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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Best Study of 18th Century German occultism out there., July 10, 2000
If you're here because you're looking for it--then you've found it. "The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason" provides a much needed re-evaluation of 18th century esoteric movements in Continential Europe, especially in Germany. The study is an evaluation of the structure, rituals, and doctrine of the Gold und Rosencreutz, an esoteric but politically powerful Rosicrucian order in Germany from about 1760 to the end of the 18th century. Many governent officials, as well as merchants and other professionals, were members of this order, which practiced an austere Christianity, but one powerfully symbolic as well. Alchemy and masonry also came to the fore in this study. McIntosh's judgment is that the evaluate literature so far has painted occultism, especially German esotericism, as anti-Enlightenment in structure, doctrine, and function. This is commonly explained by the pietism of its members, who were resistant tor openly hostile to Cartesian science and metaphysics. The "G und R" also became involved in a conservative, perhaps even reactionary monarchy in Prussia (King Frederick William II). As this Rosicrucian movement gained power, it drew the ire of a number of Enlightnment critics, and a secret society, the Bavarian Illuminati, was formed in part to oppose it. McIntosh demonstrates conclusively that simply judging the G und R as anti-Enlightenment is not the case, and he suggests a more nuanced view. To do this, McIntosh identifies three modalities of thought that were operative at the time in 18th century Germany, an Enlightenment mode, represented by Kant and others, the Orthodox churches (Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed) and a variety of Hermetic Neoplatonism, informed by Kabbalistic (both Jewish and Christian) discourse and alchemy, both theorectical and practical. Between the Orthodox religious views (the Counter-Enlightenment) and the Aufklarer, the Neoplatonic intellectual mode argued for a metaphysics illuminated by divine quintessance at every level. Drawing on classic Gnosticism and German Protestant Pietism, this Hermetic strain that gave birth to the G und R shared some characteristics with each of the other two movements. Like orthodox Christianity, the G und R held to a mostly world-negative cosmology and pessimistic epistemology, and taught that before all else men must fear and rever Jesus Christ. However, Pietism, Kabbalah and other influences gave it a strong emphasis on self-development towards the Kingdom of the Paraclete, and as such nationalistic development toward this idea as well. Reason and Science were encouraged so long as they took place within this religious telos, and many of the G und R and associated occultists found themselves on this list of prohibited books in Rome. Relations with the clergy were sometimes tense, and the G und R at times made moves to silence Counter-Enlightment clergy when they felt their interests threatened. What this text adds to a dicussion of esotericism and intellectual culture is a better framework of understanding the relationship of these metaphysical and religious movements and their influence on culture. In much of the scholarly literature and popular imagination, such religious and magical movements represent a return to "irrationality" and as such can easily be dismissed by Enlightenment discourse as unworthy cultural productions. McIntosh's text recontextualizes occultism and shows that it can (and has) had a pervasive cultural impact at crucial times and places.
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