Peter Forshaw: Current Research Projects
General Research
My research interests are in the intellectual and cultural history of learned magic and its relation to religion, science and medicine in early modern Europe; occult forms of communication, the interplay between text and image, and the whole question of symbolic representation by means of emblematic figures, hieroglyphs, cabalistic notae, and so forth. More generally, all forms of occult philosophy (alchemy, astrology and Christian Cabala, in particular) and ritual activity, from antiquity to the early modern period. See below for descriptions of my current research projects.
Christian Cabala in the Early Modern Period
The goal of this project is to write a study of Christian Cabala in the early modern period that will provide a soundfoundation for students unfamiliar with the subject and at the same time be of interest to specialists in the history of esotericism. From a brief introduction to Jewish Kabbalah, the work then investigates, for example, the Genesis of Christian Cabala; the presence of Cabala in occult philosophy and practical magical treatises; the impact of Cabala on alchemical theory and practice; the new wave of Lurianic Kabbalah; Kircher's Saracenic Cabala; critical responses, including Colberg's condemnation of Cabala as 'Fanatic Theology' and Brucker’s ruminations in Historia critica philosophiae. Projected outcome of this project: a monograph, articles on Early Modern Christian Cabala, plus a Christian Cabala Reader, providing translations of new material from early modern books and manuscripts.
Ora et Labora: Alchemy and Religion
The ‘New Historiography of Alchemy’ rejects a monolithic view of the subject, recognising the rich variety of approaches by which practitioners from many schools of thought competed and coexisted. In the process of challenging earlier representations of alchemy, however, there has been a reaction against late nineteenth- and twentieth-century spiritualised or psychologised interpretations of alchemical endeavour. This project investigates the relations between alchemical and religious thought in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The focus is on the Christian West, though, as alchemical texts contain a great deal of material from earlier periods, the intended monograph and articles will include a fresh historical-critical appraisal ofevidence from the middle ages and antiquity, including relevant Greek, Arabic and Hebrew sources. Research themes include: exegesis, images, vision and revelation, confessional identities, 'spiritual', 'supernatural' and 'theosophical' alchemy and 'the experience of transmutation'.
Books
Peter is currently preparing a monograph on Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605) for Brill's Studies in Intellectual History: The Mages Images: Heinrich Khunrath, Occult Theosophy and the Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom.
He is also working on a parallel-text translation of the 1609 edition of Khunrath's Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom), to be published in Brill's Aries Book Series.
He is co-editing, with Boaz Huss, a collection of articles, Lux in Tenebris: The Visual and the Symbolic in Western Esotericism, to be published by Brill.