CHAPTER 8: Belief and Practice in

Metaphysics

Metaphysics

• challenge dominant conceptions of the divine

• saving force of the mind

• correspondence

• magic

• combination

Metaphysical Movements in America

1) elite esoteric religions from Europe

2) popular herbal & magical practices

3) 19th-century middle-class forms

4) later mind-oriented forms

Metaphysical Sources in the Western Tradition

• Hellenistic mystical systemso Hermeticism

o Neoplatonism

o Gnosticism

o astrology

o alchemy

o Kabbalah

Post-Renaissance Metaphysical Sources

• Paracelsianismo healing using correspondence theory

• Rosicrucianismo later form of Hermeticism

• Freemasonry

Metaphysical Practice in the Colonies

• elite & non-elite forms

• astrologyo judicial or natural

• witchcrafto Woman in the Wildernesso cunning folk

19th-Century Metaphysical Revival

• Transcendentalists o Emersono inspiration in natureo cultivate individual spirituality

• influence of Swedenborg

Popular Metaphysics in a New Nation

• 19th-century sources of “newness”o factories, railroads, steamboatso progress & “manifest destiny”

• immigration & migration

Spiritualism

• Andrew Jackson Davis

• séances

• female mediums

• mental or physical mediumshipo psychic phenomenao rappings, table-tipping, automatic writing

Theosophical Society

• Helena P. Blavatskyo Mahatmaso Isis Unveiledo The Secret Doctrine

• Colonel Henry S. Olcott

Goals of Theosophy

1) search for occult knowledge

2) universal brotherhood of all people

3) study of comparative religions

Spread of Theosophical Ideas

• Asian religious conceptso karmao reincarnation

• expectation for a “new age”

Theosophy after Blavatsky

• Annie Besant o 50,000 members by 1930o present in 40 countries

• multiple schismso William Judge

New Thought

• influence of Phineas Quimby

• Warren Felt Evanso The Mental Cure

• Emma Curtis Hopkinso taught many New Thought leaders

New Thought Practices

• affirmative prayer

• “self-help” bestsellerso In Tune with the Infinite

o The Power of Positive Thinking

Mystical & Psychic Frontiers

• William Jameso The Varieties of Religious Experienceo pragmatism

• Aldous Huxleyo perennial philosophy

Later American Metaphysics

• neopaganism

• scientific-technological groupso Scientology

o Heaven’s Gate

o UFO groups

OVERVIEW

• Western roots

• 19th-century developmentso Transcendentalists

o Spiritualism

o Theosophy

o New Thought