Henry Corbin

There are moments in the lives of nearly all human beings in which everyday human perception gives way to encounters with miraculous phenomena that cannot readily be explained. Often these experienceswhich may arise through the presence of discarnate entities, the emergence of spontaneous visions or intuitions, or through powerful, transformative dreams-leave a profound and lasting effect. It was just this kind of miraculous encounter that was experienced by the author in Tibet back in 1996, an experience that is given a heightened sense of meaning when examined through the lens of Jungian depth psychology and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra. The event in question occurred whilst I was travelling as part of a small, overland expedition that had left the capital of Lhasa en route to the ancient city of Kathmandu, Nepal. One evening, whilst sleeping at Rongbuk Monastery near the base of Mount Everest, I awoke in the middle of the night and instinctively found myself drawn up a neighbouring hillside where, upon reaching the top, I encountered the undeniable presence of an utterly vast feminine entity that seemed to blanket the sky above. Her being exuded tremendous power, depth, and sensitivity, and at that moment I felt that my mother might have passed away and that her expanded spirit was now visiting me. However, when I put this question to the sky I received no reply, and later I would learn that indeed my mother was still alive, which draped this profound experience in mystery. What, then, was this immense and unfathomable entity, and how, though invisible, was she able to exude such power?

Heidegger radikális filozófia-kritikája egyfelől neoplatonikus keresztény misztikus alapokra épül , másrészről a preszokratikus bölcseletre, Parmenidészre. Ezért is érthető, hogy az arisztotelészi kategóriákat és karteziánus szubjektum-objeektum kettősséget miért támadja. Heidegger nyit a rejtező feltárulkozásának ezoterikus fenomenológiájára. Corbin számára azért is volt fontos Heidegger, mert „ontologizálta a tudást”. De mindez nem volt elég Corbinnek, hiszen az a horizont, amit Heidegger megnyitott és a perzsa kultúra megtermékenyített egy sokkal szélesebb távlatot nyújtott számára. Úgy tűnt, hogy „a heideggeri hermeneutika egy theofánia nélküli teológia.” És pontosan ez Corbin egyik fő kritikája Heideggerrel szemben. Corbin a Dasein értelmezését a misztikus tapasztalás kozmoszába helyezte, így a Logos is visszatérhetett eredeti teológiai-teleológiai jelentéséhez.
Corbin spiritualizálta a hermeneutikát és fenomenológiát, egyfajta spirituális exegézist hajtott végre, mely visszavezeti a jelentést és szimbólumot a transzcendens eredetire/eredetére/hez. Mindennek erős kozmológiai voatkozása van, hiszen csakis egy szakrális kozmoszképen belül lehetséges mindez. Corbin számára az ehhez vezető út a mundus imaginalis  lesz, mely az ősképek és ős-fenomének tárházaként személyes-angyali vonatkozású.

"In this paper we seek to outline some aspects evidencing imaginary’s
communicational dimension. This means we need to pay attention to the way
collective imagining shapes social reality and how publicity contributes to this
process. Suggesting a close link between imaginary, society and publicity, we
name “public imaginal” to the dynamic, symbolic and complex set of diverse and
heterogeneous imaginaries that permeate societies.
Keywords: Imaginary; Imaginal; Publicity; Communication; Mediatization"

Religijska filozofija, kao pojam, odnosi se na dugu i bogatu istorijsku filozofsku misao koja je u različitim oblicima pokazala vitalnost sve do danas, dok kao teorija opovrgava poslerenesansni pristup odnosu religije i filozofije i ukazuje na isprepletenost ove dve spoznajne baštine. Autor ovog članka postavlja islamsku filozofiju u centar pažnje i usredsređuje se na njenu originalnost.
Čitajući različite teorije o suštini islamske filozofije koju, ne obazirući se na njen sadržaj, neki mislioci nazivaju arapskom, retko se nalazi primer da su, jedna pored druge, opisane dve islamske i filozofske svojstvenosti te filozofije.
Stoga, većina postojećih definicija i opisa islamske filozofije teži ka okrnjenom određivanju glavnih osnova islamske filozofske misli, zbog kojih se, na kraju, dovodi u pitanje apsolutna originalnost islamske filozofije.
U ovom članku, autor nastoji da pojasni teorijske postulate potrebne za poimanje svojstvenosti islamske filozofije, u potpunosti, kako bismo mogli da pojmimo i opišemo filozofiju koja jeste, istovremeno – i filozofija i islamska.

Lectures and academic articles.

