LAURENCE WUIDAR: NEW PUBLICATIONS

See below Laurence Wuidar’s two new publications

d’Histoire de l’Art
BHA 10

Musique et astrologie après le concile de Trente

190 x 255 mm, 2008, Paperback
ISBN 978-90-74461-70-2, EUR 42.00

Disponible/Available

French Text:
La musique terrestre est le reflet de l’harmonie des sphères célestes mais l’homme n’a pas seulement contemplé les étoiles pour leur parfaite structure, il les a aussi interrogées pour comprendre leur influence sur le monde sublunaire. Dans ce questionnement astral, la musique sert de lien entre l’homme et les planètes.
Unissant l’histoire de l’astrologie et la musicologie, l’auteur propose un parcours théorique et pratique à travers la constellation des rapports entre l’astrologie et la musique dans l’Europe marquée par l’esprit post-tridentin en se centrant sur l’Italie du XVIIème siècle. L’interpénétration des connaissances magiques, musicales, mathématiques, astronomiques et astrologiques dit une époque qui cherche à harmoniser les lois cosmiques et éternelles avec la fugacité terrestre. La réception de l’astrologie dans les milieux de musiciens, des partitions musicales astrologiques aux écrits divinatoires de théoriciens musicaux, ouvre sur des perspectives esthétiques, sociologiques et philosophiques de la société des compositeurs de la Renaissance et du XVIIème siècle.

Docteur en musicologie (ULB), Laurence Wuidar est actuellement Chargé de recherche au Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique après avoir exercé des mandats de recherches au Warburg Institute, au Collegio dei Fiamminghi (Université de Bologne), à la Fondation Wiener-Anspach (Université de Cambridge) et à l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome.

Main Subject:
• 783 – Fine Arts & Performing Arts / Musicology / Baroque (c. 1600-1750)

Other Subject:
• 783 – Fine Arts & Performing Arts / Musicology / Baroque (c. 1600-1750)
Prices in Euro, excluding taxes and shipping costs.

http://www.brepols.net/catalogue/index.jsp?mpk=20295&art=2218577

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Wuidar, Laurence sous presse

Canons énigmes et hiéroglyphes musicaux dans l’Italie du 17e siècle

Collection: Etudes de Musicologie / Musicological Studies Vol. 1

Année de publication: 2008

Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2008. 265 p., 82 ill.
ISBN 978-90-5201-457-9 br.

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Prix de vente
SFR 39.00 €* 26.60 €** 27.40 € 24.90 £ 18.70 US-$ 38.95

* comprend la TVA – uniquement valable pour l’Allemagne [Devise de facturation]

** comprend la TVA – uniquement valable pour l’Autriche

Discipline(s)

Musique

Texte de présentation

Comment saisir les reflets sonores de la philosophie hermétique de la Renaissance et les traductions musicales du mode de pensée hiéroglyphique et emblématique ? Au 17e siècle, coeur des changements épistémologiques, des révolutions scientifiques aux évolutions stylistiques et esthétiques, le canon énigme, alliant aux partitions énigmatiques tantôt des poésies cryptées, tantôt des images religieuses ou labyrinthiques, est à la fois le réceptacle d’idées, d’idéologies et de symboles, et le lieu musical où les compositeurs se font théologiens, herméneutes et exégètes. La science musicale du contrepoint et la fascination des combinatoires infinies se conjuguent en des formes d’art total où dialoguent texte, musique et image. Le corpus rassemblé éclaire la face obscure de la musique baroque à un moment précis de l’histoire où la société des compositeurs et des théoriciens musicaux élabore des codes signifiants dans lesquels se cachent les symboles, les sens et l’essence d’une philosophie musicale sacrée.

Contenu

Contenu : Les canons du monde : Emblème de l’univers – Devises cryptées – Déclarations des signes et insignes d’autorité – Les canons et sceaux sacrés : Invocations canoniques aux médiateurs célestes – L’Énigme au coeur de San Pietro – Hermétisme et herméneutique musicale : Les prières énigmatiques de Pier Francesco Valentini – Romano Micheli : ésotérisme musical et exégèse – Les Geroglifici musicali de Lodovico Zacconi.

