Eranos: An Alternative Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century

From 1933 and for a period of almost seventy years, Italy's Lake Maggiore region was the gathering place for some of the world's foremost philosophers. Once a year, illustrious thinkers such as Carl Jung, Erich Neumann, Mircea Eliade, D.T. Suzuki, and Adolph Pormann gathered there for Eranos - a meeting of the minds for elite intellectuals. Hans Hakl presents the only complete study of what is arguably the single most important gathering of scholars in the twentieth century. Eranos chronicles the golden years of Jung, Corbin, Eliade, and Scholem, tracing the roots of the Ascona movement in Theosophy, its later branches, and many lesser-known but no less fascinating figures. Distilling decades of archival research and interviews with Eranos participants, Hakl illuminates the trialogue of religion, esotericism, and scholarship that began with Eranos and continues to the present day. This finely crafted history shows how Eranos played an important counterpart to the dominant spiritual and intellectual history of the twentieth century by encouraging freedom of thought and radicality. Detailing the development and influence of a movement that set the course of contemporary philosophical thought, Eranos is a landmark volume that will draw readers interested in the history of ideas, psychology, religious and cultural studies, Jewish and Islamic studies, the history of science, mysticism, and the development of new age religions.