"This book documents the political and religious turmoil of seventeenth century Europe by exploring the life and doctrines of the German barber surgeon turned prophet, Ludwig Friedrich Gifftheil (1595-1661). Inspired by family tragedy and theosophical religious writings, between 1624 and 1661 Gifftheil stalked Europe's battlefields, petitioning kings, princes, and emperors to end the warfare endemic on the continent. Convinced that all conflict was prompted by 'false prophets'-by which Gifftheil meant the clergy of Europe's Christian confessions-he pleaded with rulers to abjure the counsel of their advisors and institute instead a godly peace. When this approach proved fruitless, Gifftheil reinvented himself by taking up his sword as 'God's warrior.' Thereby he embarked on a quest to recruit an army of the righteous to wage holy war, and establish peace with the blade of his sword. This work examines the growth and fallout of Gifftheil's mission and its reception among Europe's religious dissenters-including figures such as Abraham von Franckenberg and Quirinus Kuhlmann-as well as the results of his strivings in European political circles. Gifftheil's story reveals an alternative transnational history of religious and political dissent in the seventeenth century. It casts new light on the place of prophecy and madness in the negotiation of religious authority, the origins of the theosophical current, and the stranger apocalyptic impulses at the roots of Pietism and missionary Christianity"--

"This book documents the political and religious turmoil of seventeenth century Europe by exploring the life and doctrines of the German barber surgeon turned prophet, Ludwig Friedrich Gifftheil (1595-1661). Inspired by family tragedy and theosophical religious writings, between 1624 and 1661 Gifftheil stalked Europe's battlefields, petitioning kings, princes, and emperors to end the warfare endemic on the continent. Convinced that all conflict was prompted by 'false prophets'-by which Gifftheil meant the clergy of Europe's Christian confessions-he pleaded with rulers to abjure the counsel of their advisors and institute instead a godly peace. When this approach proved fruitless, Gifftheil reinvented himself by taking up his sword as 'God's warrior.' Thereby he embarked on a quest to recruit an army of the righteous to wage holy war, and establish peace with the blade of his sword. This work examines the growth and fallout of Gifftheil's mission and its reception among Europe's religious dissenters-including figures such as Abraham von Franckenberg and Quirinus Kuhlmann-as well as the results of his strivings in European political circles. Gifftheil's story reveals an alternative transnational history of religious and political dissent in the seventeenth century. It casts new light on the place of prophecy and madness in the negotiation of religious authority, the origins of the theosophical current, and the stranger apocalyptic impulses at the roots of Pietism and missionary Christianity"--

In 1896, a young Genevan medium named Hélène Smith perceived in trance the following words from a Martian inhabitant: "michma michtmon mimini thouainenm mimatchineg." Those attending her séance dutifully transcribed these words and the event marked the beginning of a series of occult experiences that transported her to the red planet. In her state of trance, Smith came to produce foreign conversations, a new alphabet, and paintings of the Martian surroundings that captured the popular and scientific imagination of Geneva. Alongside her Martian travels, she also retrieved memories of her past lives as a fifteenth-century "Hindoo" princess and as Queen Marie Antoinette. Today, Smith's séances may appear to be nothing more than eccentric practices at the margins of modernity. As author Claudie Massicotte argues, however, the medium came to embody the extreme possibilities of a new form of subjectivity, with her séances becoming important loci for pioneering authors' discoveries in psychology, linguistics, and the arts. Through analyses of archival documents, correspondences, and publications on the medium, Massicotte sheds light on the role of women in the construction of turn-of-the-century psychological discourses, showing how Smith challenged traditional representations of female patients as powerless victims and passive objects of powerful doctors. She shows how the medium became the site of conflicting theories about subjectivity--specifically one's relationship to embodiment, desire, language, art, and madness--while unleashing a radical form of creativity that troubled existing paradigms of modern sciences. Massicotte skillfully retraces the story of this prolific figure and the authors, scientists, and artists she inspired in order to bring to light a forgotten chapter in modern intellectual history.

"This book reconstructs the tantalizing tale of Sri Sabhapati Swami (ca. 1828-1923/4), today a little-known swami who was originally from Tamil Nadu in southern India, and historically contextualizes a fascinating type of yoga that Sabhapati claimed would lead to an experience of being "like a tree universally spread." The practical method of having this experience, in technical terms called the samadhi or "composure" of sivarajayoga or the "Royal yoga for siva," was published in English and multiple Indic languages and lavishly illustrated in diagrams on subtle and physical bodies. This book is the first book-length treatment on Sabhapati Swami, scholarly or otherwise, and uses critically-edited sources printed in Tamil, Devanagari, and Bengali scripts to reveal the expansion of his literature across South Asia and globally, the vast majority of which has never before been considered in any scholarly work to date. The book shows how intertwined Sabhapati's yoga is with historical Tamil saiva and Siddha movements, including the mythos of the rishi Agastya, and also with Hathayoga and mantra-based ritual. It also takes into account his and his followers' wrestling with the Victorian scientific worldview and their rationalization of Hindu philosophical discourses in the colonial period. Finally, the book demonstrates the extent to which Sabhapati's teachings were integrated into esoteric religious movements such as the Theosophical Society, the Thelema of Aleister Crowley, and New Thought, and suggests that a reappraisal of scholarship on the roots of yoga in these movements is long overdue"--

