Volume 5: Prophetie, Prognose und Politik

With unprecedented clarity, both the global crisis of the Covid 19 pandemic and the ideological legitimization of the Russian invasion of Ukraine revealed the juxtaposition and opposition of scientistic-rationalistic and non-scientific-esoteric explanations of the world in the 21st century. Supposedly marginal alternative patterns of interpretation suddenly revealed themselves to be suitable for the masses, and world views that seemed deeply contradictory from a rationalist point of view suddenly became acceptable. The controversies this triggered teach us to what extent social and political influence can be gained by people who claim to have insights into hidden causal connections. Such conspiracy theorists and other intellectual arsonists can be regarded as the political prophets of our time. But it would be too short-sighted to lump them together with the self-declared prophets and forecasters who have emerged throughout history. The contributions in this volume are therefore devoted to the connections between the spheres of the political and the prophetic from antiquity to modern times, using examples illustrating an immense heterogeneity of intellectual attitudes.