THE ROSE CIRCLE RESEARCH FOUNDATION

October 4th, 2008 - 2nd Annual Conference
Location: Masonic Hall, 71 West 23rd St., New York, NY 10010

Join us for the 2nd Annual Rose Circle Conference. We will be presenting speakers from all over the world to further your Esoteric education. Current confirmed speakers include:

• Christopher McIntosh was born in England in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and German at London University, later returning to Oxford to take a doctorate in history with a dissertation on the Rosicrucian revival in the context of the German Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. After working in London in journalism and publishing he spent four years in New York as an information officer with the United Nations Development Programme, then moved to Germany to work for UNESCO. In parallel he has pursued a career as a writer and researcher specialising in the esoteric traditions.

His books include The Astrologers and their Creed (1969); Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival (1972); The Rosicrucians (latest edition 1997); The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (1992), based on his D.Phil. dissertation; The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria (latest edition 2003); and Gardens of the Gods (2005). His fictional work includes the occult novel Return of the Tetrad published in Czech as Navrat Tetradi (1998).

He also has a long-standing interest in nature-oriented belief systems. He has lectured widely and is on the faculty of the distance M.A. programme in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter, England. His home is in Bremen, North Germany. Mr McIntosh is a long-standing member of the Pilgrim Lodge No. 238, London. This is a very unusual lodge in that it was founded in 1779 by Germans living in London and still conducts its rituals in German. It also uses an unusual German working different from the regular English Emulation working.

• R. A. Gilbert, British author of numerous masonic, historical and rosicrucian books, journals and articles (most recently having co-authored ‘Freemasonry: A Celebration of the Craft” with John Hamill, Director of Communications for the United Grand Lodge of England. Bob Gilbert is England’s foremost book antiquarian. As former Librarian and Archivist to the SRIA, he became well known for his numerous contributions to Rosicrucian Scholarship. R. A. Gilbert is an expert on Freemasonry and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn & Christian Esoterica in general. He is a Past Prestonian Lecturer (1997) and former editor of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum (AQC) while currently serving as chairman of QCCC Ltd.

Articles by Gilbert:
http://www.mastermason.com/luxocculta/westcott.htm
http://www.mastermason.com/luxocculta/hermetic.htm

Books by Gilbert:
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=R.%20A.%20Gilbert&page=1
http://www.bookfinder.com/author/r-a-gilbert/

SHAUNA DOYLE DE BRUN: Confirmed Conference Paper

HERMAN HESSE (1877-1962)

LITERARY FIGURES AND ESOTERICISM: HERMAN HESSE

Hermann Hesse´s book, Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game), is a literary representation of a life seeking to discover one’s innermost being and the path to self- realization; in other words, Gnosis. The Glass Bead Game in essence relates the autobiographical culmination of Hesse´s own inner search for Gnosis while incorporating and invoking prior esoteric teachings and practices. With especial reference to the following quotations from the book.

“How far back the historian wishes to place the origins and antecedents of the Glass Bead Game is, ultimately, a matter of his personal choice. For like every great idea it has no real beginning; rather, it has always been, at least the idea of it. We find it foreshadowed, as a dim anticipation and hope, in a good many earlier ages. There are hints of it in Pythagoras, for example, and then among Hellenistic Gnostic circles in the late period of classical civilization. We find it equally among the ancient Chinese, then again at the several pinnacles of Arabic-Moorish culture; and the path of its prehistory leads on through Scholasticism and Humanism to the academies of mathematicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and on to the Romantic philosophies and the runes of Novalis´s hallucinatory visions. This same eternal idea, which for us has been embodied in the Glass Bead Game, has underlain every movement of the Mind toward the ideal goal of a universitas litterarum, every Platonic academy, every league of an intellectual elite, every rapprochement between the exact and the more liberal disciplines, every effort toward reconciliation between science and art or science and religion.”
Page 7.

“In the symbols, ciphers, signatures, and abbreviations of the Game language an astronomical formula, the principles of form underlying an old sonata, an utterance of Confucius, and so on, were written down. A reader who chanced to be ignorant of the Glass Bead Game might imagine such a game pattern as rather similar to the pattern of a chess game, except that the significances of the pieces and the potentialities of their relationships to one another and their effect upon one another multiplied manyfold and an actual content must be ascribed to each piece, each constellation, each chess move, of which this move, configuration, and so on is a symbol.”
Page 110.

The Glass Bead Game

We re-enact with reverent attention
The universal chord, the masters´ harmony,
Evoking in unsullied communion
Minds and time of highest sanctity.

We draw upon the iconography
Whose mystery is able to contain
The boundlessness, the storm of all existence,
Give chaos form, and hold our lives in rein.

The pattern sings like crystal constellations,
And when we tell our beads, we serve the whole,
And cannot be dislodged or misdirected,
Held in the orbit of the Cosmic Soul.

(See The Poems of Knecht´s Student Years, Page 412)

Hesse, Hermann, Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game), (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1970).

Shauna Doyle de Brun is an MA student at the University of Exeter, Centre for the Study of Esotericism.

