SEMINAR: PRIVACY, SECRECY, & ESOTERICISM

In-person event at the Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen

Esoteric traditions and associated currents have, through many centuries, developed and employed a number of strategies connected with secrecy. One important dimension of this has been to secure privacy for their practices, transmission, and survival. People needed safe spaces to procure esoteric knowledge, and secrecy was at the core of how much of this knowledge was protected. Secrecy and privacy have also served functions in esotericism related to discourses about higher knowledge, access to the divine, the secrets of nature, didactics and identity construction. The Centre for Privacy Studies and the Copenhagen Centre for the Study of Theosophy and Esotericism of the University of Copenhagen invite scholars interested in the intersection of esotericism and privacy in a broader historical perspective to continue the exploration of this area in November 2022.

Topics of interest include (but are not restricted to):

  • Secrecy and concealment: practices and strategies;
  • Privacy in the transmission of knowledge - correspondence, training, and traditions;
  • Private circles: initiations, codes, insiders and outsiders;
  • Texts as private vehicles of esotericism - cryptic writings, symbolism, and languages;

Keynote speakers:

Professor Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen: “Secrecy, Concealment, and Privacy: Three Different Modes of Esoteric Tradition”

Professor Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg: “Secrecy and Early Eighteenth-Century Freemasonry”

Seminar programme: 

NOVEMBER 14

12:30-12:45: Welcome Address

12:45-13.45: KEYNOTE: Professor Henrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg: “Secrecy and Early Eighteenth-Century Freemasonry”.

13:45-14:10: Felipe Corte Real de Camargo: “In silence and secrecy”: Emblem culture and the creation of a masonic language in the eighteenth century.

14:10-14.35: Augusto Maciel Waga: Jean-Baptiste Alliette, on and off the esoteric milieu

14:35-15:00: Break

15:00-15:25: Andrea Franchetto: Medieval necromancy, secret locations, and ritual efficacy

15:25-15:50: Olivia Cejvan: The educational dimensions of secrecy in the initiatory society Sodalitas Rosae Crucis 

15:50:16:00: Short Break

16:00-16:25: Lucy McDonnell: To Be Silent: Conceptualisation of Secrecy and Concealment of Knowledge in Alexandrian Witchcraft

16:25-16:50: Tim Rudbøg: The Secrets of Secrecy: An investigative overview

NOVEMBER 15

10:00-10:25: Marios Koutsoukos: Internalising an experience of the divine through silence: the role of secrecy in Greco-Roman Mystery Cults and individualised religiosity

10:25-10:50: Adina Bezerita: The Apophatic Source of Cataphatic Self-knowledge

10:50-11:00: Short Break

11:00-11:25: Aaron French and Omid Hadian Bersiani: Henry Corbin and the ‘Secret’ Understanding of Aql in Shiite Traditions 

11:25-11:50: Lars Cyril Nørgaard: “Oh-Liar!" Precarious Knowledge in Holger/Oliger Paulli (1644-1714)

11:50-13:00: Lunch break

13:00-13:25: Manon Hedenborg White: Kiss and Do Not Tell: The Practice and Function of Secrecy in a Modern Esoteric Order

13:25-13:50: Ayesha Adamo: Pulling Back the Blinds on the Pentagram

13:50-14:00: Short Break

14:00-14:25: Samanta Viziale: Secrecy and concealment in Theosophy: a semiotic perspective on the “invisible”

14:25-14:50: Paulina Gruffman: Theosophical Secrets: Esoteric Transmission in Theosophical Works

14:50-15:00: Short Break

15:00-16.00: KEYNOTE: Professor Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen: “Secrecy, Concealment, and Privacy: Three Different Modes of Esoteric Tradition”

16:00: Wine reception (at Centre for Privacy Studies)

Register for in-person participation here

Conference committee

Natacha Klein Käfer

Tim Rudbøg

 

Contact: nkk@teol.ku.dk