Auteur(s) – Responsable(s) de publication

L’auteur : Laurence Wuidar, docteur en Philosophie & Lettres – musicologie de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles et chargé de recherche au Fonds national de la recherche scientifique (FNRS), a exercé des mandats de recherche au FNRS, au Warburg Institute (University of London, Frances A. Yates Fellowship, 2006-2007), au Collegio dei Fiamminghi (Università di Bologna, 2004-2005), à la Fondation Wiener-Anspach (University of Cambridge, Gonville & Caius College, 2004) et à l’Institut historique belge de Rome (Rome, Academia Belgica, 2003-2004, 2007-2008).

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The CAMBRIDGE CENTRE for the study of WESTERN ESOTERICISM is independent of any academic or esoteric communities, the directors share an interest in the need for a wider dialogue between scholars and practitioners in the field of Western Esotericism and in the establishment of a secular space in which an interdisciplinary network can thrive.. From 2009 CCWE has operated within Lighthouse editions Limited, a small publishing company Directors: Dr Sophia Wellbeloved, Jeremy Cranswick – see http://gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com

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PROGRAMME: HIDDEN SOURCES: Western Esoteric Influence on the Arts

Update on the Second annual CCWE one day conference.

Date: Saturday, 11th October 2008, 9.30am – 5.00pm
Venue: The Unitarian Church building, Emanuel Road, Cambridge, Emmanuel Road, CB1 1JW

For all enquiries plus registration please contact Dr Sophia Wellbeloved at
s.wellbeloved@gmail.com

Chaired by
Andrew James Brown
Whilst studying the philosophy of the Enlightenment at Oxford AJB became aware that many of the period’s philosophers drew upon western esoteric traditions. That many ideas now central to secular liberal democracies led him to explore, in particular, the work of Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-1698) and his contribution to ideas of universal salvation and religious toleration.

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The influence of Western Esotericism in Literature, Music and Esoteric Geometry is examined by the following presenters:

MALCOLM GUITE’S KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Western Esotericism and the Arts.

This address will trace the hidden course and some of the sources of the stream of “esoteric” thought and imagery which flows, so often unnoticed through western arts, and in particular will look at literature. The line of esoteric insight and understanding which passes through Boehme to Swedenborg, to Blake and from Blake through to Yeats and so into the “mainstream” of high modernist literature is well known. Less well known is the way renaissance revivals of hermetic learning pass down through Milton, to later poets and especially Coleridge, who was familiar in the original languages of almost the entire Corpus Hermeticum and was also reading and critiquing the German mystical writers and Swedenborg. Indeed it was through Swedenborgian circles that the meeting between Coleridge and Blake was arranged, a hugely significant event which is completely ignored by mainstream literary history. I will suggest in this paper that there is a line to be traced from Coleridge to many “mainstream” nineteenth and and twentieth century writers.

Perhaps the most unlikely literary group to be formed and informed by esoterica, the Oxford Inklings, the group of creative Christian apologists centred around CS Lewis which included Tolkien, Charles Williams and Owen Barfield. He will show that the works of this latter group depend very strongly for their shape and meaning on astrological structure and also on a mysticism of primal sound and harmony. Specifically we will look at how esoteric tradition from the Order of the Golden Dawn passes through Charles Williams to Lewis, whilst at the same time Owen Barfield, a devotee of Rudolph Stiener, is able to persuade Lewis, through the thought of Coleridge, of the creative and truth-bearing powers of imagination.

We will explore the way in which Tolkien’s concept of mytho-poeia affects both his own and Lewis’ writings and finally at the way in which these many themes are harmoniously linked in Tolkien’s work especially the Silmarillion, whose initial images of creation can be traced back via Georgio’s mystical “Harmonia Mundi” to the earliest orphic traditions. At present the Inklings are pigeonholed as “conservative Christians” and often used as blunt weapons in the conflicts between conservative Christianity and both secularism on the one hand .and non Christian spirituality on the other. My contention is that the rediscovery and defence of Christian mysticism in the works of these writers involves a recovery of just those esoteric and mystical elements which could make Christianity a harmonious participant in our contemporary spiritual awakening and not, as some would have it, a fearful forbidder.

