Occult Philosophy Video Channel Interview with Hanegraaff on Hermetic Spirituality

_{Site Map [create & link to Hanegraaff section]}

Contents:

• Video – Hermetic Spirituality with Prof Wouter Hanegraaff
• Book – Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity
• Hanegraaff’s Website & Weblog
• Keynote Speech & Article about Entheogenic Esotericism: Exoteric Esotericism
• Transcendent Levels in Astral Ascent Mysticism
• Reality Check Standard of Reference: Psilocybin (Not Meditation) Is the Gold Standard Reference for “Spectacular Altered States of Consciousness” – Critique of Hanegraaff’s imaginative confabulation, “non-drug entheogens”

Video – Hermetic Spirituality with Prof Wouter Hanegraaff

https://youtu.be/RocoS-vOGFk

Video title:
Hermetic Spirituality with Prof Wouter Hanegraaff
July 31, 2022
Channel: Angela’s Symposium
https://www.youtube.com/c/AngelasSymposium/videos

Book – Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity

Book:
Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity
Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022
https://www.amazon.com/Hermetic-Spirituality-Historical-Imagination-Knowledge/dp/1009123068/

Hanegraaff’s Website & Weblog

Professor Hanegraaff’s website:
http://wouterjhanegraaff.net
Blog:
http://wouterjhanegraaff.blogspot.com

Keynote Speech & Article about Entheogenic Esotericism: Exoteric Esotericism

Hanegraaff’s keynote paper:
Exoteric Esotericism (2012)
https://www.academia.edu/3461770/Entheogenic_Esotericism_2012_

Transcendent Levels in Astral Ascent Mysticism

My simplified shorthand mental model:

Simplified Astral Ascent Mysticism

3) Empyrean/Imperium/Empirium. qualified possibilism-thinking.

2) Saturn & Fixed Stars (the Heimarmene Gate). basic eternalism-thinking.

1) Earth; sublunar. naive possibilism-thinking.

Not shown: God above Empirium. God isn’t necessarily a level, but is the source-of-thoughts to be experienced at the fixed stars level.

Not shown: The 6 lower planets. Saturn is listed because pictured sacrificing the child to pass through the Heimarmene Gate.

There’s no real, functional distinction between Fate & Heimarmene; Saturn vs. fixed stars.

Don’t be fooled or over-impressed by ornate esotericism.

The scientific model is the most plain and streamlined.

Gratuitous ornamentation, vs. stripped-down function and clearest basic analogies.

Hofstadter’s book on heaping-on extra layers of stylization.

An invented distinction can assign Fate to Saturn/planets, and assign Heimarmene to fixed stars.

But Fate and Heimarmene & t’ding them are utilized identically; no functional difference. Like suppose:

Fixed Stars = Heimarmene.
Saturn = Fate.

No meaningful/functional difference; a pseudo breakout/distinction. faux precision. To be fated is to be subject to Heimarmene. Two ways of saying the same thing. False precision like “the 12 negative energies: envy; intemperance, …” they are just arbitrary filler like “There are non-drug ways that “can” “induce or facilitate” the 2-bowls-of-cubensis experience, such as drumming, chanting, making up BS token lists of lies, doing laundry, beating your head against a tree as part of a spiritual cultic ritual, …”

First, people discovered switching to the eternalism experiential state and then returning to the possibilism experiential state upon returning to baseline SoC.

That is, they discovered the sequence progression:
naive possibilism-thinking -> basic eternalism-thinking -> qualified possibilism-thinking.

Then, they artificially translated that innate threefold sequence to astral ascent mysticism (a leaky/forced analogy).

“We’ll assign:
fixed stars = basic eternalism-thinking,
earth = naive possibilism-thinking;
then above/outside the fixed stars can be mapped to God and qualified possibilism-thinking.
Then make up some arbitrary fake mappings to occupy the planets. For the highest planet, Saturn, take the {sacrifice child} aspect of the fixed-stars Heimarmene Gate function and reassign that function to Saturn’s sphere. (It really remains a single function though; experiencing eternalism-consciousness mode, learning the mental model that’s stable there, and then returning to possibilism-consciousness mode (but retaining the changed mental model of the metaphysical level & the stability requirements model).

