Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff (born 1961) is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also President of the
European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).
Hanegraaff originally studied
classical guitarThe classical guitar is a plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones. It traditionally has 3 plain gut bass strings and 3 gut wound silk core treble strings and the modern adaption typically has 6 nylon strings .The basic characteristics of the shape of the...
at the Municipal Conservatory at
ZwolleZwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, 120 kilometers northeast of Amsterdam. Zwolle has about 115,000 citizens.-History:...
from 1982 to 1987, and
cultural historyThe term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
at the University of Utrecht from 1986 to 1990.
Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff (born 1961) is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also President of the
European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).
Life
Hanegraaff originally studied
classical guitarThe classical guitar is a plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones. It traditionally has 3 plain gut bass strings and 3 gut wound silk core treble strings and the modern adaption typically has 6 nylon strings .The basic characteristics of the shape of the...
at the Municipal Conservatory at
ZwolleZwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, 120 kilometers northeast of Amsterdam. Zwolle has about 115,000 citizens.-History:...
from 1982 to 1987, and
cultural historyThe term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
at the University of Utrecht from 1986 to 1990. From 1992 to 1996 he was a Research Fellow at the department for the Study of Religions at the University of Utrecht.
From 1996 to 1999 Hanegraaff held a postdoctoral fellowship from the
Dutch Association for Scientific Research (NWO), during which time he spent a period working in Paris.
In 1999 he became professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. From 2002 to 2006 he has been president of the
Dutch Society for the Study of Religion, and, since 2005, president of the
European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. In 2006 he was elected member of the
Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie voor Wetenschappen, KNAW).
Works
His dissertation
New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought was published by
BrillBrill is an international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, the Netherlands. With offices in Leiden and Boston, Brill today publishes more than 100 journals and around 500 new books and reference works each year...
in 1996. Two years later it was taken up by SUNY Press. This work constitutes one of the first non-polemical academic reviews of the
New AgeThe New Age is a decentralized Western social and spiritual movement that seeks "Universal Truth" and the attainment of the highest individual human potential. It includes aspects of cosmology, astrology, esotericism, alternative medicine, music, collectivism, sustainability, and nature...
movement, presenting an analysis on the basis of its important texts. It covers important authors, themes, aspects of New Age belief, and finally looks at the New Age in the context of traditional Western
esotericismEsotericism or Esoterism is a term with two basic meanings. In the dictionary sense of the term, it signifies the holding of esoteric opinions, and derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward", mystic. Its antonym is exoteric...
. It has helped pave the way for a number of further studies that have appeared in various journals, concerning the New Age phenomenon.
Other works are
Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447-1500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents (Tempe 2005; with Ruud M. Bouthoorn),
Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven (West Chester 2007), and numerous articles in academic journals and collective volumes. He is the main editor of the
Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Brill: Leiden 2005), editor of
Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism and the “Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism” (both Brill), as well as of four collective volumes on the study of religions and the history Western esotericism. He is member of the editorial board of the journals
ReligionReligion is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of Religious Studies. It was founded in 1971, with close ties to the Religious Studies program at the University of Lancaster. That program was founded and chaired by Ninian Smart, and he served as the Chairman of the first editorial board...
,
NumenNumen is an academic journal on the history of religions, published by Brill Publishers in Leiden, The Netherlands. It publishes non-confessional articles on the history of all religions, of all regions and times, as well as papers discussing theoretical innovations in the study of religion and...
,
Religion Compass and
Esoterica, and on the advisory board of
Journal of Contemporary Religion and
Nova ReligioNova Religio is a peer-reviewed religious studies journal that focuses on New Religious Movements. The journal is published by University of California Press, in Berkeley, California...
.
Hanegraaff has written a book on the Renaissance hermetist
Lodovico LazzarelliLudovico Lazzarelli was an Italian poet, philosopher, courtier and alleged magician and diviner of the early Renaissance....
(with Ruud M. Bouthoorn). Lazzarelli was treated by Frances A. Yates as a secondary figure. The Hanegraaff-Bouthoorn book argues that Yates's "grand narrative" of the Hermetic Tradition needs to be revised. It seeks to restore Lazzarelli's place in the history of Renaissance hermetism and contains critical annotated editions and translations of Lazzarelli's hermetic writings, plus several related documents such as the previously unpublished biography of Lazzarelli by his brother, and texts by his spiritual master Giovanni da Correggio.
Hanegraaff's small book on Swedenborg, Oetinger and Kant is based upon an analysis of
Emanuel Swedenborgwas a Swedish scientist, philosopher, Christian mystic, and theologian. Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At the age of fifty-six he entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and visions...
's magnum opus
Secrets of Heaven, and explores the history of its reception by the Swabian Christian theosopher/kabbalist and theologian
Friedrich Christoph OetingerFriedrich Christoph Oetinger , was a German theosopher.He was born at Göppingen. He studied philosophy and theology at Tübingen , and was impressed by the works of Jakob Böhme. On the completion of his university course, Oetinger spent some years travelling...
and by
Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg...
, the last of whose pre-critical writings was devoted to Swedenborg.
Partial bibliography
- W. J. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Brill, Leiden 1996, State University of New York Press, Albany 1998. ISBN 978-90-04-10696-3; ISBN 0-7914-3854-6
- ----- and R.M. Bouthoorn Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447-1500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents, Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, 2005.
- -----Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven, The Swedenborg Foundation, West Chester, Pennsylvania 2007 (Swedenborg Studies Series, no. 18) ISBN 978-0-87785-321-3.
- (ed.) Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Brill, Leiden 2005. ISBN 978-90-04-15231-1
- (ed., with Ria Kloppenborg), Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions, Brill, Leiden 1995. ISBN 978-90-04-10290-3
- (ed., with Roelof van den Broek), Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times, State University of New York Press, Albany 1998.
- (ed., with Antoine Faivre), Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion, Peeters, Louvain 1998.
- (ed., with Richard Caron, Joscelyn Godwin & Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron), Ésotérisme, gnoses & imaginaire symbolique: Mélanges offerts à Antoine Faivre, Peeters, Louvain 2001.
- (ed. with Jeffrey J. Kripal
Jeffrey J. Kripal is the J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University, Houston, Texas...
), Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism, Brill: Leiden 2008.
External links