MALCOLM GUITE was born in Nigeria and raised in Africa and Canada, Malcolm Guite is a poet and singer-songwriter living in Cambridge, where he also works as a priest and academic. He has published two collections of poetry; Saying the Names 2002 and The Magic Apple Tree 2004 and has also published poems in Radix, The Mars Hill Review, Crux, Second Spring and the Ambler. He has played in rock’n’ roll band The Crocodiles, trad jazz outfit Ecu-Jazz, and is currently front man for Cambridge rockers Mystery Train. He has collaborated with Kevin Flanagan on jazz-poetry and also the oratorio The Ten Thousand Things for which he wrote the libretto. His CD The Green Man is out on Cambridge Riffs and iTunes. http://www.malcolmguite.com

Some Publications:
What Do Christians Believe? Granta 2006, (Dutch Edition 2007, Greek Edition 2007, American Edition 2008), part of Granta’s new series on different faith-systems: What Do We Believe?.

In preparation for Ashgate: Faith Hope and Poetry to be published in their series Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts.

‘Poetry, Playfulness and Truth…’ a chapter on the theology of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest in Faithful Performances; Enacting Christian Tradition ed. Trevor Hart and Stephen Guthrie Ashgate 2007.

Contributions on Numbers and Exodus in Reflections for Daily Prayer; Lent to Pentecost Church House Publishing 2008.

Six poems in Live Simply Canterbury Press 2008

His poems have been published in Radix, Second Spring, Mars Hill Review, Crux, Poetry on the Lake and The Ambler.

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Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Utriusque cosmi maioris
scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque
technica histori. Oppenheim, 1619

from Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s 1586 treatise De Humana Physiognomia.

CHRISTOPHER WEBSTER looks at the:

FACE OF THE DIVINE: THE ESOTERIC ROOTS OF PHYSIONOMIC PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography has, since its announcement to the world in 1839, wielded a deep psychological power over those photographed and for those in possession of photographs. This power stems from the fact that rather than the image being a simulacrum – a sketch – the photograph is perceived to be the very image of the sitter, their reflected shade. Nature, in the photograph, does indeed seem to record nature.

The apparent veracity of the photographic image in these contexts lent it an unprecedented (and often unquestioned) credibility. The camera’s ability to accurately reproduce the world on a two-dimensional surface stood as proof that the manner in which a subject was recorded was definitive and unquestionable. Despite its shrunken, monotone and two-dimensional appearance, the photograph was held in a position of unparalleled importance as a piece of factual evidence.

In the nineteenth century the ability of the camera to take (as opposed to make) a likeness was quickly matched with the developing concepts of likeness as a measure of the inner man. T. H. Huxley suggested that by understanding and measuring every aspect of the physical exterior of the body something of the inner man and his history might be revealed. If knowledge could be gleaned from looking then it followed that such measurement and documentation would lead to understanding. As a device of moralising and comparison the photograph was unsurpassed – for as it was so closely linked to reality belief followed. But the origins of this belief in a physiognomic reading were derived from an esoteric knowledge that had been in existence since antiquity. Indeed Johan Casper Lavater stresses in his seminal physiognomic text (Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775-1778)) the likeness as a derivation of the mark of the creator, a mystical connection to a higher ideal that through moral degradation leads to visual ‘types’.

My paper touches upon the journey from this esoteric connectivity to a mystical ideal through to its (dark) culmination in the search for a (mystical) purity of race and type in the comparative photography of German scientist and eugenicist Hans F. K. Gunther (author of The Racial Elements of European History (1927)).

I will use images as illustrations of this historical examination of the divine geometry – for e.g. illustrations to Robert Fludd’s Utriusque cosmi, Della Porta’s De Humana Physiognomia, Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy,some examples of anthropometric photographs and photographic illustrations from Hans F. K. Gunther’s The Racial Elements of European Culture and as a comparison one or two examples of the photographic project undertaken by the German photographer August Sander in his Man of the Twentieth Century.

