Freemasonry, secret societies, and the continuity of the occult traditions in English literature
Marsha Keith, Manatt Schuchard, "Freemasonry, secret societies, and the continuity of the occult traditions in English literature"
1979 | ASIN: B00071X6ZS | 706 pages | PDF | 32 MB
1979 | ASIN: B00071X6ZS | 706 pages | PDF | 32 MB
This dissertation examines the role of Freemasonry and related secret societies in the transmission of the occult traditions in English literary history from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries.
The study draws upon recent Renaissance and Hebrew scholarship to define those elements of vision-inducement and magical theories of art which were developed into the syncretic Renaissance tradition of Cabalistic and Hermetic symbolism. After the publication and subsequent suppression of this occult tradition during the Rosicrucian agitation in Germany, Rosicrucianism was assimilated into the secret traditions of Freemasonry in England in the
mid-seventeenth century. Many English literary figures, such as John Dee, Francis Bacon, Elias Ashmole, and John Milton, were involved in this theosophical, millenial reform movement…