THE VEIL OF ISIS ALLEGORY: HISTORICAL VISIONS OF THE NATURAL WORLD

International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 2008

In this remarkably erudite work, Pierre Hadot surveys a vast terrain. Beginning with Heraclitus' wonderfully sonic fragment, "nature loves to hide" (fu/ sij kru/ ptesqai filei=), he examines twenty-five centuries of literary, pictorial, and philosophical reflections upon "the idea of nature." In Chapter One, Hadot begins with a philological exegesis of each of the three Greek words that comprise Heraclitus' aphorism. By Chapter Twenty-Three he is writing about Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein. Confronting a work of such scope, the reader must be prepared for short, sometimes clipped, sections of commentary on a prodigious number of texts. No individual work is probed in any depth, but the sum of the many parts adds up to a considerable achievement. The Veil of Isis is an impressive work of scholarship that will be useful to scholars in a variety of disciplines. Hadot organizes his monumental narrative around three mythological figures: Isis, Prometheus and Orpheus. In his "Preface" he explains what inspired this work. A German version of Alexander von Humboldt's botanical text Essai sur la géographie des plantes was published in 1807. Its dedicatory page (to Goethe) displayed an allegorical engraving in which Apollo unveils a statue of "the goddess Nature, who had emerged from a fusion between the figure of Artemis of Ephesus and that of Isis" (p. ix). Hadot reports that in a 1980 lecture he offered a commentary on this image (which is the first of seventeen pictorial figures that can be found in The Veil of Isis). Decades of elaboration led to the present volume, whose stated task is to explore "the evolution of the notion of a secret of nature, and the figure of Isis in iconography and in literature" (p. ix). Prometheus and Orpheus represent the two basic approaches that can be taken towards Isis/Nature. Under the auspices of the former, human beings receive the imprimatur to unveil her and reveal her secrets, even if doing so requires force. While this attitude is most closely associated with the dawn of

The maskilim (those committed to a Jewish Enlightenment) considered the study of nature necessary for any cultured, civilized person. It is thus not surprising that maskilim began to translate and adapt European texts on natural and scientific subjects into Hebrew and Yiddish, in order to spread general knowledge among Jewish readers. A number of scholars have discussed these scientific/natural texts, their content, the characteristics of the translation/adaptation process, and their approaches. However, less attention has been paid to works of maskilic belles lettres which include descriptions of natural phenomena. This central aspect of maskilic writing about nature, the religious/moral aspect, has been largely neglected by scholars.

Nature Loves to Hide: An Alternative History of Philosophy, 2018

An alternative history of philosophy has endured as a shadowy parallel to standard histories of philosophy, although it shares many of the same themes: about God, about humans, and about the natural world. The alternative tradition has its own founding texts in the late ancient Hermetica, from whence flowed three broad streams of thought, alchemy, astrology, and magic (sometimes the Kabbalah). Paul MacDonald’s new book is not a survey of esoteric doctrines; it is not a history of something different than philosophy, it is a different history of philosophy. These thinkers’ attitude toward philosophy is not one of detached speculation but of active engagement, even intervention. This different history finds its origins in the late ancient milieu of the Hermetica, Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy, the Chaldean Oracles, Gnostic and Manichaean Scriptures; its passage through the Arabic world and reappearance in the European Middle Ages; in the Renaissance with Rabelais, Paracelsus, Agrippa, Ficino, and Bruno; and in the early modern period with John Dee, Robert Fludd, Jacob Böhme, Thomas Browne, Kenelm Digby, J. B. van Helmont, and Isaac Newton. In the 18th-19th centuries it considers Berkeley’s Siris, Emanuel Swedenborg, Hegel, von Baader, and great Romantics such as Novalis, Goethe, S. T. Coleridge, E. A. Poe, as well as Nietzsche; and in the 20th C. it turns to great modernist literature of Fernando Pessoa, Robert Musil, Ernst Bloch, and Philip K. Dick.

This paper explores the contribution that the German mystic and scientist, Georg von Hardenberg (Novalis), made to our understanding of nature, and our relation to it through language. Though largely unexamined in the modern era, his writings offer real insights into how we should regard nature as being a 'mystical body', rather than an adjunct to utilitarianism. Coming from a scientific background, he nonetheless possessed a deep understanding of man 'in' nature, rather than somehow objective to it. I explore his thought through the prism of his little-known work 'The Novices of Sais', a visionary text of its time. Novalis's thought is key to changing our approach to agribusiness, environmental depredation, climate change and our alienation from nature itself.

Alternative Egyptology: Papers in Honour of Willem van Haarlem, 2024

Founded in London in 1888, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a secret society which taught its members ritual magic and conducted elaborate initiations that revealed hidden knowledge. Originating in a background of Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn inherited the belief that Egypt was the repository of ancient wisdom. While utilising the long-accessible Classical literature about Egypt, as well as the latest research from academic Egyptology in order to design their rituals and cosmology, the Golden Dawn interpreted both types of material through a pseudo-Egyptological lens. Golden Dawn rituals were constructed using Pharaonic Egyptian sources such as The Book of Coming Forth by Day (or Book of the Dead), the ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, the myth of kingly succession, Egyptian statues, painting, costume, mummies, and funerary stelae, as well as later material such as Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, the Hellenised Isiac initiation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, and the Greek Magical Papyri. In combination with the reception of the goddess Isis within the Hermetic tradition, Golden Dawn rituals were consequently syncretistic constructions that included the Egypt filtered by the Greeks and Romans, the ‘Ægypt’ of Hermeticism, and scholarly Egyptology. This paper will focus on the engagement with Egyptian antiquities in museums by four prominent members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Samuel Mathers, Moina Mathers, Florence Farr, and Aleister Crowley, and will argue that Egypt was utilised by these figures as a source of legitimation and power within an agonistic spiritual milieu.

