Joscelyn Godwin

About the Author

JOSCELYN GODWIN, Professor of Music Emeritus at Colgate University, New York State, has been publishing, editing, and translating esoteric materials since the 1970s. These include works on speculative music (Harmonies of Heaven and Earth, Music, Mysticism and Magic, Harmony of the Spheres, Cosmic Music, The Mystery of the Seven Vowels, Music and the Occult), Renaissance and early modern studies (Robert Fludd, The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, The Real Rule of Four, Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of the World, translations of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz), and histories of esoteric movements and themes (The Theosophical Enlightenment, Arktos, The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Atlantis and the Cycles of Time, Upstate Cauldron).

Author Archive Page

Agarttha: Taking the Lid Off the Underground Kingdom

By Joscelyn Godwin

In 1884 the French occultist Saint-Yves d’Alveydre (1842-1909) decided to take lessons in Sanskrit. Having just published his definitive work on the secret history of the world, called Mission des Juifs (“Mission of the Jews”),2 he was anxious to deepen […]

Antarctica in Myth, Fantasy & Reality

By Joscelyn Godwin

At the Bottom of the World Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), in his book about the subterranean world, compares the earth to a human body. It drinks in the oceans at the North Pole, digests them in its interior, extracts the minerals, […]

Artist rendition of René Guénon. Credit: Pierre Laffillé (published in Planéte Plus, April 1970)

Understanding the Traditionalists

By Joscelyn Godwin

Traditionalists, for present purposes, means the loosely-constituted group inspired by René Guénon (1886-1951). Many of them also revere Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947). Later Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) became central to the group, while the work of Julius Evola (1898-1974) partly overlapped […]

In Hindu mythology, Kalki is the final incarnation of Vishnu, foretold to appear at the end of Kali Yuga, our current epoch. The Puranas foretell that he will be atop a white horse with a drawn blazing sword. He is the harbinger of the end time in Hindu eschatology, after which he will usher in the Satya (Krita) Yuga.

When Does the Kali Yuga End?

By Joscelyn Godwin

The widespread belief that an age is ending and a new one dawning is part of a cyclical concept of time common to most philosophical cultures. The best known versions are the Four Ages of Greek mythology and the Hindu […]

Athanasius Kircher (1602 – 1680), pictured in his book Mundus Subterraneus, 1664

Athanasius Kircher’s Theatre of Marvels

By Joscelyn Godwin

The museum of Athanasius Kircher (1602 – 1680) in the Jesuit College of Rome was an obligatory stop for high-class tourists, from John Evelyn the diarist to Queen Christina of Sweden, but they never knew what to expect. The college […]