Review of Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed

Dear Prof. Dr Hanegraaff,
\(\quad\)It was a pity that I can though think of my once noticing some marks of esotericism, I have never thought about it. When I was a kid seeing my mother play Heroes of Might & Magic Ⅲ, I once noticed Chinese "神秘术" as a secondary skill, which later turned out to be English "Mysticism"; When I was in middle school I saw a clip from the movie of The DaVinci Code, in which Prieuré de Sion was with mysteries of both science and religion, at least for me.
\(\quad\)Thank you for your writing and Prof. Dr Bu-tian Zhang for his translating this guide that I know a little about it now, scientifically. Though without conceptual boundaries or thinking prototypes, I can tell the similarity between my experience and those models from you. Heroes 3 is obviously a world of enchantment with literal "magic"; due to my little knowledge, I cannot tell whether Priory of Sion touches some occult, but definitely it was seemingly a cult with some inner traditions. All these accord with the "rejected" nature of esotericism with their featured epistemology.
\(\quad\)But why it matters? I mean... I once asked myself why it matters for who is doing science.
\(\quad\)Further, I'm a pre-biologist, a pre-chemist, a pre-biochemist or neither; and the subject of chemistry, the subject of biology, the subject of chemical biology or both are somewhat more engineering than science. The science to change the worldview of people lying afar, I bought this simply out of curiosity. But here I intentionally revisited it for my career of "creating knowledge". We are sometimes trying to create knowledge, always without thinking what it is.

Most of us accept scientific claims not because we have checked them, but because we choose to believe that scientists know what they are doing.
CHAPTER FIVE Knowledge

\(\quad\)How fortunate I am to read this in my early age as a warning of my responsibility and an inspiration of my endeavour! We are not always testing the knowledge from others, which means they are actually subjective faith for us. Once the arrogant walls around our "reason" collapse, we unexpectedly gain the spetacles for all the spectacles around us. We are taking steps of reason towards the knowledge unknown, which simutaneously proves that those unknown are awaiting an "unprecedent approach" to reach. We scientists believe its existence though we know nothing about it, with it definitely being not communicable. Is it gnosis?
\(\quad\)I am sorry for these misleading reasonings, since I know the differece between scientists and gnostics. We never assume it a one-step process into the unknown like "reading a book with proper manner" but a everlasting game between the unknown and us. However, though we do not really alter our consciousness, how can we deny our altering it by acquiring thoughts from experiment and exchanging them? What I mean to highlight is the belief we hold, though problem without answer exists, to tag all the unknown "solvable" and work on them. If the gnostics are craving for ground-breaking discovery from physicists, why cannot we be somewhat gnostic?
\(\quad\)May I thank you for your guide once again and conclude this with a quote from another chapter, since I, starting from knowledgem have reach something about worldview.

It bears repeating that radical pantheism, radical dualism, Platonic mediation and Alchemical mediation are seldom, if ever, encountered in pure or perfect form...... Scholars of esotericism should better not waste their time on attempts to lend credibility to such pursuits of an artificial chimera called 'the' esoteric worldview. No such thing exists.
CHAPTER FOUR Worldviews

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by Syl & Sylvia @ 2023-02-09 19:58:39 @ Wuhan, Hanyang District
originally posted @ https://www.cnblogs.com @ 2023-02-09