Heimarmene Gate seems like it straddles Core Concepts & Key Mythemes. Useful for modeling the dynamics. Eternalism gate; no-free-will gate.

“Block Universe Worldline enlightenment satori gate”, I’d probably say in Jan 1988; hard to say.

My thought-style is so shaped by mythemes and analogies now, what would Douglas Hofstadter say to me now in 2022 vs in 1988?

It is not only a goal to have mytheme-free Core Concepts/ explanatory model; it is also a goal to structure / express my Core Theory so as to optimally map to mythemes.

Loose Cog Sci should be designed / expressed to leverage – as a distinct realm/domain – mythemeland.

Loose Cog Sci land (Core theory concepts) mapped to, and arranged so as to map to, Mythemeland.

The 3 Mental Models

uncontrollable source of control thoughts; God; the Source.

3) qualified possibilism-thinking; the 9th; the Ennead; Primo Mobile; above no-free-will; above eternalism; trans-rational.

2) basic eternalism-thinking = {fixed stars}, and {Saturn sacrificing the child}; ignore {6 other planets} but they go lumped in here; no-free-will; non-branching possibilities. insanely rational.

1) naive possibilism-thinking; sublunar, earth; freewill premised thinking

https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/10/ptolemaic-astral-ascent-mysticism/ –

Ptolemaic Astral Ascent Mysticism

8:00 in the video & again later – it’s odd how Hanegraaff says “Ogdoad – realm of souls” and “Ennead – realm of Powers” (and then “the Source – the pege“).

He never seems to mention the terms per standard Astral Ascent Mysticism, “fixed stars” for the 8th (Ogdoad), & “the Empyrean” for the 9th (Ennead).

• 0 – Earth
• 1st sphere/gate – of the Moon
• 2nd sphere/gate – of Mercury
• 3rd sphere/gate – of Venus
• 4th sphere/gate – of the Sun
• 5th sphere/gate – of Mars
• 6th sphere/gate – of Jupiter
• 7th sphere/gate – of Saturn
• the 8th sphere/gate – of the fixed stars/ Heimarmene/ zodiac elliptic belt constellations (but Hanegraaff instead says “realm of the souls“) – compare Body/Soul/Spirit 3fold scheme says “merely souls”; merely the soul. Need to transcend the mere soul. “Integrate & dis-identify with & transcend” the soul (per Ken Wilber)
• the 9th realm/level – the Empyrean (where God & the Elect are); I’d assign “the spirit” here, given that the spirit transcends no-free-will/Heimarmene/ block universe. per a mythic interpretation of the fact that the mind after experiencing block universe, 3 hours later, is back to baseline consciousness experiential state of freewill-shaped branching-world experiential mental worldmodel even if the memory of the worldmodel-transformative experience of eternalism/ block universe/ Heimarmene/ no-free-will experience is eventually retained upon return to baseline SoC. Hanegraaff assigns “the Powers” here.
• beyond the 9th – Hanegraaff says “the Source of all that exists; the pege“; the Creator; God.

His book has:

2 hits on “fixed”+”stars”: 41, 294 –

• 41 – “I am a star, wandering about with you”, “five-pronged stars will proceed from the sun”, keeping her gaze fixed on the sun’s inner space”. tons of mystic-state words – restore to peace, alien intruder, immortal, doors, gate, restore a sense of balance & control, asking for the doors to open, seven planetary gods, reborn, she has no business being there, asking for protection, asps, …
• 294 – FINALLY he mentions “the fixed stars”, he needs to add numbering like I do to straighten this out, he says he’s unsure. whether to assign musical note “the omegas” (vowel = note = some sphere level). Mahe says omega vowel/note = the Ogdoad, = the 8th, = the sphere of the fixed stars. But Hane says they mean Saturn = 7th cosmic sphere. Hane writes, take note: “Whether the fixed stars [= the 8th cosmic sphere] should be included [with what? write complete thoughts!] or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad [= the 8th sphere of the cosmos] remains an open question for me.”
  • http://www.sofiatopia.org/maat/ten_keys.htm – “fixed stars” agrees with me;
    • Ogdoad = 8th = fixed stars.
    • Ennead = 9th = transcending Heimarmene/fate = beyond the stars.
    • Decad = 10th = God/Source.
  • Per my Astral Ascent Mystcism page:
    • 0 – possibilism-thinking = earth,
    • 1st-7th & 8th spheres – eternalism-thinking = 7 planet spheres + fixed stars;
    • 9th level – qualified possibilism-thinking (transcending eternalism) = the Empyrean; the 9th, outside the stars, dwelling place of God and the Elect.
    • 10th level – The creator/ source of control thoughts is the 10th level; God; Decad; the pege.
• p 294 ftnt 114 : Hanegraaff asks whether the fixed stars should be included with Saturn (7th) in “the cosmos”, or instead to the Ogdoad which he wants to call, and usually does call (wrongly), “hypercosmic”.