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Contents:
Lectures:
1. Transforming our Way of Being
2. Entering the Prophetic Path
3. The Return to Our Primordial Nature
4. The Ethics of Brotherhood in Islam according to ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib
5. The Place for Islam in the Modern World
6. Being Muslim in a Secular Environment
7. Divine Justice
8. Mawlid: Celebrating the Birth of Prophet Muhammad
9. Ghadīr: Fulfilling the Sunna of Allah
10. The Heart of Walaya
11. Imamate as the Protecting Vessel of the Heart
12. The Ontological Imam
13. Zuhd in the Life of Imam ‘Ali
14. Humanity in Nahj al-Balagha
15. The Esoteric and Symbolic Significance of Fatima
16. Imam al-Husayn’s Stand against Materialism
17. Sayyeda Zaynab: Preserving a Gift of the Ahl al-Bayt: Seeing the Inward Reality of Things
18. Conversations with Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq
19. Initiation and the Qualities of the Shi‘a
20. Following the Scholars in the Time of Occultation
Articles
1. A Comparative Exploration of the Spiritual Authority of the Awliyā’
in the Shī‘ī and Sūfī traditions.
2. Walāya as a Response to the Self-Other Dichotomy in European Philosophy

Exploring the meanings within Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s poem, ‘Occidental Exile’, this editorial from ‘Sacred Web 40’, devoted to the work of Dr Nasr, defines ‘exile’ both in the biography of Dr. Nasr and in its more profound sense of spiritual exile, which is the human condition.

This article examines medieval Abrahamic theories of prophecy in the light of the new approach to ancient philosophy championed by Pierre Hadot. Hadot contended that ancient philosophy was a way of life, and I argue that it continued to be so in the medieval Jewish and Islamic forms of Peripateticism. The latter contributed to the diversification of philosophical ways of life (advocated by the ancients) by adapting philosophy and Abrahamic prophecy. I also argue that the later European Peripatetics, led by Thomas Aquinas, destabilize their predecessors’ hard-won adaptation of philosophy and religion and contribute to the shaping of modern philosophy as an academic enterprise (along with the associated marginalization of philosophy as a way of life).

and Islamicate historian and philosopher Henry Corbin expressed near identical views on the imagination and its relationship to religion, literature, poetry and philosophy. For both, the imagination extended well beyond the human psyche, instead marking a journey inwards towards the transcendental world of visions and theophanies. The mundus imaginalis or "imaginal world," as Corbin theorised, was precisely this very place where, "the spiritual takes body and the body becomes spiritual" (Cheetham 69). Amidst newly emerging trends such as philosophical and scientific rationalism propounded by the intellectual luminaries of the Age of Enlightenment, Blake bemoaned the gradual disintegration of the imagination through science and reason. Henry Corbin proposed a similar view. The Western world had lost touch with the mundus imaginalis, resulting in the proliferation of fantasy and the imaginary realms of science fiction and horror, shaping the Western canon of literature ever since. In Corbin's view, the inter-world of the mystics and prophets had indeed given way, over the centuries, to the secular imaginary world of utopias and fiction. Whether Blake, artist, poet and mystagogue stood amongst the last in a long line of visionary prophets or remains merely a creator of curious, fantastical works will be explored in this essay.

Résumé
Henry Corbin est-il un philosophe? À la lumière de notre recherche, nous sommes obligés de répondre par l’affirmative, il dit d’ailleurs de lui-même « je ne suis à vrai dire ni un germaniste ni même un orientaliste, mais un philosophe poursuivant sa Quête partout où l’Esprit le guide.»
Mais comment comprendre et classifier un philosophe dont la Quête est guidée par l’Esprit? Henry Corbin a développé ce que nous devons nommer une « philosophie prophétique » et c’est par l’exploration de sa biographie et de ses influences de jeunesses, nommément Heidegger et Hamann, que nous pouvons esquisser les assises de sa méthode phénoménologico-herméneutique.
Cette recherche se termine par l’exploration de l’espace (monde imaginal) et de l’organe de connaissance (imagination active) auquel nous rend attentifs la philosophie prophétique de Henry Corbin. Un monde où ont lieu et leur lieu les théophanies, les épopées mystiques et les visions des mystiques et théosophes.

Abstract
Is Henry Corbin a philosopher? According to our research, we are obliged to answer in the affirmative, as he says of himself: "Indeed, I am not nor a germanist, not even an orientalist but a philosopher pursuing his quest wherever the spirit guides him."
But how can one understand and categorize a philosopher whose quest is guided by the spirit? Henry Corbin has developed what we must call a "prophetic philosophy," and by exploring his biography and youthful influences, namely Heidegger and Hamann, we can lay the foundation of its phenomenologico-hermeneutical method.
This research ends with the exploration of the space (imaginal world) and of the organ of knowledge (active imagination) which make us pay attention to the prophetic philosophy of Henry Corbin: a world in which the theophany, the mystical epics, and the visions of mystics and theosophists come about.

The fact that Corbin left the realm of Western philosophy to devote himself to Islamic philosophy and Iranian theosophers has usually been considered as a radical "rupture" in Corbin's philosophical thought. This article aims at showing that in reality there is no rupture, but rather a deep continuity in his philosophical path which was guided by a unique quest of being. Corbin was deeply influenced by Heidegger's main issue of "being qua being" as well as his hermeneutical methodology, but reached another apprehension and level of being through his acquaintance with Mulla Sadra's transcendental philosophy. This crossed-approach led to the transformation of the Heideggerian "Being-towards-death" into the Sadrian "Being-beyond-death", and revealed the deep correspondence between the mode of being and the mode of comprehension as well as the complementary nature of philosophy and mysticism; the latter being the essential and only true realm in which, through presential knowledge, "the fundamental reality of being" may be grasped.

