Gangleri – bookreviews

It has been quite a while since I investigated the interesting Swede Johannes Bureus. There seems to be quite an interest in the man, since my articles and book reviews are relatively popular and I even got two comments in a few days time on an article speaking about Bureus. One of these comments notified me about this book. I guess I missed it, otherwise I would have bought it earlier, but if I remember correctly this is the dissertation of Karlsson and was only available in Swedish in the time I wrote my articles. Karlsson is one of the founders of the Dragon Rouge order and this German translation is published by the Edition Roter Drache. It is good that this little book has been translated to… Continue reading Adulruna Und Die Gotische Kabbala * Thomas Karlsson (2007)

I don’t often get books to review, but the publisher of this book contacted me. According to the description this books holds the middle between my ‘old interests’ (magic and Western occultism) and more recent interests (comparative religion) so I decided to have a copy sent and see what this scholarly book on magic is all about. The writer (who earlier wrote a book on Agrippa) wrote an interesting preface in which he explains his new way of approaching the subject; not with one scientific discipline, but using several of them in order to get a wider picture. For this purpose he says a few things about scholars such as Frances Yates and Mircea Eliade who both he slays in a few lines, but still find their ideas… Continue reading The Occult Mind * Christopher I. Lehrich (2007 cornell university press * isbn 9780801445385)

After the magnificent publications of the Corpus Hermeticum in Dutch (1990 Quispel and Van den Broek) and Asclepius (1995 Quispel), Van den Broek now offers smaller Hermetic texts in Dutch translation with lengthy and informative explanations. This book even contains some Hermetic texts that I didn’t have yet. You will find the Stobaeus fragments, the two short and heavily damaged fragments of Wien/Vienna, the Oxford Hermetica (Bodleian Library, Clarkianus 11), Greek and Latin “testimonia” (other writers refer to or quote Hermes Trismegistus) of Tertullianus, Julius Romanus, Lactantius, pseudo-Cyprianus, Jamblichus, Zosimus, Marcellus of Ancyra, Julianus ‘the deserter’, Didymus the Blind, pseudo-Didymus the Blind, Cyrillus of Alexandria, Hermias of Alexandria, Johannes (John) Lydus, Johannes (John) of Damascus and Symphonia; then we also have the Hermetic Definitions and the text about the eight… Continue reading Hermes Trismegistus * Roelof van den Broek (transl.) (2006 in de pelikaan * isbn 9071608220/9789071608223)

In 2004 the Dutch city of Alkmaar celebrated its 750th year of existence. The organisation asked the Rosicrucian society ‘Lectorium Rosicrucianum’ to organise a symposion about the famous Alkmarian inventor Cornelis Drebbel (1572-1633). There was more about Drebbel than science. He was asked to join the court of the Hermetic emperor Rudolf II of Prague, he has Rosicrucian friends and his famous booklet about his Perpetuum Mobili (on the cover of this booklet) was followed by the first Dutch translation of the Corpus Hermeticum.

So on 19 september 2004 we drove to the Alkmaar library to attend this interesting symposium (or ‘symposion’ in Lectorian words). There were two lectures and afterwards the audience was asked if it was interested in the texts of these lecture. Of course we were!… Continue reading De Alkmaarder Cornelis Drebbel (2005) | 1 Comment

Here we have the most interesting booklet in the Lectorium Rosicrucianum “symposion”-series. First the Kabbalah Philo of Alexandria of Henk Spierenburg, then the home Sancti Spiritus ((pre-)Rosicrucian organisations) by Frans Smit, a magistral article by Jacob Slavenburg about the Hermetic path of initiation based on the Nag Hammadi text “The 8th and 9th (Celestial) Spheres” and information from the “Corpus Hermeticum”. The last article is of Rachel Ritman in which she speakes about the gnostic foundation of Christianity… Continue reading Terug Naar De Bron - symposion booklet (isbn 9067322660)

I already reviewed the earlier pressing of this translation, but here we have a completely new edition. The earlier pressings came in two 6cm thick books, this one is printed on super thin paper which resulted in one book of about 3,5 cm thick. This looks pretty strange indeed! Besides a new kind of printing the general intro, introductions to the texts, the translations and the notes are completely revised. Some intros and translations came out quite different, others remained more or less the same. There is again more information which is of course updated with the newest finding and there is now a massive index made by Henk Spierenburg. Therefor the order of the texts could now be the original order the texts were found in the codices and… Continue reading De Nag Hammadi Geschriften (dundrukeditie) * Jacob Slavenburg & Willem Glaudemans (isbn 9020219642)

In two books of about 500 pages each, you get the complete translation of all the texts that were found in a jar near the Egyptian village Nag Hammadi in 1945 (completed by the so called “Berlin Codex”). I suppose most of you know about that discovery? Because they are mostly gnostic writings, the Nag Hammadi scriptures are often called “the Gnostic Library”. Slavenburg and Glaudemans are two Dutch gnostic experts and especially since they made this translation, they seem to almost know the scriptures by heart and refer to them a lot.

The first book opens with a short but very nice introduction to the gnostic worldview and history. Also the most probable explanation for the amount of scriptures in one jar is given. Around 367 BC Theodorus, abbot of… Continue reading Nag Hammadi geschriften I & II * Jacob Slavenburg + Wim G. Glaudemans (isbn 9020219499 + 9020219502)

Every now and then the magnificent Dutch library “Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica” has an exposition of a part of her own collection and that of others, based around one theme. Over ten years ago the subject was “the Hermetic Gnosis” which then was still fairly unknown. The exposition was composed by Frank van Lamoen and as things to at the BPH, Lamoen also made the exposition-book which is still available.

These books of the BPH are simply, but nicely printed, and always extremely informative. After some introductionary texts, you will get all information you could possibly want about every single book from the exposition. This time these are Bibles from the 16th century, Plato-translations by Marsilio Ficino and others, other Greek classical texts, the Atalanta Fugiens of Michael Maier (1618), different versions… Continue reading De Hermetische Gnosis * Frank van Lamoen (bph * 1990)

“Along Hermes’ Paths” is the latest exposition that the Italian Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana and the Dutch Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica had. Long after I had visited this exposition in Amsterdam, I ran into the little book accompanying this exposition. You will get some nice information about Hermetic history, a hermetic chronology and then detailed information about the exhibited books. Always good to lay my hands on a BPH-publishing!… Continue reading Langs Hermes' Wegen

Every now and then the magnificent Dutch library “Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica” has an exposition of a part of her own collection and that of others, based around one theme. Over ten years ago the subject was the textual history of the Corpus Hermeticum.

These books of the BPH are simply, but nicely printed, and always extremely informative. After some introductionary texts, you will get all information you could possibly want about every single book from the exposition. This time you can read about Asclepius and Corpus Hermeticum editions in handwritten and printed editions in Greek and in translations and some information about other texts ascribed to Hermes. Lamoen did a splendid job giving interesting informations about -for example- editions used for modern translations and is highly informative about the… Continue reading Hermes Trismegistus - pater philosophorum * Frank van Lamoen (bph * 1990)