Christopher Webster writes:
‘I was born in England in 1965. In 1982, when I was 16, my family moved to South Africa. In 1989 I graduated from art school in South Africa. After teaching and practising as an artist in the Johannesburg area for several years, I returned to the UK and lived for a year in London. In 1996 I was appointed lecturer in fine art at Aberystwyth University’s School of Art. In 2006 I completed my PhD in Fine Art. I continue to live in west Wales where I teach, write and work as an artist.’

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Giorgio De Chirico – 1888-1978

DE CHIRICO’S ‘LE BAL’ AND THE
RECONSTRUCTION OF METAPHOR

The ballet Le Bal was one of the last productions staged by the Ballets Russes. One month after it opened in London, Sergei Diaghilev was dead. But its initial opening on May 9, 1929 in Monte Carlo and subsequent runs in Paris and London were met with high acclaim. With sets designed by Giorgio De Chirico, the scenario by the Russian dancer and librettist Boris Kochno was based on a story by the Romantic poet Vladimir Sologub in which a young man falls in love with a masked woman at a masquerade ball. This paper will explore esoteric aspects of De Chirico’s scenography and examine relationships between his costume and stage designs and the esoteric iconography of his paintings. In these works, the “masque” of reality includes allusions to columns, temples and architectural elements that connote the damaged, or deconstructed “inner” structural integrity of art and society.

Giovanna Constantini

Giovanna Costantini holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in the History of Art. An NEH award recipient, her academic appointments have included professorships at the State University of New York and the University of Michigan, with Visiting Scholar residencies at the American Academy in Rome. Her research centers on esotericism in the art of the early twentieth century, with special emphasis on De Chirico, the Parisian avant-garde and Surrealism, as well as modernist interpretations of the tarot and the shadow theatre. Her reviews of art historical texts and exhibition catalogues have appeared in The Art Book (Blackwell). An active member of ESSWE and ASE, she has delivered papers on
esotericism in art at conferences in den Hague (The Netherlands), Davis (CA), Tübingen (Germany) and Charleston (SC). Other papers on art have been presented at the Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) in New York and College Art Association conferences in Seattle (WA), Chicago (IL) and San Antonio (TX).

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In the field of music we are fortunate to have with us Laurence Wuidar (F.N.R.S.) Docteur en musicologie de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is looking at:

Claudio Monteverdi

ESOTERIC TRADITION WITHIN 16th and 17th CENTURIES MUSICAL CIRCLES

It is well know that esotericism may be a starting point for musical compositions, such as the works composed for the Masonic loges. It is also well know that esotericism may be the secret key to decipher a musical score, such as the too famous Bach-numerology topic. It is much less known that a lot of composers and musicians were also alchemists, astrologers or magicians.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse various esoteric activities of some sixteenth and seventeenth century composers and musicians, mainly in Italy, where the Inquisition was forever prone to censure them. The esoteric expression of a humanistic encyclopaedism reveals how the figure of the composer was not imaginable per se. Thus we distort history by regarding them only as composers or musical theoreticians. Only by breaking down the wall between the disciplines can we reconstitute the visage of musicians, such as Claudio Monteverdi, Lodovico Zacconi, Pier Francesco Valentini, Theodato Osio or Guido Trasuntino. The interest and the activities (teachings, writings and experiments) of these musicians for the sciences and arts, such as astrology or alchemy, tell us how their knowledge was a multidiscipline one. It also tells us how the musical process of composition has, in fact, synergies with such arts and sciences. That is ‘quintessentially’ true if we look at the enigmatic canons, the hidden message they veil to the profane and reveal to the initiated, as well as the manner they were resolved after a process of ora, labora & invenies (to quote the motto we find in the Mutus liber, in the Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae of Heinrich Khunrath and in many other enigmatic canons). The composers were the custodians of secret rules, whether astrological, musical or alchemical, they taught to a small number of disciples. Thus their musical activities can not be completely understood if we are not first aware of their esoteric activities.

