Eschatological drifts in 19th century occultism

Occultists tried to make eschatology a science basing on a new history critic which was going give, on a new basis, the meaning of Johannine revelations.  Apocalypse gave a "reference code" to explain many troubled situations. It was present after almost all great traumatizes of western history, destruction inviting to speculate on signs. Henry Corbin, kept Ap. 21,1 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth" for his analysis of Verus propheta comparing prophetical Sunnite and Shi'ite with the announced return of Christ. The same thought pattern is applicable to secular universe of Occultists who elaborated their theories appeal to a "subtle world", parent of  the "imaginal world" to give a meaning to trials which marked Europe at the threshold of the 19th century.
Their new earth would be the one of victorious woman of the snake... anti modern priests, as the abbé Chabauty or the abbé de Larminat had the same speech about world eternity creates that the revolutionary Magus forty eight Eliphas Lévi.  Or the theosophist Anna Kingsford founding a new exegeses feminizing of Apocalypse.


This conference was recorded during the conference Henry Corbin, in December 2009, organized by the Association of Henry and Stella Corbin's friends (http://www.amiscorbin.com).