The Hermetic Imagination in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

a conference on

October 5-6, 2001

at the Clark Library

arranged by

Pamela Smith, Pomona College, and Peter Reill, UCLA

One of the most important intellectual events of the Renaissance was the introduction into Western Europe, in the fifteenth century, of the Hermetic Corpus, with its central doctrine of the human being as a “little God” who could effect changes in nature by means of “natural magic.” Because scholars viewed this body of texts as contemporary with Moses and thus another source of God’s revelation, it was studied carefully, and its effect on Western ideas about the relationship of human beings to nature was far-reaching. Where Aristotle had seen human art as imitating nature, Hermetic writings encouraged one to see human art as not merely emulating but rivaling nature. In both art theory and alchemy, the Hermetic adept came to be seen as capable of perfecting, and even superseding, nature. Isaac Causabon’s proof in 1614 that the Hermetic Corpus was actually compiled around 200 a.d. did nothing to diminish the influence of Hermetic ideas on Western European thought. In the seventeenth century, Hermetic ideas would contribute to the view that both art and the “new science” could “master” and command lifeless, malleable nature in the disciplined spaces of the laboratory and workshop. Though Hermeticism, especially in its more obvious forms, increasingly came under attack during the eighteenth century, it still played an important, though more subtle, role in shaping some of the Enlightenment’s central institutions and patterns of thought. These range from the rise of the Freemasons to the revitalization of the life sciences and the tremendous flowering of esoteric movements in the last half of the century. This conference will bring together scholars from varied disciplines to investigate the contours of this important strain of early modern European thought and action.

 

* Revised * Conference Program

Friday, October 5

9:30 a.m. • morning coffee

10:00 a.m. • session 1

Bruce T. Moran, University of Nevada, Reno

Paracelsus, Paracelsianism, and the Imagination: Fear, Loathing, and the Construction of a Category

Daniel Stolzenberg, Stanford University

Obelisks, Arabs, and the Corpus Hermeticum: Athanasius Kircher’s Hermes Trismegistus

12:00 noon • lunch

1:30 p.m. • session 2

Teofilo F. Ruiz, UCLA

Echoes of the Hermetic Tradition in Early Modern Spain

Gary Tomlinson, University of Pennsylvania

The Afterlife of Hermetic Song: Vico’s New Science

4:00 p.m. • reception
 

Saturday, October 6

9:30 a.m. • morning coffee

10:00 a.m. • session 3

Didier Kahn, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris

Austria Hermetica: Paracelsianism, Alchemy, and Diplomacy in the Context of the Peace of Westphalia

Helena Rosenblatt, Independent Scholar, Zürich

The Enlightened Theosophy of Louis-Claude Saint-Martin (1743–1803)

12:00 p.m. • lunch

2:00 p.m. • session 4

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Universiteit van Amsterdam

Swedenborg in Oetinger’s Hermetic Imagination

Allison P. Coudert, Arizona State University

Hermeticism and the German Romantics

Robert S. Westman, University of California, San Diego

Commentary

 

**cancelled** Michael Stausberg, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg

The Chaldean Oracles and the Hermetic Imagination

**cancelled** Hans Erich Bödeker, Max-Planck-Institut-für-Geschichte, Göttingen

“Only true natural philosophers can maintain incontrovertibly that they know nature in its totality”: Hermetical Arguments of Georg Foster

Registration Information

* Space is still available * (as of 10-2-01)

Registration deadline:    October 1, 2001 Please note that space is limited and registration closes when capacity is reached.
To register, please fill out the form below and mail it to the Center address.


Registration fees:         UC Faculty & staff: $15; students: free of charge; others: $25

Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments.

Address all inquiries to the Center:

Phone: 310-206-8552
E-mail:
Please call a week ahead to arrange for wheelchair access.

Registration Form

The Hermetic Imagination in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Registration deadline:     October 1, 2001
            Please note that space is limited and registration closes when capacity is reached.
Registration Fees:            UC Faculty & staff: $15; students: free of charge; others: $25 Fees include the cost of lunches and other refreshments.


Name ______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

Phone number ________________________________________________________________

Email Address ________________________________________________________________

Internet access? ______________ (see note on papers, above)

UC status, UC department _______________________________________________________

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Mail this form and your check (payable to UC Regents) to

 
Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies
310 Royce Hall, UCLA
Box 951404
Los Angeles, California 90095-1404
Campus Mail Code:  140403


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