Schelling's 'Naturphilosophie' and Theosophy |
At first glance the German philosopher Joseph Wilhelm Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) does not seem to belong to the history of esotericism. Yet a closer examination of his works reveals a striking similarity to patterns of thought which stem from the Theosophical Renaissance in the wake of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). The scrutiny of these patterns of thought in Schelling along with their reception, re-contextualization and transformation is the subject of this project.
Up to now scholarship has concentrated on the relationship between Schelling's 'Naturphilosophie' and Kant's "Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science" (1786) as well as Kant's "Critique of Judgment" (1790), especially in regard to Kant's conception of teleology and organisms. Indeed, Kant does serve as a starting point for Schelling. Yet Schelling believes that such theories must be developed in a productive manner. Schelling himself sees his 'Naturphilosophie' as an alternative to conceptions of nature developed during the Enlightenment. The systematic model Schelling's of the "real, being Nature" clearly exhibits three basic tenets, or patterns of thought, which can be traced back to romantic-theosophical authors like Franz von Baader (1765-1841) and Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert (1780-1860) or the theosopher and theologian Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702-1782):
a. absolute identity of Spirit and Nature;
b. myth of the "redeemed redeemer";
c. Nature as a living being (cf. Faivre).
The influence exercised by theosophic authors is manifest in his 'sensu stricto' works of 'Naturphilosophie' "The World Soul" (1797), "Presentation of my System of Philosophy" (1801) and the "Aphorisms on Naturphilosophie" (1806). The influence of theosophical writers or 'Naturphilosophen' is manifest in certain "fields of knowledge" in Schelling, such as his occupation with "altered states of consciousness," e.g. magnetic sleep, hypnosis, somnambulism, trance, clairvoyance, sleep-talk and the "theosophical intuition." On the other hand, his 'Naturphilosophie' relates the theosophical myth of the "captured light," which must liberate itself from the boundaries of gravity. Furthermore, Schelling's 'œuvre' demonstrates his lifelong occupation with so-called Neoplatonic patterns of thought, as in his "doctrine of correspondences" or in thinking about the "great chain of being." In his later works Schelling's understanding of mythology as a universal history of religion is significant. This history of religion can be construed as a transformation of theosophical speculation on the development of God within history.
This project aims to describe these patterns of thought and to show how Schelling recontextualizes them in his argumentation. In this respect the hypothesis is to confirm that esoteric patterns of thought underwent a process of "scientification" at the dawn of Romanticism. One goal of this project is thus to work out more specifically the relationship between theosophy and 'Naturphilosophie' in terms of the Enlightenment and Romanticism.