Laurence Wuidar

Docteur en Philosophie & Lettres – Musicologie (ULB, 2007) avec une thèse intitulée Musique et hermétisme après le concile de Trente : Astrologie et canons énigmes (« Thèse Européenne » défendue en français, italien, anglais), détentrice d’un DEA en Histoire de l’Art (ULB, 2003), agrégée de l’enseignement supérieur (ULB, 2003), licenciée en musicologie (ULB, 2002), candidate en droit (FUSL, 1998), Laurence Wuidar est actuellement chercheur au FNRS et suit les cours du Master de la Scuola di Paleografia & Diplomatica de l’Archivio Segreto Vaticano après avoir exercé des mandats de recherches au Warburg Institute (University of London, Research Fellow, Frances A. Yates Fellowship 2006-2007), à l’Université de Bologne (Università di Bologna, Collegio dei Fiamminghi, Fondation Jean Jacobs 2004-2005), à l’Université de Cambridge (Cambridge University, Fondation Wiener-Anspach, Gonville & Caius College, Research Fellow, 2004) et avoir obtenu une bourse de recherche de l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome (Rome, Academia Belgica, 2003-2004). Du 14 au 18 avril 2008, elle a organisé à l’Academia Belgica de Rome le colloque international “Musique et ésotérisme”, qui a rassemblé une trentaine de conférenciers venus de treize pays.

Philosophie des formes musicales cryptées et énigmatiques, histoire de l’astrologie dans ses rapports avec l’histoire de la musique aux Temps Modernes, étude comparée de la littérature emblématique et de la musique jusqu’au 18ème siècle, démonologie et musique dans la Renaissance italienne.

Publications Monographies

– Canons énigmes et hiéroglyphes musicaux dans l’Italie du 17è siècle. De la cryptographie hermétique à l’herméneutique sacrée chez Pierre Francesco Valentini, Romano Micheli et Lodovico Zacconi, Bruxelles, Peter Lang, à paraître (prévu : fin septembre 2008.

– Musique et astrologie après le concile de Trente, Turnhout, Brepols, à paraître (prévu : août 2008.

– Musique et emblèmes : miroirs symboliques et imaginaires sonores (1531-1750), présenté au concours de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, 2008.

Articles

– « L’interdetto della conoscenza: segreti celesti e arcani musicali nel Cinque e Seicento », Bruniana & Campanella, à paraître.
– « Egyptian Wisdom and Christian Faith in Renaissance and Seventeenth Century Italy. Hieroglyphics in Art and Music », Jale Erzen (éd.), XVIIth International Congress of Aesthetics, Aesthetics Bridging Cultures, Ankara, 9-13/07/2007, à paraître.
– « La Flûte en noir et blanc : la mise en scène de William Kentridge à la Monnaie », en collaboration avec Valérie Dufour (ULB), à paraître.
– « Bibite cantores. De l’ivresse des cantori aux déboires du Bach-Pokal » en collaboration avec Walter Corten (ULB), volume d’hommage à Henri Vanhulst, à paraître.
– « Virgilio Mazzocchi: cantate pour la visite du cardinal Francesco Barberini au Collegio Romano », en collaboration avec Annick Delfosse (ULg), Revue liégeoise de musicologie, à paraître.
– « Un musicista astrologo nell’Italia del Seicento : Padre Lodovico Zacconi », Intersezioni, Rivista di storia delle idee, 2008, p. 5-28.
– « Démons sonores dans l’Italie du XVIème siècle. De la possession diabolique chantante aux remèdes musicaux contre les esprits malins », De Musica, n° XII, 2008, Internet, .
– « Les Geroglifici Musicali du Padre Zacconi », Revue Belge de Musicologie, 2007, p. 61-87.
– « Musique et démonologie de Jean Bodin à Pier Francesco Valentini», Studi Musicali, 36/1, 2007, p. 65-95.
– « Les œuvres astrologiques de Padre Lodovico Zacconi (1555-1627) face à la censure ecclésiastique », Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome, 2005, 138-159.
– « Magie démoniaque et allégorie de l’ouïe : le canon musical dans les vanités de Breughel, Natali et Van Lear», Annales d’histoire de l’Art, 2005, p. 89-108.
– « De l’emblème au canon, étude iconographique et essai herméneutique de Kircher à Bach », Imago Musicae, 2004-2005, p. 263-287.
– « Pier Francesco Valentini Romano, théories musicaux-astronomiques, jeu d’astrologie et énigmes musicales dans la Rome du XVIIème siècle », Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome, 2004, p. 375-403.
– « Liszt et Fétis : 40 ans d’échanges multiples », Quaderni dell’Istituto Liszt, 2004, p. 137-174.

