Joscelyn Godwin's Articles
and Minor Writings
The material posted on this website is for the use of scholars, researchers, and others who want to learn about the subjects addressed. The books and articles contain analysis, historical context, and general illumination of the subject. In no way does the author advocate for the adoption of any philosophy or adherence to any movement discussed in these pages.
When David Fideler asked me to write the Foreword to one of the small and beautifully produced volumes of his press, I agreed. Knowing Iamblichus only through his Life of Pythagoras and his famous book on the Mysteries, I found this text dry and disappointing, but admired Thomas Moore Johnson for his promotion of Platonism in nineteenth-century America. See his complete works on the website:
In Athanasius Kircher und seine Beziehungen zur gelehrten Europa seiner Zeit, ed. John Fletcher (Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1988), 17-36 and plates.
Written at John Fletcher’s invitation for a conference on “Athanasius Kircher and his Relations with Learned Europe of His Time” at the Wolfenbüttel library on 29-30 October, 1980, which I was unable to attend as my son’s birth was expected shortly. I never met John, who lived in Australia, but later helped with the publication of his great posthumous work on Kircher (see no. 84). I show here that Kircher was no occultist, but a practitioner of what he called "natural magic.” The plates were supplied by Cornell University’s History of Science collection, where most of my Kircher research was done. The article is in English.
33. "Prelude to a Fugue. Reflections on Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, Opus 133."
Temenos 9 (1989): 69-77.
The Manhattan Quartet played this work several times at Colgate University, for which I gave an introductory lecture. Notoriously difficult for both players and listeners, I tried to make psychological sense of it for a non-specialist readership, drawing on a description of the experience by the quartet’s first violinist, Eric Lewis, and comparing the fugue’s light-hearted conclusion with other late works of Beethoven’s.
Temenos: a Review of the Arts of the Imagination ceased publication with issue no. 13 (1992). It was succeeded in 1998 by the Temenos Academy Review, website:
34. "The Beginnings of Theosophy in France." London: Theosophical History Centre, 1989.
This 39-page booklet was a separate publication in the Centre's series of "occasional papers." It was based on research in various French libraries, and draws on journals, correspondence, and manuscripts to narrate and document the subject, beginning with the first rumors of Blavatsky's work, continuing with her presence in France, and ending with the rivalries over leadership, especially on the part of Papus. The text is accessible here:
35. “The Hidden Hand.”
Part I: “The Provocation of the Hydesville Phenomena.”
Theosophical History III/2 [New Series] (1990): 35-43.
Part II: “The Brotherhood of Light.”
Theosophical History III/3 (1990): 66-76.
Part III: “The Parting of East and West.”
Theosophical History III/4 (1990): 107-17.
Part IV: “The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.”
Theosophical History III/5 (1991): 137-48.
An investigation into the Theosophical Society’s notorious rival and into conspiratorial rumors about spiritualist and Theosophical origins, based on archives and comparative analyses of doctrines. Parts were included in The Theosophical Enlightenment, in The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor: Initiatic and Historical Documents of an Order of Practical Occultism, edited by Christian Chanel, John Patrick Deveney, and myself, and in Upstate Cauldron. It concerns the theory that a “hidden hand” was responsible both for launching the spiritualist movement in 1848 and the Theosophical Society in 1875, in order to manipulate public interest either for good or ill—the conclusion is unclear.
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Theosophical History was founded in London by Leslie Price in January 1985, and ran through Vol. III, No. 2. In 1990 the editorship passed to James A. Santucci in Fullerton, California, and the numbering resumed with Vol. III, No. 1 [New Series]. See the website:
Hermetic Journal 1991: 49-77.
The Hermetic Journal had by now become an annual, rather than a quarterly, and its paper publication would cease in the following year. Adam McLean was quick to see the potential of the Internet for the promotion of Hermetic studies. See his website:
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/adam.html
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As far as I know, this was the first attempt at a comprehensive presentation and evaluation of the author of The Rosicrucians, their Rites and Mysteries (1870) explaining how that influential and misleading work came to be what it was. I researched it mostly in the British Library and the Hertfordshire County Archives (for the Bulwer Lytton papers). The Theosophical Enlightenment contains some of this material in the chapter on “Rosicrucian Pretenders.”
For a shorter version, see the paper from the Lyon 1991 conference: “Hargrave Jennings and the Philosophy of Fire,” no. 36A.
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36A. “Hargrave Jennings and the Philosophy of Fire.”
In Le Défi magique: ésotérisme, occultisme, spiritisme, vol. 1, ed. Jean-Baptiste Martin and François Laplantine (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1994), 163-69.
In English, with a summary in French.
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This paper summarizes my research on Jennings, as presented at greater length in my Hermetic Journal article (no. 36). It was given at a conference at the Bibliothèque Municipale of Lyon, April 6-8, 1991, organized by Massimo Introvigne’s CESNUR (Centro Studi sulle Nuove Religioni) and local academic and municipal entities: a memorable event that helped to solidify the impartial and academic study of New Religious Movements, Western Esotericism, and Satanism.
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37. "Opera and the Amorous Initiation."
Temenos 12 (1991): 129-40.
Another musical contribution to Kathleen Raine’s annual, aimed at a non-specialist but sophisticated readership and explaining the “sacred eroticism” of at least some operas, if not the main purpose of the whole genre. In the same year, on sabbatical leave in England, I gave a series of four lectures on opera at the Temenos Academy which Kathleen attended, treating Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Mozart's Magic Flute, Wagner’s Meistersinger, and Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht.
38. “Schwaller de Lubicz, les Veilleurs et la connexion nazie.”
Politica Hermetica 5 (1991): 101-108.
Friendship with my reclusive Upstate neighbor André VandenBroeck led to various attempts to publicize his book Al-Kemi, in which he revealed a dark side of this esoteric master. The “Veilleurs” (Watchers) were a politico-esoteric group led by René Schwaller de Lubicz after World War I, of which Rudolf Hess was reputedly a member. The article lists the suggestive parallels between the Veilleurs and the proto-Nazi movement, leaving the actual connection an open question. The journal’s editor, Jean-Pierre Laurant, whose seminars I had attended at the Sorbonne, corrected my French.
39. Foreword to Basarab Nicolescu, Science, Meaning, and Evolution (NY: Parabola Books, 1991), 1-4.
I met Nicolescu, a nuclear physicist and scientific philosopher of great distinction, at Antoine Faivre’s. Although totally ignorant of his scientific field and almost as ignorant of Jacob Boehme’s theosophy (which has never attracted me), I was much honored by the invitation to write a Foreword to the U.S. edition of his book. In 1992 it was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best History Book, USA.
The Cerealogist 6 (1992): 14-15.
An attempt to bring a balanced attitude and a historical approach to the crop-circle phenomenon, written for John Michell’s journal (sometimes spelled Cereologist) during my sabbatical leave in Letchworth, U.K., 1991-92. The “lessons” include some of the phenomena of 19th-century spiritualism and Theosophy discussed in “The Hidden Hand” (no. 35).
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40A. “Queen Victoria and the Crystal.”
The Occult Observer II/2 (Autumn 1992): 27-28.
In William Hockley’s diaries at Freemasons’ Hall, London, while researching for The Theosophical Enlightenment, I discovered a purported communication with Queen Victoria via crystal gazing and published its essentials with a commentary.
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The original Occult Observer (1949-1950) was edited by Michael Juste, the founder of the Atlantis Bookshop in London. The journal and its title were revived by Caroline Wise, a subsequent owner of the famous occult bookshop. I discovered this article after the majority of these items were already numbered and inserted it in chronological sequence, hence the number 40A.