International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals

   

Periodical: Mensch en Cosmos

Summary:  From Pat Deveney's database:

Mensch en Kosmos / Mens en Kosmos.
Mondblad voor Geestelijke Stroomingen / Maandblad gewijd aan de vergelijkende studie van godsdienst, wijsbegeerte, wetenschap en hun grensgebieden.
Other titles: Mens en Kosmos
1937--1969 Monthly, bimonthly
Deventer, Netherlands.
Language: Dutch.
Publisher: Kluwer.
Editor: J.A. Blok, P.A. Dietz, D.H. Prinz, N. Kluwer, B. Bloemsma, L.C. Fretz, H. Groot, P. Krug.
Succeeded by: Amersfoortse Stemmen
1/1, June 1937-December 1969. 16 pp., f. 4 a year, f. 0.35 an issue.

Not published 1941-1947. After the War the journal changed its name from Man and the Kosmos to Mind and the Kosmos. This journal and its contemporaries like the Eranos Jahrbücher and the Modern Mystic (q.v.) were an outgrowth of the optimistic, rationalizing belief between the Wars that it was possible to synthesize the core truths of all religions and occult movements as a philosophy of life, and embrace them free of all "superstitions." It did not adopt any position or movement but rather thought to stand above all, without partisanship or favor, to synthesize their truths. Its articles were about occultism and the like rather than being occult. The movement attracted the sort of "long haired men and short haired women," highly educated, comfortable financially and international in their interests, who earlier had flocked around Swami Vivekananda, especially fashionable women of a certain age and financial standing of a vague Theosophical bent and a certain reverence for the more handsome and well-turned-out oriental holy men. In its long life, the journal featured articles by recognized scholars on Rainer Marie Rilke, parapsychology in Greece, personal survival after death, "Eternal Return in Nietzsche and Ouspensky," "Spinosa and Krishnamurti," "The Age of Aquarius," the "Oxford Group," "The Tibetan Book of the Dead," Anthropology, Sufism, Meher Baba, far-eastern art, mandalas, Boro-Boedoer, A.K. Coomaraswamy, René Guénon, New Thought, Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner, "Spiritisme-Spiritualisme," world idealism, "Reflections on the symbolism of the Edda," Eileen Garrett, Martin Buber and C.G. Jung, Inayat Khan, etc., etc. Rising costs forced the journal to be incorporated into Amersfoortse Stemmen in January 1970.

Other Sources:Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam; Delft University of Technology; Erasmus University, Rotterdam; delpher.nl/nl, etc.
Issues:Mensch En Kosmos V1 N1 Jun 1937
Mensch En Kosmos V1 N4 Sep 1937
Mensch En Kosmos V1 N5 Oct 1937
Mensch En Kosmos V1 N6 Nov 1937
Mensch En Kosmos V2 N12 May 1938
Mensch En Kosmos V3 1939
Mensch En Kosmos V5 N3 Aug 1938
Mens En Kosmos V4 N1 Jan 1948
Mens En Kosmos V5 N1 Jan 1949
Mens En Kosmos V8 1952
Mens En Kosmos V25 N5 Oct 1969
Mens En Kosmos V25 N6 Dec 1969
Claude-Generated Themes:   Mensch en Kosmos is a Dutch Theosophical review that reaches well beyond doctrine into the philosophy and comparison of religions. Its backbone is Theosophical — karma, initiation, Blavatsky, the occult ordering of 'man and cosmos' that its title names — but its essays engage Christianity and the world religions, the problem of evil, revelation and conscience, often through figures like van der Leeuw and images such as the caterpillar's metamorphosis into the butterfly. It also devotes real space to spiritism and mediumship, handled as phenomena to be understood rather than promoted. A thread of comparative esotericism, including Kabbalah, runs through the survey. The overall effect is a reflective, religiously literate Theosophy rather than a narrow sectarian organ.

Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
Topics:Anthroposophy | New Age Spirituality | New Thought | Order of the Star in the East and Krishnamurti | Psychical Research and Parapsychology | Spiritism (Kardecist) | Spiritualism | Sufism and Islamic Esotericism | Survival After Death and Immortality | Theosophy | Yoga and Vedanta