The term Eranos Movement had made it into The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, by an entry on Eranos. But what did it mean exactly? There were indications: scholarly and literary circles since Romanticism that were groupings similar to the Eranos circles (at Heidelberg, Ascona, and elsewhere); numerous simulacra of Eranos; the Greek legacy that the word Eranos by itself suggested; traces of interpersonal relationships that indicated an interweaving of the Eranos circles with the wider social field of scholarship and culture in the 19th and 20th centuries; self-reflections within the Eranos circles articulated in the language of hermeneutics. Now we have more than indications: this is the book from which a vision of the Eranos Movement does emerge.

Tilo Schabert ist Professor emeritus für Politische Wissenschaften (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg). Seit 1986 war er Redner bei den klassischen Eranos-Tagungen (Ascona, Pisa) und von 1989 bis 2012 deren Organisator und Leiter.