Footnote 114, page 294: “… Saturn … Whether the fixed stars should be included or should rather be associated with the Ogdoad remains an open question for me.”
– engage ESP to understand “should be included” [with what? he must mean the cosmos] Why wouldn’t you associate/identify stars = Ogdoad (8th sphere)?? Of COURSE the stars are the Ogdoad, that’s a trivial given!

How is there any doubt here?? wtf Hanegraaff.

It’s a SIMPLE GIVEN that the fixed stars are the Ogdoad, which is the 8th, the 8th sphere. Do you not understand basic science & math, wtf?

Obviously, as a given, the fixed stars = the 8th/Ogdoad – though functionally I observe that the gate of Saturn (7th) is functionally used in myth as the same thing as the Heimarmene gate of the fixed stars (8th aka Ogdoad).

Beyond the Heimarmene gate (which I propose = Saturn+stars; 7th+8th, both inside the cosmos) is the Empyrean including the 9th aka Ennead aka the Empyrean; God is in and beyond the Empyrean.

When you reach the level that’s past the stars, and are in the 9th, only then are you hypercosmic, outside the cosmos.

Consult any Ptolemaic diagram; it’s perfectly clear-cut, elementary school science.

HANEGRAAFF FLUNKS ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL BASIC SCIENCE & MATH.

WHY WOULD HE ASSIGN FIXED STARS TO SATURN’S SPHERE INSTEAD OF TO THE 8TH? Know-nothing Hanegraaff.

The only excuse for Hanegraaff’s ignorance would be that in Astral Ascent Mysticism, the 7th gate (Saturn) is treated as if identical with the 8th gate (the sphere of the fixed stars, which is obviously, tangibly, in all diagrams, placed outside of the planet Saturn, of course.

Saturn is a wandering planet, why on earth would Hanegraaff consider placing the FIXED stars at the PLANET Saturn?!)

He vaguely sometimes uses the term “hypercosmic” and I think this term is where ambiguity stems: ‘cosmos’ might include Fixed Stars (outside the planets/cosmos, or might be Beyond the Stars if you say “the sphere of stars in inside of the cosmos”.

Does “cosmos” include sphere of fixed stars, or not?? Define “hypercosmic”.

That’s probably what Hanegraaff is wondering; next page 297 heading is “Beyond the Stars” and on these pages he says “hypercosmic”; therefore he’s puzzling “does ‘cosmos’ include fixed stars, or not??”

That’s why he avoids “fixed stars”, because he’s not sure how to relate the 8th sphere vs the hazy word “the cosmos”.

The fact that the stars are the 8th sphere (thus, the Ogdoad) is 0% hazy.

The meaning of “cosmos” is hazy, but seems clear that stars are inside cosmos.

Thus the Ennead/9th is hypercosmic and the Ogdoad/8th (stars) is merely cosmic.

He tries to overglorify the Ogdoad and mis-place it in the hypercosmic heavens – confused theorizing results.

He over-elevates meditation and the Ogdoad.