Actes de colloques & dictionnaire

– « Images religieuses en musique de la Renaissance à Bach et l’Italie Baroque», in Agnès Guiderdoni & Ralph Dekoninck (éd.), actes du colloque Emblemata Sacra. Rhétorique et herméneutique du discours sacré dans la littérature en images, Universiteit Leuven & Université Catholique de Louvain, 27-29 janvier 2005, Turnhout, Brepols, collection « Imago Figurata », p. 441-451.
– « Imbrication d’image, de texte et de musique dans un corpus de prières énigmatiques à la Vierge », in Catriona MacLeod (éd.), actes du colloque Seventh International Conference on Word & Image, University of Pennsylvania, 23-27 septembre 2005, Amsterdam, Edition Redopi, à paraître.
– Thierry Levaux (éd.), Dictionnaire des compositeurs belges, « Ivan Cayron », « Dimitri Coppe », « Jean-Luc Fafchamps »…, Lasne, Art in Belgium, 2005.

Editeur

– Music and Esotericism, Brill (Aries, monographie), à paraître.

Recension

– Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire : Prins (Jacomien) & Teeuwen (Mariken) (éd.), Harmonisch labyrint. De muziek van de kosmos in de westerse wereld, Hilversum, 2007.

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Julia Cleave will explore the geometry of Tobias and the Angel

A Florentine Renaissance painting of Tobias and the Angel portrays a transformative encounter between human and divine. The story, taken from the Apocrypha, may be read as an initiatic adventure involving trials by water and fire. By a miracle of imaginative composition, the artist has condensed this narrative into a single captivating image. While its richness of detail and beauty of form make an immediate appeal to the senses, its talismanic power derives more subtly from an interplay of hermetic symbolism, drawing on alchemy and astrology, and a remarkable matrix of Platonic geometries.

It has recently been established that Leonardo, as an apprentice in Verrocchio’s workshop, also had a hand in the painting. More unexpectedly, details in the picture (which has been on display in the National Gallery since the 1860s), together with stories of angels and demons taken from the Apocryphal Books of Tobit and Enoch, seem to have provided inspiration for Conan Doyle’s first-ever Sherlock Holmes story.

Julia Cleave (MA Oxon, MA Essex) is a member of the Academic Board of the Temenos Academy. As an independent scholar, she is currently conducting research into the encoding of the hermetic traditions in Renaissance and Seventeenth-century art and literature, including evidence for proto-masonic symbolism and ritual practice. In 2003 her proposal for a doctoral thesis on sacred geometry and the mystery traditions in the works of Nicolas Poussin was accepted by the School of Traditional Arts at the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture. She has given lectures at the History of Astrology Seminar, the Theosophical Society, the School of Economic Science, the Jupiter Trust and the Temenos Academy. http://www.temenosacademy.org/

Publications include:
A review of Friend to Mankind – Marsilio Ficino 1433-99 ed. Michael Shepherd in Temenos Academic Review 4 (Spring 2001)
Ficino’s Approach to Astrology as Reflected in Book VII of his Letters
Culture and Cosmos Volume 7 Number 2 (Autumn/Winter 2003)
Burlesquing the Brotherhood (Paper given at the 6th International Conference at the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre).
The Canonbury Papers Vol. 4: Seeking the Light – Freemasonry and Initiation (2007)
Of Hiram and Aymon – the Evolution of the Legend of the Third Degree
Transactions of the Manchester Association for Masonic Research Vol XCVIII [98] [2008].