Spanning the world’s artistic, scientific and religious traditions, alchemy has embraced and continues to embrace the complete spectrum of existence. From metallurgy to metaphysics, alchemy engages the technical, fine and hieratic arts in order to provide a living phenomenology of the one, single, elusive process that acts through all things. Ultimately—in its guise as « ars transmutationis »—alchemy penetrates to the heart of the transfiguring spiritual intensity that underpins the perfection of life, from mineral to human.

Despite this profoundly all-embracing purview, however, alchemy continues to be conceived as either proto-chemistry or proto-psychology. The present volume seeks to redress this false dichotomy by exploring alchemy as a quintessentially integral phenomenon. Opening wide the full spectrum of alchemy—from east to west, in history and practice, from antiquity to the avant garde—our aim is to penetrate as deeply as possible, within the limits of a single volume, into the rich practical and experiential traditions of the alchemical mysterium.

Featuring both well-established scholars and emerging, cutting-edge researchers, this book synthesises a quintessentially high caliber of academic authorities on the vast and baroque heritage of the alchemical world. As a whole, the volume seeks to strike the perfect balance—the golden mean—between strict, historical objectivity and empathic, phenomenological insight. Drawn from international ranks (Europe, the Antipodes, the Americas) and cutting across disciplinary boundaries (Egyptology, Classics, Sinology, Indology, Tibetology, philosophy, religious studies, Renaissance studies, history of science, art history, critical theory, media studies), the contributors to this volume include some of the most gifted investigators into the world’s esoteric lineages."

Featuring Aaron CHEAK ∙ Algis UŽDAVINYS ∙ Rodney BLACKHIRST ∙ David Gordon WHITE ∙ Kim LAI ∙ Sabrina DALLA VALLE ∙ Christopher A. PLAISANCE ∙ Hereward TILTON ∙ Angela VOSS ∙ Paul SCARPARI ∙ Leon MARVELL ∙ Mirco MANNUCCI ∙ Dan MELLAMPHY

Egyptian alchemy ∙ Greek alchemy ∙ Hellenistic alchemy ∙ Taoist alchemy ∙ Hindu Tantric alchemy ∙ Tibetan Buddhist alchemy ∙ Islamicate alchemy ∙ European alchemy ∙ Surrealist alchemy ∙ Erotic alchemy ∙ Laboratory alchemy ∙ Alchemy of the word ∙ Alchemy of the body ∙ Alchemy of the spirit ∙ and more.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Peer Reviewers
List of Illustrations

PART I—CORNERSTONES:
Ancient Alchemies, East and West

Introduction to Part One:
Circumambulating the Alchemical Mysterium
—Aaron Cheak

1. The Perfect Black: Egypt and Alchemy
—Aaron Cheak

2. Telestic Transformation and Philosophical Rebirth:
From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism
—Algis Uždavinys

3. Metallurgy and Demiurgy:
The Roots of Greek Alchemy in the Mythology of Hephaestos (Discussions)
—Rod Blackhirst

4. Taking from Water to Fill in Fire:
The History and Dynamics of Taoist Alchemy
—Aaron Cheak

5. Mercury and Immortality:
The Hindu Alchemical Tradition
—David Gordon White

6. Iatrochemistry, Metaphysiology, Gnōsis:
Tibetan Alchemy in the Kālacakra Tantra
—Kim Lai

PART II: TRANSFORMATIONS:
Alchemies of the Spirit, Body and Word

Introduction to Part Two:
Interzone: On the Origins and Nature of European Alchemy
—Aaron Cheak

7. The Alchemical Khiasmos:
Counter-Stretched Harmony and Divine Self-Perception
—Aaron Cheak & Sabrina Dalla Valle

8. Altus’ Ominous Aphorism:
Reading as Alchemical Process
—Mirco Mannucci

9. Turris Philosophorum:
On the Alchemical Iconography of the Tower
—Christopher A. Plaisance

10. Of Ether, Entheogens and Colloidal Gold:
Heinrich Khunrath and the Making of a Philosophers’ Stone
—Hereward Tilton

11. Becoming an Angel:
The Mundus Imaginalis of Henry Corbin and the Platonic Path of Self-Knowledge
—Angela Voss

12. The Kiss of Death:
Amor, Corpus Resurrectionis and the Alchemical Transfiguration of Eros
—Paul Scarpari

13. Agent of All Mutations:
Metallurgical, Biological and Spiritual Evolution in the Alchemy of René Schwaller de Lubicz
—Aaron Cheak

