С.Л. Франк как критик оккультизма

Религиоведение. 2022. № 2. С. 75–82.

Цыганков А.С., Оболевич Т.

The article proposes the historico-philosophical reconstruction of S.L. Frank’s attitude to
theosophy and occultism, made on the basis of foreign archival materials, epistolary heritage as well as
periodicals. The authors present the archival documents containing the philosopher’s critique of theosophical
teachings of the emigrant thinker Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky, especially expressed in his book “The New
Model of the Universe”, which contains the theosophist’s teaching about the occult-magic system called the
“Fourth Way”. This book was to be translated into Dutch due to Henk Wechgelaar from the weekly newspaper
“Woord en Geest”, founded in 1925. The article analyzes the evolution of S.L. Frank’s views on paranormal
phenomena, which were formulated by the philosopher in a series of his lectures in Berlin (March 7, 1927),
Riga (February 29, 1928), Daugavpils (March 6, 1928), Tallinn (March 12, 1928), Kaunas (March 27, 1927)
and Belgrade (April 26, 1930); as well as the relation of theosophy and occultism to science and religion
as expressed by S.L. Frank both in his doctoral (undefended) dissertation “The Soul of Man” and in his
later works and talks. In the Appendix, the article provides a Russian translation of S.L. Frank’s letter to H.
Wechgelaar from the archives of the Amsterdam Free University, in which the philosopher expresses his
attitude to theosophical teaching (the original: Brief van Simon Frank aan H Wechgelaar, Amsterdam, UVA
copy UB: HSS-mag.: XXXIII Pos: map Wechgelaar [H.]).

Keywords: философия религии, Russian philosophy

Publication based on the results of: XX century: Russia as a problem of Europe and Europe as a problem of Russia (2022)