Abstract
This article mainly consists of an analysis of the successive historical expansions of the mechanistic and the organistic world pictures into world views. In conclusion the presently popular form of the organistic world view, New Age occultism, is compared with the 'traditional' African world view. In this way the author attempts to realise three different aims: firstly to show how world pictures, developed within specific disciplines, are transformed into world views by expansionary application in other disciplines and /or cultural areas; secondly that occultism is regaining intellectual respectability by presenting itself as part of the ‘new’ organistic, scientific view of the world; and thirdly that there are strong similarities between the new Western occultism and the traditional African world view (which opens up possibilities of synthesis between these two).
Highlights
We are faced with a surge of occultism today
A further aim is to show that occultism regained intellectual respectability by being part and parcel of the new organistic world picture, which has its roots in twentiethcentury scientific theories
To summarise: the mechanistic world picture came into being, probably using all kinds of sixteenth century ‘auto m atic’ toys and gadgets, but especially the clock and the balance, to explain the functioning of the astronomical universe; replacing the idea that this universe might be a living being
Summary
The new occultism, showing some oriental traits, has its roots squarely in the W estern intellectual tradition It is part of the organistic reaction to the mechanistic world view, and only a return of an earlier, organistic, and at times, occultist way of thought. O ne aim of this paper is to show how expansionary application of what was originally only an explanatory picture within a specific discipline, transforms that picture into a full-blown world view for the practice of science. This implies the supplanting o f the mechanistic by the organistic view in intellectual circles. FROM M ONA NTH EU IL T O SUM NER: T H E G RO W TH OFTHEM ECHA NISTIC W ORLD PICTURE INTO A WORLD VIEW
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