Abstract : This article discusses the expectations of happiness and moral elevation we place on nature in the present secular context and the implications for environmental education practices based on direct contact with natural ecosystems. It locates the origins of the moral value of wilderness in the American conservationist ideals of the nineteenth century and argues that, currently, this subject-moral, associated with the liberal-democratic context of the nineteenth century, corroborates with the perception of nature as a place of virtue and beauty. However, this does not mean a simple reiteration of nineteenth century ideals. The paradigm of contemporary ecological virtue recovers and transforms this notion of nature, combining nineteenth century inspirations with a new axis of secularization and transcendence within the context of immanent spiritualities such as New Age. Keywords: wilderness, transcendence, immanence; environmental education. Resumen: Este artículo analiza las expectativas de felicidad y elevación moral atribui- das a la naturaleza, en el contexto secular contemporáneo, y sus implicaciones para las prácticas de educación ambiental que se basan en el contacto directo con los ambientes naturales. Ubica la génesis del valor moral de la naturaleza prístina (desierto) en los ide- ales conservacionistas norteamericanos del siglo XIX, y sostiene que el sujeto-moral del  conservacionismo, asociado con el contexto democrático-liberal del siglo XIX, corrobora, en la actualidad, con la idea de naturaleza como lugar de la autenticidad, de la bondad y de la trascendencia. Sin embargo, esto no significa una simple repetición de los ideales del siglo XIX. El ideal contemporáneo de la virtud ecológica incorpora y transforma la noción de naturaleza, articulando parte de esa inspiración del siglo XIX con a las nuevas configu- raciones de la secularización y de la trascendencia en el contexto de las espiritualidades de la inmanencia de tipo de la Nueva Era. Palabras clave: Naturaleza; Trascendencia; Inmanencia; Educación ambiental 

Founded in London in 1888, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a secret society which taught its members ritual magic and conducted elaborate initiations that revealed hidden knowledge. Originating in a background of Hermeticism, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn inherited the belief that Egypt was the repository of ancient wisdom. While utilising the long-accessible Classical literature about Egypt, as well as the latest research from academic Egyptology in order to design their rituals and cosmology, the Golden Dawn interpreted both types of material through a pseudo-Egyptological lens. Golden Dawn rituals were constructed using Pharaonic Egyptian sources such as The Book of Coming Forth by Day (or Book of the Dead), the ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, the myth of kingly succession, Egyptian statues, painting, costume, mummies, and funerary stelae, as well as later material such as Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, the Hellenised Isiac initiation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, and the Greek Magical Papyri. In combination with the reception of the goddess Isis within the Hermetic tradition, Golden Dawn rituals were consequently syncretistic constructions that included the Egypt filtered by the Greeks and Romans, the ‘Ægypt’ of Hermeticism, and scholarly Egyptology. This paper will focus on the engagement with Egyptian antiquities in museums by four prominent members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Samuel Mathers, Moina Mathers, Florence Farr, and Aleister Crowley, and will argue that Egypt was utilised by these figures as a source of legitimation and power within an agonistic spiritual milieu.

Our "cover girl" shows one of the most famous paintings of German romanticism: "Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer" (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) painted by Caspar David Friedrich in 1818. We believe this painting to be an especially suitable cover because many of archaeologists' convictions on prehistoric religion are deeply rooted in romanticism. To name only a few we want to point to frequent statements on religion as the irrational, i.e. non-functional, on natural sacredness of sites ("naturheilige Plätze") and we point to emotional and experiential approaches to religion and especially to phenomenology. Friedrich's painting includes many of these aspects, most obviously the emotionality of a magnifi cent landscape. Moreover the fog may be interpreted as a metaphor for the hidden religions of the past that some archaeologists seek to reveal (or revive?).

Ecozon@, 2018

This issue was conceived to occupy a shared locus in the study of myth and ecocriticism which has so far been vacant. Its purpose is to link topoi such as Eden, the promised land and the new Canaan as manifestations of paradise, the Arthurian cycle, pastoral Arcadia, unexplored virgin tropical lands, and the American West with the current situation of the world we inhabit, in terms of our relationship with the land and the more-than-human world. Our aim was to show that myths and the literature of nature have been written in acknowledgement and understanding of each other, that they have evolved in parallel, with a common focus on the intervention of human beings in nature. Take the Greek myth of Prometheus for example: his betrayal of the gods led to an alteration of the world order. Prometheus became an icon of human rebellion, a recurrent symbol reminding humans of their inability to overcome divine power. At the same time, the Prometheus myth mirrors the eternal natural cycle of destruction and creation in its repetition throughout the history of literature, in emblematic works like Frankenstein or Prometheus Unbound by Mary Shelley. If we wish to fully understand the present and the changes that have come about as a consequence of human wars and conflicts such as the events of 9/11 in the USA, the Iraq War and our connections and disconnections with nature, we must therefore go back to the ancient mythologies, and analyse how these have been presented and adapted in history and literature down through the centuries. The Holy Grail is one of the most commonly encountered myths. Since The Romance of Perceval or Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes, the story of this chalice has undergone repeated transformations, serving as a symbol of Christianity pitted against the forces of Islam, a myth of eternal return, and a promise of salvation from the sin of Adam and Eve through the Passion of Jesus Christ. This powerful story of the Christian faith and religious devotion gave medieval knights the strength to fight for possession of Jerusalem for 1 This special issue has been programmed as a result of the research project Acis & Galatea: Actividades de investigación en mitocrítica cultural (S2015/HUM-3362).