14. Take Two Emerald Tablets in the Morning:
Surrealism and the Alchemical Transubstantiation of the World
—Leon Marvell

15. Incredible Lunatic of the Future:
The Alchemical Horticulture of Alan Chadwick
—Rod Blackhirst

16. Alchemical Endgame:
‘Checkmate’ in Beckett and Eliot
—Dan Mellamphy

End matter:
Abbreviations
Bibliography
Author Biographies

Questa breve opera deriva da un piccolo ciclo di lezioni sull'estetica contemporanea che ho tenuto all'università di Tor Vergata nell'anno 2012-2013. In questo caso, poiché il testo non si rivolge a un pubblico specializzato, userò un linguaggio divulgativo, colloquiale, informale e ricco di esempi, ma non per questo si vuole rinunciare a un'impostazione metodologica e critica che eviti i cliché delle pubblicazioni che trattano questi argomenti in maniera amatoriale, in modo che possa essere un'introduzione valida anche per gli studenti universitari. Trattandosi di un argomento vastissimo, nelle poche pagine in cui mi è stato chiesto di contenere l'argomento, mi limiterò solo a offrire degli spunti. Infatti, il mio intento non è quello di riassumere un lista di nozioni, come fanno i divulgatori di professione, e di volgarizzarli in un linguaggio chiaro e accessibile elencato per punti in modo didascalico e didattico. Questo tipo di lavoro presuppone delle certezze, ovvero un discorso già deciso e codificato dagli esperti, di cui si accettano le verità in modo indiscusso e si procede pertanto solo alla loro trasformazione in parole povere o in riassuntini. Questo non è quello che sarà fatto qui. Non vi saranno presentati dei piatti pronti alla portata di tutti, in stile fast food, ma sarete portati, anche se solo per una rapida occhiata, nelle cucine. Se dobbiamo scegliere tra

The life and work of the Alsatian hermeticist and Egyptosophist, René-Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961) attests to the continued presence of a distinctly nondual current of alchemical precept and practice in which material transmutation and spiritual transmutation are not separate nor merely coincidental endeavours but two indispensably linked sides of the same coin. The link, for Schwaller, was perceived as a juncture of meta-physical and proto-physical forces, a process conceived in terms of an alchemical “salt” (a neutralisation reaction between an “acid” and a “base”). This thesis demonstrates that Lubiczian alchemy, by centring on the esoteric formation of all “bodies”, to include the hidden “nucleus” of continuity between metallurgical, biological and spiritual corporeality, speaks directly to the perception of alchemy as a nondual, operative-spiritual process.

Before examining Schwaller’s work proper, part one of this thesis deals with methodological and historiographical considerations at some length. I begin by detailing the “hermetic problem of salt” through cultural-historical, mythographical, chemical and alchemical lenses in order to introduce the phenomenon of salt as an “abstract concretion” resulting from polarised opposites (acid and base, fire and water, sun and sea, sulphur and mercury, etc.) The juncture of opposing principles perceived in the “hermetic problem” of salt anticipates the methodological discussion, which examines the dichotomy between history and phenomenology, along with the materialist and metaphysical sympathies of these methodologies. Form mirroring content, the method employed in this thesis seeks to establish a “neutralisation reaction” between such extremes, encompassing both empirical-historical and eidetic-phenomenological approaches. The guiding model for this synthesis is the Heraclitean palintonos harmoniē (counter-stretched harmony), in which inherently opposed tensions are viewed as integral rather than antithetical to the deeper vitality of the whole. Following from this, the broader argument of this thesis is based upon the perception that the modern academic caricature of alchemy as either operative (reducible to chemical explanations) or spiritual (reducible to psychological explanations) is in many respects a false dichotomy. In support of a more integrative premise, detailed examples are adduced from both eastern and western branches of alchemy (i) to argue for the revision of rigidly dualistic biases within the historiography of alchemy and (ii) to lend support to the adoption of a more nuanced critical apparatus that is able to come to terms with nondualistic currents within the plurality of alchemies. Upon these premises, the life and work of Schwaller de Lubicz is turned to as a modern exemplar of this nondual current in alchemy.

Part two of this thesis focuses on Schwaller de Lubicz’s life and work, his colour theory, and his alchemy. Through a detailed bio-bibliographical survey, the keys to Schwaller’s intellectual development are presented and situated within their relevant contexts. I examine his artistic, Theosophical, socio-political, initiatic, alchemical and Egyptological milieus. As a student of Matisse, Schwaller had a life-long interest in colour and light. For this reason, the colour phenomenon is presented as a guiding thread for the dynamics of Lubiczian alchemy in general and the “manipulation of salt” in particular. The colour theory is examined with reference to Newton’s Opticks, Goethe’s Farbenlehre and ultimately to the operative work on stained glass that Schwaller undertook with Jean-Julien Champagne (alias Fulcanelli).

