One of the longstanding traditions of this blog is that when there are five Wednesdays in a month, the commentariat gets to propose and then vote on the subject for the fifth Wednesday post. The winner this time is the Austrian occultist Rudolf Steiner, one of the most interesting figures in twentieth century intellectual history.…
Month: March 2023
March 2023 Open Post
This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly (well, more or less!) open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply — no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no paid propagandizing, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank — but since…
The Destiny of Disenchantment
The last three posts in our ongoing discussion of the history of enchantment have examined the work of three influential writers on the history of consciousness—Ken Wilber, Owen Barfield, and Jean Gebser. All three of them, as we’ve seen, discuss the state of consciousness summed up in the word “enchantment,” the condition in which the…
The Doctrine of High Magic: Chapter 22
With this post we continue a monthly chapter-by-chapter discussion of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Lévi, the book that launched the modern magical revival. Here and in the months ahead we’re plunging into the white-hot fires of creation where modern magic was born. If you’re just joining us now, I recommend…
Against Enchantment 3: Jean Gebser
In the months just passed I’ve pursued an exploration of the myth of disenchantment—the notion that our civilization, for the first time in human history, has shaken off the comforting daydreams of myth and magic in order to see the universe in all its cold and uncaring reality. So far, in the course of that…