The Gnostic Faustus

The Gnostic Faustus

Author: Ramona Fradon

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2007-11-12

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1594777276

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The Faust legend seen as a transmission of core Gnostic teachings disguised as a morality tale • Shows the 16th-century Faust text to be a coded, composite Gnostic creation myth • Identifies the many Hermetic, alchemical, and Tantric symbols found in Faust that signify worship of the divine feminine through sacramental sexual practices • Reveals a mystical process of spiritual salvation, as distilled from esoteric traditions In The Gnostic Faustus, Ramona Fradon shows the legend of Doctor Faustus to be a composite Gnostic creation myth that reveals the process of spiritual salvation. Nearly every element of the original 16th-century text is a metaphor containing profound spiritual messages based on passages of Coptic and Syrian Gnostic manuscripts, including the Pistis Sophia and The Hymn of the Pearl. Fradon identifies many Hermetic, alchemical, and Tantric symbols in the Faust Book that accompany the story of Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, whose troubled journey to salvation is a model for human spiritual development. Extensive line-by-line text comparisons with these Gnostic manuscripts show that Faustus’s corruption by the Devil and his despair parallel Sophia’s transgression and fall, and that his tragic death is a simple reversal of her joyful rebirth, so written in order to make an otherwise heretical story palatable to Church authorities at that time. Fradon demonstrates that the Faust legend is a vehicle for transmitting antiquity’s secret wisdom. It provides an account of spiritual initiation whose goal is ecstatic revelation and union with the divine. The elements of alchemy, sacramental sex, and worship of the divine feminine that are encoded in the Faust Book reveal the same hidden goddess-worshipping tradition whose practices are hinted at by the writings of Renaissance magi such as Cornelius Agrippa and Giordano Bruno.


Faustus and the Promises of the New Science, c. 1580-1730

Faustus and the Promises of the New Science, c. 1580-1730

Author: Christa Knellwolf King

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1351936913

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Having identified the literary origins of the Faustus legend in the German Faust Book (1587) and its English translation (1592), this book argues that these works transformed a simple rogue's tale into an incisive study of morality and beliefs. The chapbooks' contrastive portrayal of an imaginary experience of hell and a pseudo-scientific journey through the cosmos is interpreted as an unconventional approach to the questions of an inquiring mind. This study offers the first analysis of the chapbooks as literary works in their own right, as opposed to simply being sources for Christopher Marlowe's play. It is also the first study to describe the Faustus typology as a vehicle by which uncompromising thinkers of early modernity and the Enlightenment questioned contemporary views about religion, morality and the possibility of experiencing transcendence. While arguing that Marlowe's Doctor Faustus primarily examines the imaginary foundations of religious rules and standards, the author suggests that the 1616 version of the play revived the chapbooks' accounts of spiritual ravishment and intellectual ecstasy. Imaginary explorations of cosmic space became popular in the seventeenth century and gave rise to strongly diverging works of literature, embracing the arcane spirituality of Milton's Paradise Lost as well as Fontenelle's sociable but essentially secular fantasy of cosmic travel. This book shows that contemporary responses to early modern science also tended to address the most urgent concerns of the Faustus legend, explaining the re-emergence of the typology in Mountfort's late seventeenth-century farcical Faustus play and early eighteenth-century harlequinades about Doctor Faustus


Faust

Faust

Author: E. A. Bucchianeri

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 706

ISBN-13: 1434390616

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A comprehensive exploration of Dr. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil, and those who lived to tell his tale. Volume I includes: New insights into the life and times of the historical Dr. Faustus, the notorious occultist and charlatan who reputedly declared the devil was his brother-in-law. A detailed study of the first Faust books and the popular Faustian folk tales. Original discussions on Christopher Marlowes famous drama and his atheistic rendition of the Faustian myth, including a unique and controversial analysis of the A and B texts. The days of the Faust puppet plays. Gotthold Ephraim Lessings unfinished Faust drama. Volume II features: A unique, in-depth account of Johann Wolfgang von Goethes masterpiece, Faust, Parts One and Two. An examination of the early sketches of his classic drama. Includes detailed explanations of Goethes hidden symbolism in the text, his interest in history and science, the occult, alchemy, Freemasonry and his warnings to future generations.