The work on colour, metals and stained glass is for Schwaller a propadeutic for understanding the process by which spirit (light, colour) transforms the bodies in which it is incarnated (matter, substance). Ultimately, the “hermetic problem of salt” is seen to centre directly upon the mineral register of an entity’s consciousness (palingenetic memory); because this imperishable register of consciousness is also the determiner of an entity’s form, salt is consequently regarded as the mechanism of evolution, resurrection and palingenesis. The deeper dynamics of Lubiczian alchemy thus concerns the role of this “fixed nucleus” in the formation of bodies, from mineral to human. In particular, I examine the principles of Schwaller’s metallurgical alchemy in order to understand how the “spirit of metals” acts as a fiery metallic seed (sulphur) that “coagulates” a nutritive substance (mercury) into a bodily form (salt). This understanding is applied to the stained-glass work. I then look at his meta-biological alchemy, in which it is not the genetic seed but the palingenetic mineral salt that forms the determining principle in the biological entity’s evolution. In essence, Schwaller’s “hermetic problem of salt” is understood as the fulcrum not only of individual immortality, but also of the qualitative mutations (leaps) between kingdoms and species. More specifically, the kingdoms of nature are seen to emerge alchemically through "qualitative exaltations" induced by the divine seed-ferment (sulphur) upon the primordial materia (mercury) giving rise to a neutral centre of gravity: the saline magnetic nucleus or ‘styptic coagulating force’, the spiritual locus of physical form.

In the final analysis, Schwaller’s alchemy is quintessentially nondual in the sense that it encompasses both operative and spiritual processes. These are not separate but deeply interrelated realities. Through the idea of salt, Schwaller offers a holarchical explanation for the continuities between mineralogical, biological and spiritual bodies, and thus a theory for the material mechanism by which consciousness transforms phenomenal form. To approach this kind of alchemy as exclusively chemical or psychological is thus completely inadequate and reinforces the necessity for a nondual critical apparatus in the study of alchemy.

En reversant le rapport usuel à l’espace et à la lumière, James Turrell propose, en faisant de la lumière, non pas ce qui fait voir une œuvre, mais l’œuvre elle-même, une véritable transfiguration qui laisse un instant transparaître ce que l’on pourrait facilement caractériser comme la nature spirituelle de l’espace. Ce texte analyse l’œuvre de Turrell en se demandant si ses installations peuvent aider les philosophes à comprendre les nombreuses descriptions mystiques qui font appel à la lumière.

Daniel PROULX, « L'expérience spirituelle à la lumière des installations de James Turrell », dans Cosmopolis, no. 3-4, 2016, p. 32-42.

This volume presents the bricolage of Philemon, depicted as a superannuated white beard, a prophet, and a sage who links and mediates the relationship between the living (i.e., Jung's ego image) and the dead (i.e., non-ego images). Philemon is communicative, knowledgeable, and wise. He gave voice to Jung's mythopoetic cosmology, which Jung conceptually elaborated in his Collected Works. In contrast to research participants who pursued imaginal beings to realize transpersonal dimensions of consciousness, Imaginal beings and overwhelming imagery pursued Jung relentlessly. It was as if the objective psyche sought to enlist Jung as a medium to give voice to its radical cultural imperative to restore a symbolic sensibility lost in the shift from a religious to a scientific world view and reinstate humanity's place in the natural order. These seeker/sought dynamics distinguish between participants' experiences of Consonance and Calm vs. Jung's Confrontation and Conflict with the unconscious. Shared superordinate themes include:
Positive Qualities of Advisors.
Personal Transformation.
Positive Effects of Imagery.
Parallel Methods.
Transpersonal/Spiritual/Numinous imagery.

This volume presents Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) research comparing research participants' Inner Guide experiences with Jung's encounters with Philemon, his inner guide. To compare participant experiences with Jung's imaginal engagements, I reviewed Jung's experiments in confrontation with the unconscious in Memories Dreams, Reflections, and The Red Book (i.e., Liber Novus). Research questions asked (1) "What themes and patterns emerge in student descriptions of their inner guide imagery?" and (2) "how do participant accounts relate to Jung's imaginal engagement with personified archetypes?"

A person's own inner most awareness and the movements within their awareness field bring forth their direct personal experience of their cosmological archetypal field of awareness. This spontaneous event is given to us within the archetypal realm of awareness. The archetypal dimension manifests itself as us, and reveals itself to us through our experience of its self-manifestation.

L’amour que portait Henry Corbin à la sagesse, à la Sophia, englobe les trois termes de ce colloque. Sans pouvoir traiter directement de la notion de femme et d’erôs, ce texte explore la Sophia, féminin philosophique par excellence chez Henry Corbin. Le parcours proposé est une première percée dans le monde sophianique tel que Henry Corbin le concevait, en ce sens il s’agit d’un premier dépouillement. L’axe choisi pour entreprendre ce e exploration consiste à réarticuler les influences de la pensée de Corbin pour montrer que l’emphase généralement mise sur Heidegger a le plus souvent occulté l’importance de la Sophia. Une opportunité pour me re en lumière une influence restée voilée, celle du sophiologue russe Serge Boulgakov. Suite à ce e réarticulation, sans se restreindre à la Sophia boulgakovienne, les sophiologies de Carl Gustav Jung et de Nicolas Berdiaev viendront compléter le tableau des sophiologies occidentales qui jouent un rôle dans la pensée de Henry Corbin.