I know the 8th definitely means the sphere of fixed stars thus it must by the Ogdoad which is syn of the 8th, but the unclarity is does he misspeak if he says the Ogdoad is hypercosmic? I think Hanegraaff misspeaks in sometimes saying/implying the Ogdoad (stars) is “hypercosmic”:

• p. 295 bottom “they have reached the hebdomad, the seventh sphere of Saturn. Therefore their consciousness is still within* the cosmic domain, but they are ready to move beyond* it.” *I think that wording/model is an error.
  • Saturn isn’t the highest sphere that’s in “the cosmos”; sphere of fixed stars is.
  • ‘the cosmos’, I believe, is consistently defined in myth as planets + stars.
  • {cosmos} in Ptolemaic-like myth never means just the planets; ‘the cosmos’ in astral myth always includes the fixed stars, afaik.
• p. 296 “the seven cosmic spheres” I think that phrase is a mistake, malformed. The phrase implicitly dubiously implies that stars/ the 8th sphere/ the Ogdoad is to be dubbed “hypercosmic”.
• p. 297 “Beyond the Stars” + “hypercosmic” (inconsistently now implying (in agreement w/ my opinion) that stars = cosmic; inside the cosmos)

He’s waffling, as he admits in footnote 114.

Define “cosmic”.

Is “beyond the stars” syn w/ “outside the stars”?

IMO the stars are INSIDE the cosmos; if you reach 8th/stars, you’re still INSDE cosmos.

Only when you reach 9th/ the Empyrean are you “beyond the stars” & thus actually “hypercosmic”.

On p 295, Hane definitely speculates asserting that the 7th sphere Saturn is still in the cosmos, but the 8th sphere is outside the cosmos.

He’s speculating that the sphere of fixed stars is to be counted as “outside of the cosmos”; he thinks the cosmos is the planets but the stars are outside of the cosmos.

He’s ambiguous on these few pages.

What’s actually unclear is: Is the 8th sphere “hypercosmic”, or not?! I’d say no.

p 295 bottom, Hanegraaff is wrong & mistaken to call the Ogdoad (which must be the stars) “hypercosmic” (if we agree that stars are inside the cosmos).

p 297 equates “hypercosmic” w/ “beyond the stars”, earlier page says “cosmic = the 7 planet spheres”. Contradictory. I say the 8th MUST mean stars. Whether we include 8th/stars is “cosmos” or “hypercosmic” is the only question. His use of “hypercosmic” is vague.

So he says “the Ogdoad” and avoids ever saying “fixed stars” except this one footnote saying “whether to include the fixed stars WITH SATURN [ie, he must mean, whether to include stars as part of “the cosmos”] remains an open question to me.”

Vague writing in this footnote at “whether to include”. Write complete thoughts, please! No unstated objects; no E.S.P.-based writing please! But it’s a dumb question, “whether to include the fixed stars with the Ogdoad”. Obviously the 8th sphere (“ogdoad”) is the fixed stars.

If Saturn = 7th sphere, and Ogdoad means 8th sphere, where the hell else would you place sphere of fixed stars: he proposes to count the sphere of fixed stars as 7th, with the planet Saturn(?!), lower than the sphere he calls the 8th(?!), wtf.

WHAT NUMBERING COULD THE SPHERE OF FIXED STARS POSSIBLY HAVE OTHER THAN OGDOAD IE 8TH?! 🤦‍♂️

How could Hane possibly be unclear on this? It’s clear as can be! A musical notes question, I can understand him wondering. His footnote wording is way too hazy and not articulated explicitly.

The only unclear thing possibly is what does “cosmos” mean.

7 hits on “fixed”, 34 41 67 164 227 247 248 260 294

Empyrean – 0 hits. alt sp?

Reality Check Standard of Reference: Psilocybin (Not Meditation) Is the Gold Standard Reference for “Spectacular Altered States of Consciousness”

Critique of Hanegraaff’s imaginative confabulation, “non-drug entheogens”

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f134.item.zoom – mobile: view in landscape orientation

My article about the Great Mushroom Psalter:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/proof-canterbury-psalters-mushroom-trees-are-psilocybe/

Reality check standard of reference: Psilocybin is the gold standard reference for the intense altered state in the history of religion.

Hanegraaff’s imagination-exercise construction for academic scholar historians, “Entheogens in the wide sense” – that is, non-drug entheogens – is a contradiction in terms.

