History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents

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🌟LECTURE🌟

Dr. J. Christian Greer () of Stanford University will giving a free lecture live in Amsterdam. Organized by APRA (.science).

🗓️ June 24, 2026
🕣 7:30 - 9:00 pm
📍 UvA, Roeterseiland Campus

J. Christian Greer, PhD, is a scholar of Religious Studies with a special focus on psychedelic cultures across space and time. He has held teaching positions at Harvard University, Yale University, and is currently a full-time lecturer at Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is the co-founder, and the co-chair of the Drugs and Religion program unit at the American Academy of Religion, and each June, he leads “The Psychedelic Universe: Global Perspectives on Higher Consciousness,” an intensive, 2-week seminar on the global history of psychedelics, hosted on-location at the University of Amsterdam!

In this lecture, he will survey the global history of psychedelics, tracing their journey from ancient ceremonial use to modern science and culture. We’ll explore how substances such as pe**te, ayahuasca, and “magic mushrooms” have been embedded in spiritual and healing traditions, rites of passage, sorcery, religious rituals, and divination, not to mention their more recent application in psychiatry, new religious movements, and technological innovations.
Blending history, anthropology, religious studies, and archeology, this lecture invites audiences to see psychedelics not as fringe curiosities, but as enduring companions in humanity’s long search for insight, connection, and wonder.

This talk is free, but registration is required. Click the link:

https://apra.science/events/historians-on-drugs/?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAdGRleASl53NleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAadnLpIWflerZeDTMxuERkj3TMqEDDgv-uJyZa0O5njzEp1bsxh2ZtUJW8DSbQ_aem_cydfO0mgGspI22Scgb9sGg

🌟SHWEP SHARE🌟

Hello Sunday! Today another SHWEP podcast recommendation. ✨
⁠
TITLE:
Episode 159: Metals, Temples, and Living Statues: Shannon Grimes on Zosimus’ Egyptian Context

ABOUT:
“Shannon Grimes was studying ancient alchemy, but when she asked herself ‘What were these people actually doing?’ found herself drawn into the study of ancient Egyptian society, its temple-cults, metallurgical trade-guilds of the Roman period, and much more. We discuss her findings on the temple- and guild-context of ancient Egyptian alchemy, and parse out the relevance of living temple-statues for Zosimus’ alchemical project and religious beliefs (if indeed the alchemy and religion are separate things).” And more…

Image: “Polychromatic statuette of Osiris, as it looks today (left) and with digital reconstruction of how it will have looked when first produced (right) after LaNeice et al.“

💫-for the podcast, full description, info and cited works go to SHWEP.net-💫⁠

⁠ https://shwep.net/podcast/metals-temples-and-living-statues-shannon-grimes-on-zosimus-egyptian-context/

To become a SHWEP-member and/or to listen to this free episode, go to SHWEP.net, Spotify or any other podcast streaming service!

Enjoy the episode! ✨
⁠

🌟SPECIAL COLLECTIONS🌟

Today we share a work of a figure within the history of esotericism, and also part of the UvA library collection. Students have access the this special collection. A perks of studying with us!

BOOK TITLE:
Sancta veritas hermetica, seu concordantia philosophorum consistens in sale et sole vel mercurio et sulphure, das ist: Die ehemahls excerpirte und darauf mit eigener Hand experimentirte Sonnen-klare Wahrheit der philosophischen Schrifften.

By Ehrd de Naxagoras [Johann Erhard Neithold]

Breslau, 1712

(Available, Allard Pierson Depot, PH1905-A.)

ABOUT THE COLLECTION:
This book is part of the state-owned part of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (BPH) at Allard Pierson, which is a unique collection of manuscripts and printed works about the hermetic tradition.

Image of the book

Stay tuned for more!

🌟LECTURE🌟

Swedenborg on Slavery

A Public Lecture by Dr. Vincent Roy-Di Piazza

🗓️1 July 2026,
🕓16:00
📍Sulzberger Parlor, Barnard College

Click the link to sign up:

https://www.brucelectures.org/contact

🌟RR SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW🌟

Today we share a Rejected Religion Spotlight with Dr. Jason Bartashius on Two Upcoming Courses



⚡️INTERVIEW NOTES⚡️
“Jason Bartashius earned his PhD in Global Studies from Sophia University and an MA in “Asian Religions” from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His work takes an interdisciplinary approach to interrogate the phenomenon of religion as it intersects with gender and sexuality ideologies depicted in film and television as well as discourses on migration.

Dr. Jason Bartashius joins me to discuss two upcoming online courses he will be giving soon: the first on “Buddhism and Film” and the second, later course (starting in September) on Stranger Things. Jason talks a bit about what’s to come and we also:

- look into the philosophical undercurrents of cult classics like Groundhog Day and Fight Club;

- plus we discuss the ‘nostalgia and myth’ of the 70s and 80s along with the moral panics of this time, and how these are playing a role in this hit series, as well as the strength of film as being a space where people can explore spirituality.”