Henry Corbin’s loving devotion to wisdom, to sophia, englobes the three terms of this conference. Without dealing directly with the notion of women and erôs, this text explores the notion of sophia – philosophically feminine par excellence – in Henry Corbin’s opus. This text is a first attempt to understand the Sophianic world as conceived by Henry Corbin. The axis chosen in undertaking this exploration is to rearticulate the influences on Corbin’s thought in showing that the emphasis on Heidegger dissimulates the importance of sophia. This axis will also highlight an influence that has remained veiled, the Russian sophiologist Sergei Bulgakov’s. In the course of this rearticulation, we will also encounter the sophiologies of Carl Gustav Jung and Nicolas Berdyaev - completing the picture of Western sophiologies present in Corbin’s thought.

Corbin met Jung at Ascona in 1949. In 1953 he published a long, insightful review of Jung’s “Answer to Job”. During the following years, he became so thoroughly committed to the Eranos “paradox” that no one but he could have pronounced the memorial for Olga Fröbe and Carl Jung in 1962.
Yet, for all the respect, if not devotion, that Corbin expressed to Jung, and for all the sympathy that Jung showed Corbin, their relationship was never an easy one. As a consequence, contradictory readings of it have been proposed. Is there any textual ground that might allow us to see deeper, and more insightfully, into their differences and commonalities?
In this talk, I examine Jung’s and Corbin’s approaches to the figure of al-Khidr/Khezr. A comparative reading of their views on this figure of immortal and of trickster may, I believe, help us find their meeting place, at the confluence of the two seas.

Daniel PROULX, « L’imagination selon Henry Corbin », dans Os Trabalhos da Imaginação: abordagens teóricas e modelizações édité par Jean-Jacques WUNENBURGER, Alberto Filipe ARAúJO et Rogério de ALMEIDA, João Pessoa, Universidade Fédéral de la Paraíba, 2017, p. 421-437.

La notion d’imagination est l’un des centres les plus importants de l’oeuvre de Henry Corbin. De l'imaginatio vera à l’imaginal, du mundus imaginalis archetypus au huitième climat en passant par les récits visionnaires et les expériences spirituelles, l’imagination est pour lui l’organe qui relie tous ces phénomènes. Par son exploration de la philosophie islamique et plus particulièrement iranienne, Corbin développe une philosophie et une approche de l’imagination qui lui est propre. Même si les philologues et orientalistes ont critiqué avec justesse certaines de ses interpréta­tions, c’est à la réception corbinienne de l’imagination que nous nous intéresserons. Cette présentation ne vise pas la conception de l’imagination telle que l’envisage la philosophie islamique, mais bien la conception de l’imagination chez Henry Corbin et comment celle-ci a été restituée et intégrée par le philosophe-orientaliste. Nous laissons aux orientalistes le travail de montrer comment il transforme la pensée traditionnelle dans laquelle il puise.
Il s’agira d’explorer les racines de l’imagination dans l’oeuvre de Corbin, car pour comprendre ce que cette notion signifie, il faut d’abord comprendre d’où elle vient et par qui elle a été influencée. Il sera démontré qu’une analyse de l’imagination chez Corbin doit s’intéresser à l’influence d’Alexandre Koyré et de Cari Gustav Jung. Il sera ensuite question de la structure et du rôle de l’imagination dans la métaphysique telle que l’envisage Corbin.

Pour traiter de la question de la non-dualité dans l’œuvre de Henry Corbin, il faut entrer d’une part dans la philosophie islamique et d’autre part analyser les deux conférences de Corbin sur la pensée d’Ibn al-!Arab et qui deviendront l’essentiel de son célèbre livre L’imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn !Arab , car ce dernier est justement reconnu comme le fondateur de la « doctrine » de l’unicité de l’être (wa&dat al-wuj d), un concept souvent identifié au non-dualisme. D’autre part, il faudra aller au-delà d’Ibn al-!Arab et se demander ce qui, dans l’œuvre de Corbin, ouvre à la non-dualité et comment il pense celle-ci, et ce, même si le terme « non-dualité » n’a pas été repéré dans son œuvre. Corbin préfère le terme de « dualitude » et cela marque déjà la distance entre le non- dualisme de l’Advaita Ved nta et celui que l’on trouve dans la philoso- phie islamique. Où il s’agit moins de se fondre dans l’unité que d’intégrer la dualité – de la Face divine et de la face humaine, par exemple – en une unité multifacettes. Il s’agit moins d’un non-dualisme – d’une négation radicale de la dualité – que d’une dualitude, une réciprocité parfaite entre l’humain et Dieu. Enfin, cette petite exploration du problème se termine par une analyse conceptuelle et ontologique du problème de la dualitude tel qu’il se présente dans l’œuvre de Henry Corbin.