Hanegraaafff doesn’t even believe his own baloney, he’s just trying not to get Allegro’d while heroically doing as much as he is permitted, to clear some space for hidebound academics to try to catch up a little with popular scholarship.

Many fallacies are employed by Hanegraaff’s book, due to the irrationality-producing, corrupting force of Prohibition.

In self-contradictory fashion, Hanegraaff proposes that ancient Theurgists accessed “spectacular alternative states of consciousness” through non-drug entheogens.

Hanegraaff’s bogus confabulation “entheogenic religion in the broad sense” is a pretextual strategem as a proxy to enable scholars to discuss entheogens while pretending to merely discuss Yulia Ustinova’s cave meditation, leveraging her ABD (“Anything But Drugs”, no matter how implausible, impractical, and ineffectual) explanation of ancient altered states.

Academic scholarship and entheogens and imagination procedures are supposed to be used in conjunction.

Hanegraaff keeps habitually discussing academic scholarship vs. entheogens vs. imagination procedures as if they are zero-sum game, mutually exclusive, pitted against each other – as if you have to pick between them – a false dichotomy that’s rife throughout this book.

Hanegraaff imagines and constructs an impenetrable wall between academic scholars vs. experiencers – subjects to be studied as alien specimens – of the intense mystic altered state.

So his discussions in the book are as confusing as helpful, because they are fundamentally malformed and off-base, founded on false dichotomies: you have to:

• Commit to using the approach of scholarship, or else commit to experiencing in the altered state.
• Use reason, or else use the altered state.
• Use imagination exercises, or else use the altered state.

Hanegraaff writes with zero concept of scholarship integrated with entheogens and imagination exercises, and fails to discuss or at all consider how that combination would work, but only thinks in terms of either/or capabilities and limitations of exclusively using one of them, pitting them against each other.

Hanegraaff emphasizes that scholars must explain intense alternate states – but contradicts himself by using a mere Psychology reading (hopelessly grounded, limited to ordinary-state conceptions of “negative energies”) of ‘exorcising the negative powers by summoning being filled by the power of the Source and Creator of all that exists’.

Hanegraaff rejects negative-themed, quasi-Hermetic texts without recognizing their interesting intense mystic-state referents per the Entheogen Mytheme theory decoding.

Hanegraaff falsely elevates mere controlled imagination exercises as entheogens, but which he says only rare people have that ability.

Hanegraaff asserts that normal theurgy initiates used imagination exercises in order to produce the intense “spectacular alternative states of consciousness”, but then he writes that only rare people have this special ability.

Actually such “other methods” are activities to do in the entheogen-induced intense altered state, not ways to produce the altered state.

Hanegraaff’s book and keynote article have internal contradictions galore, made irrational under the conditions of Prohibition and academic censorship.

Hanegraaff writes that scholars have no control over their mind or imagination or focus of attention, and that affects what they perceive as plausibly true – he writes those pregnant words without comprehending their intense altered state ramification for control-source revelation and transformation.

Wouter Hanegraaff’s 2012 keynote speech article and chapter, “Entheogenic Esotericism” covers contemporary, not ancient, esotericism.

Through a backwards approach to prescriptive word-defining, Hanegraaff tries to redefine the plant-defined word ‘entheogens’ on the fallacious premise that etymology sets the meaning of a word.

Hanegraaff twists the word ‘entheogen” to mean its antonym, contradicting Ruck and Ott and the meaning of the word for everyone in the field of entheogen scholarship, rendering the word ‘entheogen” unusable and ruined.

Hanegraaff inserts the falsehood of “meditation is to be used to produce the psilocybin state” into the word ‘entheogen’, rendering the word anathema, indeterminate, and unusable.

To use the word ‘entheogen’ as Hanegraaff has falsely redefined it would be to tell a lie that meditation is the equal of psilocybin and is to be thought of as a way of accessing the intense altered state, when actually, meditation is an activity to be done in the entheogen-accessed altered state.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/psychedelic – “from Greek psykhē “mind” (see psyche) + dēloun “make visible, reveal” (from dēlos “visible, clear,” from PIE root *dyeu- “to shine”).”

