The Dark Side of the Enlightenment by John V. Fleming

Author:John V. Fleming
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2013-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Bibliographical

A good general introduction to the major topics of this chapter is Antoine Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism (trans. of Accès de l’ésotérisme occidental) (Paris, 1986).

There are two magisterial scholarly studies of the old magic: Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971) and Valerie Flint’s The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, 1991). A work far more in the spirit of the Enlightenment magicians themselves is Eliphas Lévi (A-L Constant), The History of Magic, Including a Clear and Precise Exposition of its Procedure, its Rites and its Mysteries, trans., with a preface and notes, by Arthur Edward Waite (London, 1913; many times republished).

From the large literature on alchemy, I suggest the following excellent books: C. A. Burland, The Arts of the Alchemists (New York, 1968); Johannes Fabricius, Alchemy: The Medieval Achemists and Their Royal Art (Copenhagen, 1976); and P. G. Maxwell Stuart, The Chemical Choir (London, 2008). The beautiful book of Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century (London & New York, 1988), deals with the fascinating iconography of alchemy.

Most of the rich bibliography of kabbala naturally deals with ancient and continuing Jewish spiritual practice. Christian Cabbala, which was at first principally an exegetic aid, took on a life of its own in the Renaissance. The most important work is in French: François Secret, Kabbalistes chrétiens de la Renaissance (Paris, 1964), but there is in English Philip Beitchman’s Alchemy of the Word: Cabala of the Renaissance (Albany, 1998). There are two erudite books by Allison Coudert: Leibniz and the Kabbalah (Dordrecht, 1995) and The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century: The Life and Thought of Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614–1698) (Leiden, 1999).

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