"Résumé
Henry Corbin a écrit qu’« un Maître Eckhart et un Jacob Boehme eussent parfaitement compris Ibn ʿArabî, et réciproquement. » Mais comment assurer ce dialogue et cette compréhension réciproque pressentie par Henry Corbin? Cette recherche porte essentiellement sur les conditions de possibilités de ce dialogue, puisque la comparaison entre Ibn al-ʿArabī et Böhme n’est encore qu’à ses balbutiements. En choisissant le prisme de l’imagination, le but est double : pouvoir traiter de manière non réductrice les phénomènes spirituels en parcourant et analysant la logique spécifique de l’imagination ; et, sous l’égide de la hiérohistoire, explorer le rôle de l’imagination dans la métaphysique et l’éthique d’Ibn al-ʿArabī et de Böhme. Il s’agit donc d’essayer de lire Ibn al-ʿArabī et Böhme comme ils lisaient eux-mêmes le Livre révélé de leur tradition respective. Au final, il appert que le théophanisme caractéristique tant de la métaphysique d’Ibn al-ʿArabī que de celle de Böhme est une riche terre d’accueil de l’imagination et de l’imaginal. Et que, si la comparaison strictu sensu entre Ibn al-ʿArabī et Böhme est impossible, l’esprit comparatif et transdisciplinaire de cette recherche, ainsi que la méthode phénoménologico-herméneutique, offrent de nouvelles avenues de réappropriation pour l’ensemble des phénomènes spirituels.

Abstract
Henry Corbin wrote that a “Meister Eckhart and Jacob Boehme would fully understand Ibn ʿArabî, and vice versa.” But how can we ensure this dialogue and mutual understanding anticipated by Henry Corbin? This research is essentially on the conditions of possibilities of this dialogue, especially because the comparison between Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme is still in its infancy. By choosing the prism of the imagination, the goal is twofold: approach spiritual phenomena in a non-reductive way by browsing and analyzing the specific logic of imagination; and, under the auspices of the concept of hierohistory, explore the role of imagination in the metaphysics and ethics of Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme. It is therefore an effort to read Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme as they read themselves the revealed book of their respective tradition. Finally, it appears that the theophanism characteristic of the metaphysics of both Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme is a rich haven for imagination and imaginal. If the comparison between Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme is stricto sensu impossible, the comparative and transdisciplinary spirit of this research, as well as its the phenomenological-hermeneutic method, opens up new avenues of re-appropriation for all spirituals phenomena."

"The Necklace of the Pleiades is a volume on Persian literature, culture and religion by Persian scholars from around the world. This book reflects the state of the field of Persian literary studies and will be of substantial interest not only to scholars of Iranian culture, history and religions, but of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies, as well.

The topics of the 24 essays range from the Persian Alexander romance, to Ferdowsi’s Shahnama and other epics, the poetics and imagery of the ghazal and the qasida, Mughal court poetry, Sufism, Ismaili history, Baha’i literature, Iranian linguistics, the modern writer Sadeq Hedayat, and the reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel in Persian translation.

In Persian literature the Necklace of the Pleiades is a metaphor for the six or seven stars (Parvin, or Sorayyâ, high up in the constellation Taurus) which the heavens bestow, like precious pearls, upon a poet in gratitude and reward for composing a beautiful poem. The poem itself is compared to a string of pearls, with its carefully chosen words bored like unique pearls and strung in perfect metrical proportion. As Hafiz puts it:

You’ve sung a ghazal, pierced the pearls, come and sing it sweetly, Hafiz!
The heavens strew the very Necklace of the Pleiades upon your verse. "

This volume was presented as a Festschrift for Prof. Heshmat Moayyad of the University of Chicago on his 80th birthday.  Originally published by (Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers and West Lafayette, Indiana:  Purdue University Press, 2007)
Publisher's Website: https://www.lup.nl/product/the-necklace-of-the-pleiades/

"This article explains the Isma‘ili Muslim understanding of the Qur’anic verses on the  Crucifixion, the meaning of the Crucifixion in Isma‘ili eschatology and the esoteric  exegesis (ta’wil) of the Cross, according to the Isma‘ili philosophers.  These Isma‘ili
Muslim perspectives were articulated in the tenth and eleventh century when Isma‘ili  philosophy underwent a great flowering.  But there is reason to believe that such  perspectives, due to their pluralistic, ecumenical and esoteric outlook, can play a great role in the modern age towards opening further doors of understanding and recognition between the faiths of Christianity and Islam."

Since Freud’s essay on Narcissism, our reading of the Narcissus myth has been instrumental to identifying a specific type of personality disorder that has been increasingly seen as characteristic of modern and postmodern Western societies. But what if this reading of the ancient myth was, in itself, a narcissistic misreading? In this article, the author addresses one of her primary research interests: how a comparative reading of medieval hermeneutics of the human experience and of Jung’s depth psychology may offer us a deeper understanding of the workings of archetypal imagination. This article explores the ways in which premodern visionaries, poets, and artists from different cultural traditions consciously engaged with the images staring at them from the depths of the unconscious in an approach that resonates with Jung’s own. Those images of the depths, it turns out, deeply engage the masculine conscious side of the psyche in the retrieval of its feminine, life-restoring counterpart.

Dire de l’islam qu’il s’agit d’une religion relève du truisme. Dire qu’il existe des courants philosophiques divers dans les pays où l’islam est pratiqué est aussi de l’ordre du consensus. Mais affirmer qu’il y a une «philosophie islamique» et que celle-ci n’est ni une théologie ni une philosophie au sens nous l’entendons en Europe et en Amérique n’est pas une chose facile à comprendre. Pourtant penser la philosophique islamique pourrait être une manière renouve­lante de se réapproprier les rapports Orient-Occident avec toutes les difficultés que sous-entend cette catégorisation à l’heure des réseaux planétaires et de la globalisation.

is obscured because of the compelling actuality of our dualistic experience within the dualistic forms of phenomena. Phenomena is compelling! Our indivisibleness within each other and our indivisibleness with Being is obscured and made invisible by the dramatic compelling experience of the different range and forms of our experience such as pleasure and pain, happiness and horror, anxiety and relational yearning, sex and death, starvation and torture, to name a few.