Hanegraaff’s bunk derivation logic goes thusly: the word ‘psychedelic’ was constructed from “psyche+delos” which means “making perceptible the mind” – thus yields the construction & category “non-drug psychedelics”, because for example, Grof’s hyperventilation makes the mind perceptible.

“Therefore”, as Hanegraaff argues, any non-drug “Other Method” that “can” make the mind clear/ visible/ revealed is “literally” a psychedelic, “although this broadens current understandings” (like robbing a bank “broadens” the understanding of “making a withdrawal”). Thus we academics have constructed, through the power of our imagination, “non-drug psychedelics”, aka “psychedelic religion in the wide sense”.

Except, none of these alleged, bunk & bogus “other techniques” produces the requisite intensity, as defined by two bowls of cubensis spaced an hour apart, as depicted in folio page cartoon panel f134 of the Paris-Eadwine Great Canterbury Psalter.

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10551125c/f134.item.zoom – mobile: view in landscape orientation

That illuminated manuscript shows a branching-message mushroom tree with initiates balancing and touching God’s sword of control-instability mystic death and rebirth, with left hand representing unstable perishable illusory branching model of world and control.

The balancing/sword/mushroom tree image is surrounded by 74 other mushroom trees with added branching and cut branches, along with vine-leaf trees and lifted garment motifs indicating the intense mystic altered state.

That – two bowlfuls of cubensis timed spaced apart – sets the definition of what intensity level these bunk alleged “other methods” would have to produce.

In fact the alleged “other methods” such as cave meditation and imagination procedures are activities to be done within the entheogen-produced altered state, not means of producing the intense altered state.

In his keynote article Entheogenic Esotericism, Hanegraaff writes: Don’t be suckered like I was by Newage claiming to be psychedelics-free; factor in coercive Prohibition-based censorship.

“My 1996 Newage book was rather naive”, Hanegraaff says – then in his article he tells a cover-up story that the traditional methods of the mystics are psychedelics-free [footnote 3].

Footnote 3: Shaw & Luck say Theurgy was likely psychedelics-based.

Keynote paper; article/ Chapter 19 of the book Contemporary Esotericism, “Entheogenic Esotericism”, cited three times in his new book Hermetic Spirituality; 3 out of the book’s 5 instances of the word ‘entheogen’ are citations of this paper:

https://www.academia.edu/3461770/Entheogenic_Esotericism_2012_

See also his book’s index entry on Psychoactive plants.

Hanegraaff’s book dances around entheogens, in fearful avoidance roundabout taboo fashion, relying instead on citing his Contemporary-only usage, not-antiquity focused, article.

Hanegraaff means ‘entheogenic esotericism’ in an incorrect sense, as merely a subset of esotericism, that’s presupposed as being opposed to normal esotericism.

In contrast, my 2004 web posting’s coining of the term ‘entheogenic esotericism’ was well-formed, 8 years before Hanegraaff “coined the phrase” ‘entheogenic esotericism’ but malformed in conception, in his falsely narrow, supposedly subset sense.

My 2004 web posting instead asserts, directly against Hanegraaff’s premise, per my subject line, “Authentic esotericism is entheogenic esotericism”.

Bona fide actual real esotericism is inherently based in entheogens, not an innovative deviant subset as he assumes and falsely frames when Hanegraaff says and narrowingly misconceives when he says “ENTHEOGENIC esotericism”.

I am the original coiner of the term ‘entheogenic esotericism’, 8 years before Hanegraaff, but my entire point was to emphasize, against his predictable, unthinking, prejudiced taken-for-granted assumption, esotericism is inherently entheogenic, not some innovative, deviant, special-case subset.

Entheogens – the real, non-nondrug kinds, not Hanegraaff’s mis-imagined construction “entheogenic religion in the broad sense” – are literally everywhere in esotericism.

Hanegraaff’s imagined construction “entheogens in the wide sense” – i.e. non-drug entheogens – is the worst idea of any academic ever, for a whole list of reasons.

There is no esotericism without entheogens – that is, actual, effectual, real, exclusively plant-based entheogens.