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Article: The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance.
- Article from:
- Journal of Church and State
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 J.M. Dawson Studies in Church and State. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By Arthur Versluis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 234 pp. np.
Arthur Versluis argues that Western esotericism--a wide range of spiritual currents that included alchemy, Hermeticism, Kabbala, Rosicrucianism, and Christian theosophy--transcended both subjectivism and scientific rationalism, giving birth to both industrialization (i.e., objectification) and Romanticism (subjectification). One cannot, he maintains, fully understand American Transcendentalism and many writers of the American Renaissance without an adequate understanding of the role played by esotericism in their creative imaginations. Versluis's claims are modest and therefore credible. ...