Composed of free and accepted masons who are desirous of receiving and dispersing Masonic knowledge, the Lux e Tenebris Chapter of the Phylaxis Society is a research institute appointed to explore and scrutinize historical information, validate with a reasonable degree of certainty diversified Masonic perspectives, and publish annually scholarly manuscripts as transaction of the organization.

The Lost History of Cosmopolitanism challenges our most basic assumptions about the history of an ideal at the heart of modernity. Beginning in antiquity and continuing through to today, Leigh T.I. Penman examines how European thinkers have understood words like 'kosmopolites', 'cosmopolite', 'cosmopolitan' and its cognates. The debates over their meanings show that there has never been a single, stable cosmopolitan concept, but rather a range of concepts-sacred and secular, inclusive and exclusive-all described with the cosmopolitan vocabulary. While most scholarly attention in the history of cosmopolitanism has focussed on Greek and Roman antiquity or the Enlightenments of the 18th century, this book shows that the crucial period in the evolution of modern cosmopolitanism was early modernity. Between 1500 and 1800 philosophers, theologians, cartographers, jurists, politicians, alchemists and heretics all used this vocabulary, shedding ancient associations, and adding new ones at will. The chaos of discourses prompted thinkers to reflect on the nature of the cosmopolitan ideal, and to conceive of an abstract 'cosmopolitanism' for the first time. This meticulously researched book provides the first intellectual history of an overlooked period in the evolution of a core ideal. As such, The Lost History of Cosmopolitanism is an essential work for anyone seeking a contextualised understanding of cosmopolitanism today.

100 poems to reach for on dark nights, selected by Julia Copus. These are poems to wander about in and commit to memory so they can be stored away in the deep heart's core; places to visit and return to at will. Poems that reawaken the senses and offer new ways of looking; that unsettle us and reconnect us to the world that surrounds us; that bring us to a place of greater clarity. Life Support includes a star-studded cast of authors including William Wordsworth, Frank O'Hara, Robert Frost, Denise Levertov and Sylvia Plath, all selected by award-winning poet Julia Copus.

Conspectus rerum In memoriam THOMAS BAIER, Eckart Schäfer (1939–2018) / INGRID DE SMET, Ann Moss (1938–2018) / JEANINE DE LANDTSHEER, Chris L. Heesakkers (1935–2018) I. Commentationes NICHOLAS DE SUTTER, Triumphus veri amoris and the Reception of Hosschius’ Elegiae in mortem duorum militum Hispanorum (1650) on the Jesuit Stage / PETER GODMAN †, Empathy with Aliens: Poggio Bracciolini and Niccolò Niccoli / THOMAS HAYE, Carlo Vanucio da San Giorgio und die Verschwörung gegen Herzog Borso d’Este (1469) / LUKE B. T. HOUGHTON, Astrae Revisited: The Virgilian Golden Ages of Tudor England / ÁGNES JUHÁSZ-ORMSBY/FARKAS GÁBOR KISS, Leonard Cox’s Pedagogical Commentaries / HANS KILB, Niavis’ Iudicium Iovis – Lukian im sächsisch-böhmischen Bergrevier / WALTHER LUDWIG, Kommentierte Übersetzung der ersten lateinischen Beschreibung Chinas (1588) durch Ioannes Petrus Maffeus, S. J., unter Berücksichtigung ihrer Quellen / WALTHER LUDWIG, Das unbekannte jesuitische Festbuch zur Hochzeit von Kaiser Leopold I. mit der Pfalzgräfin Eleonora (1676) / ŽANNA NEKRAŠEVIC-KAROTKAJA, Widmungsgedichte von Johannes Mylius aus Liebenrode: zum Programm der humanistischen Katechese und religiösen Versöhnung in der Reformationszeit / ROLAND SAUER, Occasura stirps Valesiadum: Schedius Melissus über die letzten Könige aus dem Hause Valois / KRISTI VIIDING, Salomon Frenzels schwere Mission in Riga II. Investigandarum rerum prospectus REINHOLD F. GLEI, Neulateinische Forschungsprojekte / STEPHAN HEILEN/BENJAMIN TOPP, Ein Emendationsbeispiel aus der Arbeit an einer kritischen Neuausgabe von Picos Disputationes III. Librorum existimationes Leon Battista Alberti, Propos de table. Intercenales (JEAN-LOUIS CHARLET) / Michael von Albrecht, Carmina Latina (FIDEL RÄDLE) IV. Quaestiones recentissimae WALTHER LUDWIG, Die unverstandenen Titelseiten der Inschriften Gudes von 1731 / DIETER WUTTKE, Das Celtis-Epigramm I,12 zum Spottnamen des Polen und Schlesiers und seine Vorlage V. Nuntii JEAN-LOUIS CHARLET, XXX° Convegno internazionale Istituto Studi Umanistici F. Petrarca / REINHOLD F. GLEI, Mater Caesaris olim … Das Rätsel um Ovids Ehefrau

Lux in Tenebris is a collection of eighteen original interdisciplinary essays that address aspects of the verbal and visual symbolism in the works of significant figures in the history of Western Esotericism, covering such themes as alchemy, magic, kabbalah, angels, occult philosophy, Platonism, Rosicrucianism, and Theosophy. Part I: Middle Ages & Early Modernity ranges from Gikatilla, Ficino, Camillo, Agrippa, Weigel, Böhme, Yvon, and Swedenborg, to celestial divination in Russia. Part II: Modernity & Postmodernity moves from occultist thinkers Schwaller de Lubicz and Evola to esotericism in literature, art, and cinema, in the works of Colquhoun, Degouve de Nuncques, Bruskin, Doitschinoff, and Pérez-Reverte, with an essay on esoteric theories of colour. Contributors are: Michael J.B. Allen, Susanna Åkerman, Lina Bolzoni, Aaron Cheak, Robert Collis, Francesca M. Crasta, Per Faxneld, Laura Follesa, Victoria Ferentinou, Joshua Gentzke, Joscelyn Godwin, Hans Thomas Hakl, Theodor Harmsen, Elke Morlok, Noel Putnik, Jonathan Schorsch, György Szönyi, Carsten Wilke, and Thomas Willard.

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

Incorporating the intellectual history of disciplines from across the humanities, including environmental anthropology, philosophy, ethics, literature, history, science and technology studies, this volume provides a select orientation to the experience of nature from the ancient world to the Anthropocene. Taking its momentum from the emerging environmental humanities, this collection integrates Western, Indigenous, postcolonial, feminist and eco-spiritual perspectives that address pressing environmental concerns and reimagine the place of humans within the natural world. Across thirteen chapters, the contributors discuss the blending of environmental concerns with political and moral questions and encourage collaborative methods across disciplines to address dialectical tensions between culture and nature. They draw on a wide range of critical perspectives, provide a historical framework and speak to global environmental pressures from multiple standpoints. The global approach adopted throughout highlights the various realities of the growing ecological crisis experienced across the world. Written to appeal to a broad range of readers across the environmental humanities, this edited book will be particularly useful to academics, scholars and researchers in philosophy, anthropology, literature, history and critical theory.