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Sherry L. Ackerman, Ph.D of College of the Siskiyous, in Northern California, USA will present:

LOOKING FOR LEWIS CARROLL

She provides textual analyses from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass that demonstrate Carroll’s “masterful job of concealing” both Gnostic and Neoplatonic themes in both books. A concomitant phenomenological interpretation of historically re-contextualized biographical data further supports the argument. The gradual progression from Platonic idealism, via the earlier Cambridge Platonists and Thomas Taylor, toward nineteenth century theosophy and spiritualism is traced as it pertains to the theme. Her paper draws substantively from Chapter V of her, Behind the Looking Glass, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, July 2008, which purports that Lewis Carroll intentionally obscured esoteric allegory in his Alice books.

An article from Theosophy, dated March 5, 1939, asks “how many realize that no initiated philosopher had the right to reveal his knowledge clearly, but was obliged by the law of the sanctuary to conceal the truth under the veil of allegory or symbol?” Roger Bacon, centuries earlier, in Wisdom of Keeping Secrets (c.1260), had similarly written, “a man is crazy who writes a secret unless he conceals it from a crowd and leaves it so that it can be understood only by effort of the studious and wise.” Lewis Carroll was not a crazy man–and this author argues that he did a masterful job of concealing his secrets from the crowd.

SHERRY L. ACKERMAN, Ph D, is Professor of Philosophy at College of the Siskiyous, in Northern California, USA. As an active scholar with the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, she has authored numerous papers and journal articles. Her interest in Western Esotericism began as an undergraduate philosophy student and has continued to be a foundational element throughout her professional writing and teaching. She is equally as passionate about Lewis Carroll. _Behind the Looking Glass_ , Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008 – is the culmination of many years of Carrollian scholarship that she gleefully describes as “a long time down the Rabbit Hole”.

SOME PUBLICATIONS
Books:

Dressage in the Fourth Dimension, (Cleveland Heights, Ohio: Xenophon Press, 1997), ISBN: 0-933316-10-0: This book concludes that humanity’s alienation from nature can no longer be ignored. Pointing to the enormity and immediacy of the crisis, the book deconstructs fundamental contemporary cultural assumptions pertinent to mankind’s relationship to nature.

Dressage in the Fourth Dimension, Second Edition, Novato, California: New World Library, November 2008, ISBN: 978-1577316237. Foreword by Linda Kohanov (The Tao of Equus, Riding Between the Worlds, New World Library; 2001, 2003). Artwork by Jane Pincus (Our Bodies, Ourselves, Touchstone, 1976).

Behind the Looking Glass.(Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, July 2008, ISBN: 9781847184863: A definitive study of the Alice and Sylvie and Bruno books, via a philosophical examination of Lewis Carroll’s literary position in relationship to the British nineteenth century Neoplatonic/Occult Revival.

Papers:

The Psyche Project: Aperspectivity and the Ego. International Jean Gebser Society Conference; University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, WI. October 18-21, 2007.

Toward an Integral Perspective: Re-collecting Ancient Initiatory Cultures. 2007 ReConnext Conference; Shastao Institute of Practical Philosophy; Stewart Mineral Springs, Weed, CA. July 20-22, 2007.

The Looking Glass: Identifying Neoplatonic Influences on Victorian Literature. International Society for Neoplatonic Studies session at the American Academy of Religion Meeting. San Diego, CA: November 17-20, 2007.

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[Alice readers can also find John’s Tufail’s ‘Caroll’s Philosophy: Language and Contingency in Alice in Wonderland’, post on CCWE Internet Publications page]
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Frank Albo is a researcher and teacher from the University of Winnipeg, in Manitoba, Canada, who is well known for his discoveries and writings about the Manitoba Legislature. His research has led to the findings and interpretations of numerous occult/masonic symbols and figures inside the Manitoba Legislative Building. He is currently engaged in doctoral research at Cambridge University.