Go to RR Patreon to watch this interview and to get the full snow notes:

https://www.patreon.com/RejectedReligion/posts/now-on-spotlight-156250108

Enjoy!!

interview

🌟SHWEP SHARE🌟

Hello Monday! Today a SHWEP podcast recommendation: a members only episode ✨
⁠
TITLE:
Bink Hallum on Zosimus Arabicus: The Final Quittance

ABOUT:
“Bink Hallum has written the book on the Arabic Zosimus, and in this special episode, for the hardcore lovers of the history of alchemy, we go through the textual corpus of Zosimus in Arabic in a detailed way, discussing what’s there, how much definitely goes back to original Greek alchemical texts by Zosimus, how much probably does, and how much definitely doesn’t. This detailed survey of the whole Arabic Zosimus corpus – authentic, probably authentic, and definitely not authentic – all of which is fascinating stuff…”

Image: A cool doodle from the Muṣḥaf al-ṣuwar (from shwep.net)

💫-for the podcast, full description, info and cited works go to SHWEP.net-💫⁠

https://shwep.net/podcast/bink-hallum-on-zosimus-arabicus-the-final-quittance/
⁠
Become a SHWEP-member to listen to this episode, go to SHWEP.net, Spotify or any other podcast streaming service!

Enjoy the episode!
⁠

🌟SPECIAL COLLECTIONS🌟

Today we share a work of a figure within the history of esotericism, and also part of the UvA library collection. Students have access the this special collection. A perks of studying with us!

BOOK TITLE:
Instruction à la France sur la verité de l’histoire des frères de la Roze-Croix.

By Gabriel Naudé

n.p., 1623

(Available, Allard Pierson Depot, PH92.)

ABOUT THE COLLECTION:
This book is part of the state-owned part of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (BPH) at Allard Pierson, which is a unique collection of manuscripts and printed works about the hermetic tradition.

Image of the author (credit: Wikipedia)

Stay tuned for more!

In Memoriam

Joost R. Ritman

10 March 1941 – 5 June 2026

We regret to inform you that Joost Ritman, founder of the Ritman Library, passed away on June 5, 2026.

To commemorate him and his life’s work, we’d like to share a few words from our friends at the Ritman Library:

“Joost Ritman was a man with a mission, patriarch of a large and colorful family, an Amsterdammer through and through, a world citizen, and a visionary. As an entrepreneur, lover of culture and art collector, Rosicrucian and founder of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, he built bridges between worlds and people.

For seventy years Joost Ritman devoted himself to his life’s work: building a library around Hermes Trismegistus and weaving a network of kindred spirits all over the world. […] He had the ability to make the invisible visible and the impossible possible. He was generous, spirited, untamable, elusive and persistent. Guided by his inner compass, faithful to the love that conquers all, he was a passionate guardian of the freedom of the spirit.

[…]

From his life’s work the Embassy of the Free Mind emerged: a living home for the collection, with a research institute, publishing house, virtual library, museum and the Academy of the Free Mind, housed in the monumental House with the Heads. Here, visitors can encounter the free minds behind the books, whose ideas were often far ahead of their time and speak powerfully to ours.

Together with his wife, Rachel Ritman, and connected with a worldwide network, Joost built this life’s work step by step. Rachel remains closely involved with the library, while inspiring us with her own spirited mind and vision. As the Ritman family and as team of the Embassy of the Free Mind, we feel deeply connected to what they created together. We want to keep the flame they kindled burning strongly and let it be fanned by the fire of transformation that is flaring up all over the world. We hope that the way of living and thinking that was so dear to Joost will continue to offer new connections, new insights and new courage to individuals everywhere in the world.“

Image credits: Embassy of the Free Mind

🌟NEW ARTICLE🌟

‘I am a New Swedenborg, a New Khan’

Emanuel Swedenborg, Deguchi Onisaburō, and National Imaginaries in Meiji-Era Japan

In: Aries

By Dell J. Rose

This article discusses the reception and adaptation of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg’s thought in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. It situates this reception in the context of Japanese esoteric thought during the Meiji era. Japanese intellectuals called Swedenborg the world’s greatest theologian, even the Buddha of the North. Yet his importance to Meiji-era intellectual life remains underconsidered in esotericism studies. This article first illuminates how Deguchi Onisaburō, co-founder of the Ōmoto faith, applied Swedenborg’s teachings in uniquely Japanese contexts while pursuing the goal of introducing the entire world to its primordial ancestry in Japan. The article then sketches some of the Buddhist interpretations of Swedenborg, which Deguchi used to elucidate his reading. The article introduces a combined discourse by applying both Buddhist and Shintoist perspectives to Swedenborgian studies. It aims to encourage more scholars of esotericism to consider East Asian receptions of Western esoteric thinkers.

To read the FULL article for free, click the link:

https://brill.com/view/journals/arie/aop/article-10.1163-15700593-bja10002/article-10.1163-15700593-bja10002.xml?Tab%20Menu=Article

Happy reading!