacLaine among his sources. As I turn the pages other familiar names appear. Stanislav Grof. Janet & Stewart Farrar. Vivianne Crowley. Starhawk. Szuzsanna Budapest. Marian Green. Caitlin & John Matthews. Murry Hope.
It’s a revelation.
fc oxon 2017 april 14
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