KABBALAH & CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUAL REVIVAL: Ben Gurion University, May 20-22, 2008

Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival: Historical, Sociological and Cultural Perspectives
Research Workshop of the Israel Science Foundation and the Goren-Goldstein Center for Jewish Thought
Ben Gurion University, May 20-22, 2008Conference Hall A (Ulam Knasim Aleph)

Tuesday, May 20th
9:30-10:00
Reception

1st session
10:00-11:30
Greetings
Prof. Rivka Carmi, President of Ben Gurion University
Prof. Hayim Kreisel, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Director of the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought
Boaz Huss, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev : Studying Contemporary Kabbalah - Achievements and Challenges
Philip Wexler, Hebrew University of Jerusalem : Toward a Social Psychology of Contemporary Spirituality

2nd session
11:45-13:15
Chair: Philip Wexler, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Jonathan Garb, Hebrew University of Jerusalem : The Spiritual-Mystical Renaissance in the Contemporary Haredi World
Michel Rosenthal, University of Haifa : “Are you willing to cover your head?” Notes on the spiritual economy of blessings at Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak’s lectures

3rd session
14:30-16:00
Chair: Elliot Wolfson, New York University.
Wouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam : Kabbalah in Gnosis Magazine (1985-1999)
Graham Harvey, the Open University, UK : Paganism: negotiating between esotericism and animism

4th session
16:30-18:00
Chair: Graham Harvey, Open University, UK.
James R. Lewis, University of Wisconsin : The Science of Kabbalah
Chava Weissler, Lehigh University: Performing Kabbalah/“Kabbalah” in the Jewish Renewal Movement

Wednesday, May 21st
5th session
9:00-11:15
Chair: Jody Myers, California State University.
Marianna Ruah-Midbar, Zefat Academic College : Jewish Spirituality in the New Age – Emerging Jewish-Israeli Phenomena in the Junction with New Age Culture
Joseph Loss, Haifa University: Transforming Experiences in the practice of Buddha Dhamma (the Path of the Buddha) in Contemporary Israel
Adam Klin-Oron, Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Messages for the End: Eschatological Thought in 20th Century Channeling and its Israeli Varieties

6th session
11:45-13:15
Chair: Zeev Gris, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Zvi Mark, Bar-Ilan University : The Contemporary Renassaince of Breslov Hasidism—Ritual, Tikkun and Messianism
Jonatan Meir, Hebrew University of Jerusalem : The Revealed which Conceals: R. Shalom Sharabi’s Kabbalah, Esotericism and the Printing of Kabbalistic Books

7th session
14:30-16:00
Chair: Jim Lewis, University of Wisconsin.
Jody Myers, California State University : Kabbalah for the Gentiles: Diverse Souls and Universalism in Contemporary Kabbalah
Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill : From Habad Emissaries to Kabbalah Centers: New Jewish Religious Movements and the Revitalization of Judaism in the later decades of the Twentieth Century.

8th session
16:30-18:00
Chair: Yakov Ariel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Elliot R. Wolfson, New York University : Apocalyptic Transposition and the Status of the Non-Jew in Habad Mysticism
Yoram Bilu, Hebrew University of Jerusalem : Making the Absent Rabbi Present: Virtuality, Iconophilia, and Apparitions in Messianic Chabad

Dinner, Mateh Ba-Midbar

Thursday, May 22nd
9th session
9:30-11:00
Chair: Chava Weissler, Lehigh University.
Rachel Werczberger, Hebrew University of Jerusalem : Jewish Self-Healing - The Case of Jewish Spiritual Renewal in Israel
Shlomo Fischer, Tel Aviv University : Can New Individualist Spiritualism Also Coexist with Violence and Collective Commitments? New Spiritual Developments Among the Religious Zionist Community in Israel

10th session
11:30-13:00
Chair: Boaz Huss, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Omri Ruah-Midbar, Bar Ilan University : A Comparative Study of Current Spiritualities through three Musical Versions of ‘Im Nin’alu’
Tamar Katriel, University of Haifa : Precursors to contemporary New Age spirituality in Israeli cultural ethos

2009 CONFERENCE FOR ART HISTORIANS:FINLAND

Jyväskylä, Finland

Kongressi: Mind and Matter - Nordik 2009 Conference for Art Historians
Viimeisin muutos 28.03.2008
Alkamisaika: keskiviikko 17. syyskuuta 2008, 00.00
Päättymisaika: perjantai 19. syyskuuta 2008, 00.00
Paikka: Seminaarinmäki Main building, C1, C3, C4, C5
Date: September 17–19 2009 Location: The University of Jyväskylä, Finland

Keynote speakers: David Morgan (USA), Naomi Stead (Australia), Per H. Hansen (Danmark).
Organizers: The Department of Art and Culture Studies / Art history, Nordik committee for art history, Taidehistorian seura – Föreningen för konsthistoria ry, The City of Jyväskylä.

Further information: http://www.jyu.fi.nordik2009

Mind and Matter – The 9th Nordik Conference will be arranged in Jyväskylä, Finland on 17-19th of September 2009. The Conference invites Nordic, European and other art historians for three days to approach to the theme Mind and Matter.

Mind and Matter concentrates on systems of beliefs and thinking in Art and Art History and their relation to empirical material. We wish to focus on practices and problems arising from the interaction of empirical material and abstract or immaterial principles such as thoughts, beliefs, ideas, religions and political ideologies. Discussions of methodological strategies invite to reflect on the interdisciplinary character of art history. We encourage contributions from various theoretical issues and practices to explicit visual analysis, and welcome all fields of art history including visual studies, architecture, design, new media and museology.

Suggested topics for presentations are

POLITICS OF ART HISTORY: politics and ethics of method and practice; discourses of canonizing, ethnicity, gender, national identity, multiculturalism; politics of displays; art and cultural policy.

SPIRITUAL LANDSCAPES: landscape as motive and form; mental structure; cultural construction.

PICTURING MEMORY: memory and visual culture; collecting; oblivion; heritage.

CREATIVE PROCESSES: emotion, experience and interpretation in art and art history; performativity; psychology and philosophy of art.

VISUALISING FAITH AND BELIEFS: popular religious imagery; esoteric dogma and visual form; iconoclasms; clashes of religious cultures; spirituality; piety.

DESIGN MATTERS: concept design; designing sustainability; usability; immateriality and materiality.

http://www.jyu.fi.nordik2009