He introduces us to the Vesica Piscis

THE VESICA PISCIS: THE UNSEATING OF EUCLID,
AND THE RE-APOTHEOIS OF GEOMETRY IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN

This paper posits that the sudden appearance of vesica piscis in the nineteenth century was due to the advent of non-Euclidean geometry. Non-Euclidean geometry threatened traditional views of geometric truth and it was met with vehement resistance from English Freemasons who endorse a geometric theology resting on the infallibility of Euclid. Masonic pundits championed the re-apotheosis of geometry which they indelibly linked to the vesica piscis and its formulation in medieval architecture. Their theories influenced nineteenth century ideas of harmony and proportion promulgated by British architects C.R. Cockerell and F.B. Bond.

1. The Vesica Piscis – Dürer’s brainchild
The term vesica piscis, derives from the Latin translation of Dürer’s practical manual of geometric theory, Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt (1525).

2. Frederick Bligh Bond (1864-1945) – necromancer of GlastonburyBond was an architect, Freemason, and numerologist who claimed that the vesica piscis was latent in the plan of Lady Chapel in Glastonbury. His theories of architecture were influenced by Cockerell.

3. Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) – evangelist of the vesica piscis. The nineteenth century professor of architecture responsible for vivifying the popular mystique of the vesica piscis as a formula of exemplary proportion handed down from the Freemasons.

4. Thomas Kerrich (1748-1863) – evangelist of the vesica piscesKerrich argued that the visica piscis had informed the proportions of nineteen churches. His studies published I a popular antiquarian journal impacted Cockerell’s theories of medieval design.

5. Cockerell’s Rules of Design – from Freemasonry to Cesariano
Cockerell presents his tripartite rules of design for ideal beauty and proportions in architecture, which he credits to the Vitruvian commentator, Cesare Cesariano, and the medieval Freemasons.

6. The Unseating of Euclid – nineteenth century innovation of non-Euclidean geometry
The emergence of non-Euclidean geometry in the nineteenth century challenged the universality of Euclid and spawned a proliferation of Masonic texts on the sacrality of the vesica piscis.

7. Re-apotheosis of Geometry in Victorian Britain – Freemasonry’s geometric theology
The Masonic idea that geometry is an exclusive and secret science handed down by God to Euclid and the architect of Solomon’s Temple. In Freemasonry, geometry is a touchstone of divine power.

8. Cockerell’s unwitting legacy – the vesica piscis and the Church of Scientology
From the geometric mysteries of the vesica piscis sparked off by Cockerell’s studies of medieval proportions to an aerial signpost marking the sacred writings of the Church of Scientology.

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JAMES EISNER

James Eisner, tenor baritone, will accompany himself on the lute and guitar, singing a set of esoterically influenced songs which will include:

John Donne

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER
Pelham Humphrey (1647-1674)/John Donne (1572-1631)

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I SAW MY LADY WEEP
John Dowland (1562-1626)

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HEIDEN RÖSLEIN
F. Schubert (1797-1828)/J. W. Goethe (1749-1832)

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THE SALLY GARDENS
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)/Traditional Irish melody

first giving a brief account of the inter-relation of lyric and musical structure.

James was born in Sheffield but spent his early years in New Jersey, USA. He now lives in Cambridge UK, and has sung with various groups including Trecento, Otto Voci, The Cavalli Choir, Queen’s College Choir, The Cambridge Taverner Choir and the New Cambridge Singers, and until recently directed the Orwell Singers and the London-based Czech choir ‘Hlahol London’.

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Simon Jenner

Will look at the esoteric connections which bring together some of the writers and composers of early twentieth century music, focusing on Constant Lambert

and Anthony Powell.

Jenner’s doctoral research looked at Oxford poetry of the 1940s, he writes for Poetry Review, PNR, The Tablet, Music on the Web and the British Music Society, is the recipient of many awards and bursaries, his collection of poems ‘About Bloody Time’ was published in 2007. He is Director of Survivors’ Poetry, and editor of Waterloo Press (see http://www.waterloopress.co.uk)

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REGISTRATION

Registeration is £30 which includes coffees teas and lunch. You can send this now via Paypal to sophia@gurdjieff-books.net or by cheque made out to The Cambridge Centre for Western Esoterisim and email me for the full mailing address.

Full Conference Programme will be posted in a later update.
For enquiries contact: Dr Sophia Wellbeloved: sophia@gurdjieff-books.net