In recent years, the field of "Western esotericism" has been confronted by problems related to the cultural and regional demarcations it has adopted. This field is based on a longue durée narrative that underplays non-"Western" currents, including ones which, through appropriation or reactions to them, constituted major sources for it. One of the most immediate arguments against the use of the qualifier "Western" and an essentialized "West" is European en-tanglements with Islamdom. This article tackles the ambiguous place given to Islam in the narrative of "Western esotericism" and the wider intellectual and historical complex that feeds the exclusionary tendencies expressed by the "Western" in "Western esotericism." It begins by providing a historical background of the West versus East divide in order to grasp the genealogy of the discourse and locate the problems resulting from an esotericism labelled as "Western." Two major components of this narrative within which Islam is usually evoked are then highlighted: first, the sanitization of orientalist perspectives , and, second, the reliance on perennialist sources, especially the writings of Henry Corbin. Finally, the article recommends, on one level, a reflective global approach that takes into account the agency of non-Western actors in the globalization of values and concepts in modern and pre-modern eras, thus allowing us to engage in more suitable comparative practices in the study of esotericism. On another level, I have argued elsewhere that an Islamic esoteri-cism (bāṭiniyya) has a long history dating back to the ninth century at least, based on principles, epistemological paradigms, and social orientations, conceptualized and negotiated (Saif, 2019). I demonstrated there, as I do here, that this esotericism had-and still has-connections with the currents discussed in the study of "Western esotericism," especially through the Traditionalists and Sufism.

Il contributo si focalizza sul confronto tra la Commedia e il Sayr al-
‘Ibād ilà l-Ma‘ād (Viaggio dei servi nel Regno del Ritorno) di Sanā’i di Ghazna (XII sec.), autore di un affascinante Himmelsreise, a suo tempo segnalato da R. A. Nicholson come “a Persian forerunner of Dante”. Il confronto, partendo da alcune intuizioni di Louis Massignon (espresse in Les recherches d’Asín Palacios sur Dante: le problème des influences musulmanes sur la Chrétienté médiévale et les lois de l’imitation littéraire, in “Revue du monde musulmane”, XXXVI, 1919) e da una griglia interpretativa proposta da Joan Petru Couliano basata sulla distinzione tra Call Apocalypses e Quest Apocalypses (Psychanodia I, Brill, Leiden 1983), si concentra su certi suggestivi paralleli riguardanti alcune idee guida condivise da Dante e Sanā’i: la sostituzione dell’eroe mistico al profeta del modello, il sogno come strumento privilegiato di conoscenza soprannaturale, le figure di intermediari personali (Beatrice e il cadì di Sarakhs) come “doppio celeste” e guida agli arcani dell’aldilà.

Simondon's poorly examined theory of imagination reveals a number of interesting possibilities. On the one hand, by grounding the function of images within the idea of a cycle, it provides an attempt of reconciliation between the assumptions that privilege either reproduction or creativity. On the other hand, his view might also be conceived as a serious alternative to various theoretical stances that characterize the problem of imagination strictly within a dichotomy between individual subject and social imaginaries. e paper proposes a reading of Simondon's lectures given between 1965 and 1966 in Sorbonne in the broader context of his philosophy and outlines the role of imagination that exceeds imagining subject as well as establishing the mode of correlation with associated milieu, which performs the conditioning of its potentiality. Rejecting the primacy of representation, Simondon's take enables one to draw the conclusion that imagination can be attributed to all living beings and conceived as the function of life.

Hai ascoltato riguardo al mondo tante parole: Vieni, racconta: del mondo, tu, cosa hai capito? Della forma e del contenuto, cosa hai capito? Cosa è l''altro' mondo? In che modo è 'questo' mondo? Dì, cos'è il Simorgh e cosa il monte Qaf? Cosa sono il Paradiso e l'Inferno e l'Intermondo? Qual è il mondo che non si manifesta, La cui giornata corrisponde a un anno dei nostri? Questo mondo non è certo così come l'hai visto: Non hai ascoltato le parole: 'E quello che non vedete?' Vieni, mostrami qual è Jabalka, Mostrami qual è il mondo delle città di Jabarsa. Medita sugli 'Occidenti' e gli 'Orienti', dato che il mondo, Di ciascuno di essi, ne possiede uno solo. La spiegazione delle parole 'simili a loro' Ascoltala da Ibn 'Abbas. Poi conosci bene te stesso. Tu dormi e quello che vedi è una specie di sogno: Tutto quello che hai visto è soltanto un simbolo. Quando all'alba dell'ultimo Giorno ti sarai svegliato, Saprai che tutto questo è solo pensiero e congettura.