Studia Humanistyczne AGH
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ISSN 2084-3364
e-ISSN: 2300-7109
Issue Date
2017
Volume
T. 16
Number
Nr 4
Description
Journal Volume
Studia Humanistyczne AGH
T. 16 (2017)
Projects
Pages
Articles
The origin and impact of the theosophical centre in Adyar
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2017) Trzcińska, Izabela; Świerzowska, Agata
One of the most interesting examples of the Theosophists' campaign of transgressive imagination in Eastern and Western culture is the movement's headquarters – The Theosophical Society International Headquarters in Adyar (Chennai, Tamil Nadu), called the »vision of hope for mankind«. This remarkable project has so far failed to attract any comprehensive research or permeate the extensive sources of Theosophical literature or subject literature. The aim of this paper is to highlight the most specific elements of this utopia – partly imagined, partially realised – which was intended by its creators to be an inspiration for the coming new era of the world.
The radical aesthetics of the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA)
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2017) Introvigne, Massimo; Zoccatelli, PierLuigi; Di Marzio, Raffaella
This paper examines the history, worldview, and legal problems of MISA, the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA), founded by Romanian yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru, as a form of radical aesthetics. In the first part, we summarize the development and doctrines of MISA. In the second, we present the legal controversies that accompanied the movement’s history. In the third, we introduce five theoretical tools derived from the contemporary sociology of aesthetics. In the fourth, we use these tools to interpret MISA’s worldview and societal reactions to it.
A pocketbook of wonders: »Mayses noyroim« (Deeds of Awe, Pietrkov 1913/1914) and the rebbe of Radzymin
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2017) Tuszewicki, Marek
<i>Mayses Noyroim</i> is a Yiddish booklet published in the second decade of the twentieth century documenting the wonders performed by Ya’akov Arie Guterman (1792–1874). The path of this renowned figure from Radzymin led him through the courts of the most important Hasidic leaders of Poland. The booklet of only 40 pages presents the protagonist as the rightful successor of the tsaddikim of Lublin, Przysucha and Warka. It is a collection of stories gathered almost entirely from oral testimonies of people who participated in the life of his court. Besides a few indications of ritual customs, as well as a handful of Hasidic teachings, the text focuses on the esoteric dimension of Guterman’s multifarious activities. It starts with a testimony, that he was a man of God’s prophecy. Then it briefly recounts the story of his life, to present his figure in supernatural circumstances. The paper discusses the booklet in its most fascinating contexts to analyse the way the tsaddik’s wondrous deeds functioned in the popular imagination. My aim is to elucidate how the reality of early twentieth-century Polish-Jewish society corresponded with esoteric speculations. In other words, how the needs of the people were reflected in narratives of miracles and marvels, regardless of their clearly modern background.
Esoteric mythologies in action: images and symbols of russian anthroposophic historiosophy
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2017) Rzeczycka, Monika
This article is devoted to the esoteric symbolism of anthroposophy. Russian anthroposophy, which developed in the underground of Soviet Russia and in isolation from the Goetheanum, the Anthroposophical Society's headquarters in Switzerland, created its own unique symbolism and mythology that surprisingly combines motifs of Western esoteric traditions with elements of native mysticism and historiosophy.
Magic as a science of imagination in the work of Ioan P. Culianu (1950–1991)
(Wydawnictwa AGH, 2017) Moretti, Roberta
The powerful spreading of new technologies and the mass media civilization have had a subtle, stealthy effect on the human imagination, a process that has its counterpart in external reality, in historical changes and in society. The role of imagination through historical changes was extensively explored by Ioan P. Culianu, a Romanian historian of religions and specialist in Late Antiquity and gnosticism, whose research was brutally interrupted by his assassination on May 21, 1991. He was shot to death around midday inside of a toilet at the Department of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago where he was teaching. He was only 41 years old. One of his main books is <i>Eros and magic in the Renaissance</i> (The University of Chicago Press, 1987), which has been translated into many languages and is probably one of the most complex and interesting 20$^{th}$-century studies on magic. He points out that the working of fantasy was fundamental to comprehend magical processes in the Renaissance, since magic was primarily directed to affect human imagination through the manipulation of <i>phantams</i> (»images« in Greek). He has been also a pioneer in the study of the historical vicissitudes that caused imagination to change from a civilization based on magic, as in the Renaissance, to a modern one based on science. To the scholar, the transition from a magic-based society to a modern one is explicable primarily by a <i>change in the imaginary</i>. One of the purposes of this paper is to shed light on the work of Ioan P. Culianu, especially on his research on magic, which he carried out throughout his life. Particularly interesting are the articles published in the last period of his life (1990–1991), when he was trying to develop a new paradigm of knowledge in the Humanities, concentrating on the study of the mind. He was shaping an original but uncompleted theory where the »cognitive revolution« was to be applied across and beyond the contexts of human science.