Seeking Meaning for Goethe's Faust

Seeking Meaning for Goethe's Faust

Author: J. M. van der Laan

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2007-04-01

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 0826493041

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Goethe's Faust Parts I and II (1808, 1832) is one of the most important texts in German, and World Literature - this monograph offers a new, original analysis of the text and its significance today


Deutsch Als Fremdsprache

Deutsch Als Fremdsprache

Author: Steven D. Martinson

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9783039116270

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To initiate its new Ph.D. Program in Transcultural German Studies, jointly offered by the University of Arizona and the University of Leipzig, the Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona organized an international conference on Transcultural German Studies in Tucson from March 29-31, 2007. Conference participants sought to define the nature of Transcultural German Studies. This new, interdisciplinary field of inquiry investigates the cultural landscapes of the German-speaking world in the light of globalization and inter- and transcultural contact. The contributions that comprise the volume are by scholars who work in a number of related fields, exploring transcultural phenomena - past and present - evident in selected literary, filmic, musical and historical texts. Zur Einführung des neuen, interdisziplinären Studiengangs Transcultural German Studies, den die University of Arizona und die Universität Leipzig gemeinsam anbieten, organisierte das Department of German Studies der University of Arizona vom 29. bis 31. März 2007 in Tucson eine internationale Konferenz. Die Teilnehmer hatten es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, das Wesen der Transcultural German Studies zu definieren und näher zu beleuchten. Dieser Band vereint ausgewählte Ergebnisse der Vorträge. Im Licht von Globalisierung sowie inter- und transkulturellen Kontakten werden Kulturlandschaften des deutschsprachigen Raumes untersucht. Wissenschaftler, die in einer Reihe von verwandten Forschungsgebieten arbeiten, nehmen literarische, filmische, musikalische und historische Texte genauer unter die Lupe und zeigen anhand dieser Texte transkulturelle Phänomene der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart auf.


Goethe's Faust and Cultural Memory

Goethe's Faust and Cultural Memory

Author: Lorna Fitzsimmons

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1611461227

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This book is an interdisciplinary collection of essays examining Goethe's Faust and its derivatives in European, North American, and South American cultural contexts. Topics include the authority of the word in Faust and Dr.Faustus, cultural memory of Herder, the Eternal-Feminine, Coleridge's responses to Faust, Argentinean adaptations, performances by Peter Stein and the Goetheanum, Canadian reception of Faust, Werner Fritsch's multimedia project Faust Sonnengesang, and the relevance of Faust for models of artificial intelligence.


Hidden Mutualities

Hidden Mutualities

Author: Michael Mitchell

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9042021101

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Hidden mutualities link the work of major postcolonial writers with Christopher Marlowe's drama of the Faustian pact - the manipulation of the material world in exchange for the soul - written as the 'scientific' world-view was emerging which accompanied the imperial expansion of Europe and has determined the economic and social structures of the colonial and postcolonial world. This fascinating study brings together researches in widely different fields to show how Doctor Faustus reflects a Gnostic / Hermetic tradition marginalized within the dominant European power structures. Rediscovered in the Renaissance, and combined with occult arts such as alchemy and magic, this living tradition informs the work of 'Magus' figures such as Pico della Mirandola, Marcilio Ficino, Trithemius, Johannes Reuchlin, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Paracelsus and John Dee, who are reflected in the Faust tradition and in Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. The second part investigates the dual legacy of the Magus. A counterpoint between a law-governed objective material world and an occult visionary pursuit of the divine potential of the human imagination is traced through the examples of Johan Kepler, Robert Fludd, Isaac Newton, William Blake, Rudyard Kipling, Aleister Crowley, W.B. Yeats, Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung. In the third part, textual analysis reveals how attention to these Faustian themes opens new and exciting critical perspectives in appreciating the works of postcolonial writers, in particular Dimetos by Athol Fugard, Disappearance by David Dabydeen, Omeros by Derek Walcott, and the novels of Wilson Harris.


The Alternative Trinity

The Alternative Trinity

Author: Anthony David Nuttall

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 019818462X

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The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family. This book explores the possibility of an underground 'perennial heresy', by examining the work of Marlowe, Milton and Blake.


The Christ Conspiracy

The Christ Conspiracy

Author: Acharya S.

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2012-09-04

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1935487280

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In this highly controversial and explosive book, archaeologist, historian, mythologist and linguist Acharya S. marshals an enormous amount of startling evidence to demonstrate that Christianity and the story of Jesus Christ were created by members of various secret societies, mystery schools and religions in order to unify the Roman Empire under one state religion. In developing such a fabrication, this multinational cabal drew upon a multitude of myths and rituals that existed long before the Christian era, and reworked them for centuries into the religion passed down to us today. Contrary to popular belief, there was no single man who was at the genesis of Christianity; Jesus was many characters rolled into one. These characters personified the ubiquitous solar myth, and their exploits were well known, as reflected by such popular deities as Mithras, Heracles/Hercules, Dionysos and many others throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. The story of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels is revealed to be nearly identical in detail to that of the earlier savior-gods Krishna and Horus, who for millennia preceding Christianity held great favor with the people. The Christ Conspiracy shows the Jesus character as not unique or original, not “divine revelation.” Christianity reinterprets the same extremely ancient body of knowledge that revolved around the celestial bodies and natural forces. The result of this myth making has been “The Greatest Conspiracy Ever Sold.” .