Marino D (2024)
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Edited Volumes: Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China
Pages Range: 83-108
ISBN: 9781350289598
DOI: 10.5040/9781350289598.0008
This chapter explores the intellectual and personal relationship between the French occultist Albert de Pouvourville (better known as “Matgioi”) and two of his Vietnamese informants: Nguyễn Văn Luật and his younger son Nguyễn Văn Cang. De Pouvourville had encountered the two between 1887 and 1892 while he was serving as a soldier in the context of the French colonial wars. The names Văn Luật and Văn Cang appeared as authors of a series of French publications in the first decade of the twentieth century. The two are commonly believed to be the only Vietnamese active in fin de siècle French occultism. Through a detailed analysis of all sources available, this chapter proves that Văn Luật and Văn Cang never wrote the texts that were published as authored by them. Instead, their status of “real Orientals” was exploited by de Pouvourville in his attempt to affirm the validity of his interpretation of Daoism. This process of borrowing the authority of (semi)invented “oriental masters” is one of the possible modes of interaction between “Eastern” and “Western” esotericism.
APA:
Marino, D. (2024). The Daoist who wasn’t. In Lukas K. Pokorny, Franz Winter (Eds.), Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. (pp. 83-108). Bloomsbury Academic.
MLA:
Marino, Davide. "The Daoist who wasn’t." Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. Ed. Lukas K. Pokorny, Franz Winter, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 83-108.
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