[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
and a relatively small group living in prosperity, the question is
justified whether now is not the time to take renewed control and
counter a pending global catastrophe.
According to Michele Ciliberto in his recently published study on
Giordano Bruno, the rediscovery of the Hermetica beyond any doubt
was one of the most important contributions to historical studies in
Humanism and the Renaissance in the last fifty years.
The discovery in 1945 of the gnostic Library of Nag Hammadi,
consisting of some 42 gnostic, Hermetic and early Christian texts,
justifies a re-evaluation of the first four centuries CE. The find of the
by now famous Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in the same period has
sharpened our insight into the pre-Christian Jewish communities from
which we are told came Jesus the Nazarene. Add to these discoveries
the earlier one in the Egyptian Fayum in 1930 of at least four Coptic
texts attributed to Mani, the founder of the worldwide movement of
Manichaeism, who called himself the apostle of Jesus, and we may
conclude that the influence of gnosis - a third component next to
religion and philosophy - on Western cultural history has been truly
great. This conclusion, formulated by the Nestor of Gnosis, Professor
Gilles Quispel, has determined the infrastructure and the path of my
life.
It is not without reason when of the library of Alexandria was
officially re-opened on 23 April, an initiative led by Mrs. S.
Muhbarak, wife of Egyptian president Muhbarak, in collaboration
with an international group of scholars and supported by the World
Bank, the central theme was Thoth, the Egyptian deity who, it is said,
as the precursor of Hermes Trismegistus expounded and put down in
writing the initiation mysteries of Osiris, Isis and Horus.
When in 1985 the four main collecting areas of my library had been
defined and the library was opened to the public, the axiom 'Ad
Fontes - Back to the Sources' led me - in imitation of the Greek
philosopher Plato and inspired by the foundation of the Florentine
Academy by Marsilio Ficino in 1462 - to found an academy that
would focus entirely on conducting research into the hidden relation
God - Cosmos - Man; or in the words of the ancient Rosicrucians
'Why mortal man is also called a microcosm'.
In 1985 Professor Quispel crossed my path and he introduced me to a
circle of European scholars who have since given new impetus and
direction to research in Hermetica, Gnosis and early Christendom.
The translations of the Hermetic Corpus Hermeticum and the
Asclepius were carried out with great enthusiasm by Gilles Quispel
and Roel van den Broek and were foundation texts on the list of
publications of the publishing house 'In de Pelikaan', which by now
contains some thirty titles, including conferences proceedings and
exhibition catalogues. A new addition to the series will be a
translation by Professor Roel van den Broek, now in progress, of the
fragments of Stobaeus and the Hermetic Definitions of Hermes
Trismegistus. The translation of the world-famous Mani Codex by
Professor Hans van Oort and Gilles Quispel is also nearing
completion.
The placing of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica on the list
coming under the Cultural Heritage Act on 25 November 1994 by
then State Secretary, Mr. Aad Nuis, meant that part of our cultural
heritage was rescued from dispersal. This decision also guaranteed the
flourishing of the Europe-orientated Ritman Institute under the
guidance of two eminent scholars, Dr. Carlos Gilly, head of the
Institute, and prof. dr. F.A. Janssen, professor of Book History at the
University of Amsterdam. the Ritman Institute is associated with a
group of prominent researchers.
The Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and its staff aim, first, to
collect important founding texts relating to Hermetica, mysticism,
alchemy, Rosicrucians and comparative religion, secondly, to make
available these texts through historical research and the organization
of international conferences, exhibitions, symposiums and other
activities, and, thirdly, to publish the results of this research through
its own publishing house 'In de Pelikaan'. These three initiatives have
been developed in the last forty years independently of each other, and
can be seen as models of three central points of departure:
Ideality - Vitality - Reality
The power of the imagination, the pursuit of an ideal, the quest after
the origin of life, to transform the dynamics freed by these forces and
activities into an accessible scientific structure, the fulfilling (or
making real) of an ideal has resulted, forty years after the founding of
the library in 1957, in frequent exchanges with some 400
representatives of research institutes, spiritual movements and last but
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]