About this Event
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🧠Lecture: "The Secret History of Magic and Mysticism in the West"
🎤 Speaker: Professor Stephen Asma
Join us for an eye-opening evening as Professor Stephen Asma uncovers the hidden esoteric currents that have quietly shaped Western thought. While the official story of the West celebrates reason, science, and progress, a parallel tradition has always been at work—Hermetic correspondences, alchemy, Neoplatonic cosmic sympathy, and Renaissance magic—all leaving their mark on philosophy, psychology, art, and even science.
Far from being the simple enemy of reason, magic offered a different way of engaging the world: embodied, symbolic, and participatory. Today’s resurgence of tarot, astrology apps, manifestation culture, and witchcraft aesthetics isn’t just naïve superstition—it signals a deep hunger for meaning in an age ruled by data and algorithms.
If you’ve ever felt that pure rationalism leaves something out—that imagination, ritual, and symbolic depth still matter—you’re already brushing up against the West’s hidden scaffolding.
Stephen Asma is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago and the author of eleven books, including The Emotional Mind and The Evolution of Imagination. He has taught and lectured worldwide, written for major outlets like The New York Times, and even co-hosted the hit esoterica podcast "Chinwag" with actor Paul Giamatti.
Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌
Agenda
6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.
6:55 PM – Host introduction
7:00 PM – Lecture begins
7:45 PM – Audience Q&A
8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round
8:30 PM – Wrap up.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
West Loop, West Loop, Chicago, United States
USD 38.58