Rebelling against Victorian religious and social strictures, occultist Aleister Crowley, soldier J. F. C. Fuller, and poet Victor Neuburg were active contributors and participants in the British secularist movement at the dawn of the twentieth century. Friendship in Doubt examines how the Agnostic movement inspired and introduced them to each other as foundational figures in the new religious movement of Thelema.

Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) has been recognized as one of the internationally most influential German authors of the Early Modern period. Even today, his writings continue to impact fields as diverse as literature, philosophy, religion and art. Yet Böhme and his reception remain understudied. As a lay author, his works were often suppressed and circulated underground. Borrowing Böhme’s idea of “three worlds” or planes of existence, this volume traces the transmission of his thought through three stations: from his first underground readers in Central and Eastern Europe, to the Netherlands, where most of his writings were first published, to Britain, where early translations made him a popular author for generations to come. Drawing on the work of both established and younger researchers from around the world, this volume charts new territory. It fills many lacunae and reveals a number of exciting discoveries, especially regarding the production and diffusion of manuscripts and previously overlooked sites of engagement. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in the development of philosophical, religious, literary and artistic thought from the 17th century to the present day.

American Aurora explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Focusing on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensively misunderstood theologian who settled outside of Philadelphia from 1604 to 1707, Timothy Grieve-Carlson explores the Hermetic and alchemical dimensions of Kelpius's Christianity before turning to his legacy in American religion and literature. This engaging analysis showcases Kelpius's forgotten theological intricacies, spiritual revelations, and cosmic observations, illuminating the complexity and foresight of an important colonial mystic. As radical Protestants during Kelpius's lifetime struggled to understand their changing climate and a seemingly eschatological cosmos, esoteric texts became crucial sources of meaning. Grieve-Carlson presents original translations of Kelpius's university writings, which have never been published in English, along with analyses and translations of other important sources from the period in German and Latin. Ultimately, American Aurora points toward a time and place when climate change caused an eruption of esoteric thought and practice-and how this moment has been largely forgotten.

The Unknown God gives a view into the twentieth-century North American occult underground influenced by the English occultist and prophet Aleister Crowley, as told through the biography of his disciple in the USA, Wilfred Talbot Smith (1885--1957). It draws on accounts from Smith's social network, which encompassed Caltech rocket scientist Jack Parsons, the Rosicrucian leader H. Spencer Lewis, the Hollywood actor John Carradine, and gay liberationist Harry Hay. Students of esoteric Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and the Crowley-based occult orders will find The Unknown God a fascinating resource--this is the book that connects them all.

Last Days Madness explains the most difficult prophetic passages clearly and concisely. Gary DeMar sheds the light on Daniel 7:1314; 9:24-27, Matthew 16:27-28, 2 Thessalonians 2; 2 Peter 3:3-13 and dozens more. He identifies the Beast, the Antichrist, and the Man of Lawlessness, and clears the haze regarding Armageddon, the rebuilding of the temple, the meaning of 666, and much more. This ground breaking book is guaranteed to make you think and is your survival guide and spiritual compass to insure you escape the paralysis of last days madness.

The poets’ Great War: violence, revolution and modernism The First World War changed the map of Europe forever. Empires collapsed, new countries were born, revolutions shocked and inspired the world. This tumult, sometimes referred to as ‘the literary war’, saw an extraordinary outpouring of writing. The conflict opened up a vista of possibilities and tragedies for poetic exploration, and at the same time poetry was a tool for manipulating the sentiments of the combatant peoples. In Germany alone during the first few months there were over a million poems of propaganda published. We think of war poets as pacifistic protestors, but that view has been created retrospectively. The verse of the time, particularly in the early years of the conflict—in Fernando Pessoa or Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, for example—could find in the violence and technology of modern warfare an awful and exhilarating epiphany. In this cultural history of the First World War, the conflict is seen from the point of view of poets and writers from all over Europe, including Rupert Brooke, Anna Akhmatova, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Rainer Maria Rilke and Siegfried Sassoon. Everything to Nothing is the award-winning panoramic history of how nationalism and internationalism defined both the war itself and its aftermath—revolutionary movements, wars for independence, civil wars, the treaty of Versailles. It reveals how poets played a vital role in defining the stakes, ambitions and disappointments of postwar Europe.