Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism

Get access Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek and Jean-Pierre Brach

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Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online is the comprehensive reference work to cover the entire domain of “Gnosis and Western Esotericism” from the period of Late Antiquity to the present. Containing around 400 articles by over 180 international specialists, Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online provides critical overviews discussing the nature and historical development of all its important currents and manifestations, from Gnosticism and Hermetism to Astrology, Alchemy and Magic, from the Hermetic Tradition of the Renaissance to Rosicrucianism and Christian Theosophy, and from Freemasonry and Illuminism to 19thcentury Occultism and the contemporary New Age movement. Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online also contains articles about the life and work of all the major personalities in the history of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, discussing their ideas, significance, and historical influence.

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Novalis

(2,104 words)

Author(s): Hanegraaff, Wouter J. | Versluis, Arthur
Novalis, (ps. of Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg), * 2 May 1772 (Oberwiederstedt), † 25 Mar 1801 (Weissenfels) A jurist, philosopher, mining engineer and famous Romantic poet, von Hardenberg was raised in a large family. His father, having gone through a religious crisis following the death of his first wife in 1769, raised his children in the spirit of Herrnhut → Pietism. From 1790 to 1794 von Hardenberg studied law, philosophy, history and mathematics at the Universities of Jena, where he got into contac…
Source: Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism

Novikov, Nikolay Ivanovich

(2,386 words)

Author(s): Lazar-Ovtchinnikov, Alex
Novikov, Nikolay Ivanovich, * 27.4 [8.5, New Style] 1744 (Avdotino (Bronnitsky district, near Moscow, Russia)), † 31.7 [12.8] 1818 (Avdotino) The best-known Russian journalist, book editor and Freemason of the 18th century, Nikolay Ivanovich Novikov was born in a family belonging to the middle-class nobility, and raised in their modest estate, Avdotino, located near Moscow. He received a quite poor education in the French college of Moscow University and was even expelled from it for repeated absence. Following family tradition, he joined the Izmailovskij regiment of the Imper…
Source: Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism

Number Symbolism

(7,407 words)

Author(s): Brach, Jean-Pierre
Number symbolism, also known as the qualitative approach to number and mathematical objects in general, constitutes a universal cultural phenomenon and has existed from time immemorial. As such, it must be envisaged strictly apart from the so-called “numerology” which has emerged as its contemporary offshoot and is really, at best, an illegitimate child and, moreover, a mere waste-product of post-modern consumerism. Within western culture, to which we shall naturally limit ourselves here, open considerations pertaining to “qualitative number” first appear…
Source: Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism

Nuysement, Clovis Hesteau de

(691 words)

Author(s): Greiner, Frank
Nuysement, Clovis Hesteau de, * between 1555 and 1560 (place unknown), † after 1624 (place unknown) Secretary of the chamber of Henri III (1551-1589) and of the Duke of Anjou (1555-1584), disciple of Jean Dorat (1508-1588) and member of the Academy founded by Antoine de Baïf (1532-1589), Nuysement is first of all a perfect courtly poet of the end of the 16th century. His Œuvres poétiques (1578), which essentially consist of love poetry, earned him some notoriety at that time. But as W. Kirsop has shown, emphasizing the court of Valois' sympathy for spagyric d…
Source: Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism