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#geometers

Thomastg9541@mas.to
2025-06-15

The below paper by Hanegraaff provides very interesting insights into the advent or #Esotericism in the #renaissance.

In my opinion, the expressed trust in the distance of #Enlightenment to #Helenism is difficult to justify, given the widespread belief in #MosGeometricus, and superior wisdom of #geometers in antiquity.

#magic #Platonism #Paganism

Hanegraaff, Wouter J. "The pagan who came from the East: George Gemistos Plethon and Platonic orientalism." Hermes in the Academy (2009): 33.

Text of screenshot from "Hanegraaff, Wouter J. "The pagan who came from the East: George Gemistos Plethon and Platonic orientalism." Hermes in the Academy (2009): 33." "Besides the idealized picture of the wise philosopher and herald of ancient truth, then, we have its counterpart: the sinister picture of the pagan subversive, a kind of secret agent of demonic forces hiding behind a mask of benevolence. Applied to a wide range of personalities, the history of Western esotericism is replete with endless variations on both images, and they contribute in no small measure to how the field is often perceived in the popular imagination: from the positive notion of “inner traditions” and venerable teachers of ageless spiritual wisdom that might heal the alienation of the modern world, to its negative counterpart of “occult forces of darkness” and its sinister representatives, who try to draw their victims towards the abyss of insanity and immorality. The academic imagination is not immune to either of these two, but tends towards a third perspective inherited from the Enlightenment, which perceives the field and its representatives as neither good nor evil, but simply questions their seriousness. From such a point of view, a figure like Gemistos Plethon would appear as neither wise nor demonic, but merely deluded or confused: a bearded old man with strange ideas, engaged in futile attempts to restore ancient superstitions."

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