The Legacy of Henry Corbin: Mysticism at the Reitberg Museum, Zurich

"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland. He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide. But Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Mysticism at the Reitberg Museum, Zurich

Mysticism - Yearning for the Absolute

The Rietberg Museum is proud to present the world's first culturally comparative exhibition on mysticism.

This elusive religious phenomenon will be illustrated by the example of forty male and female mystics: their lives and writings demonstrate just how richly varied spiritual experience can be. The mystics chosen for the exhibition come from the great religions of the world - Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity - and span the period from the 6th century BC until the 19th century.

Among these remarkable mystics are a Tibetan ascetic, an immortal from China, an unconventional Zen master, an abbot from the monastery of Sinai, an uncompromising social revolutionary, an ecstatic female poet from India, a Swiss hermit who used a stone as his pillow, a Jewish scholar who searched for the hidden names of God, and a Sufi poet intoxicated by love whose poems are among the pearls of world literature.

Thanks to Steven Aftergood for drawing our attention to this.

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