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9858_93 | The historian of esotericism Antoine Faivre noted that "never a precise term, [esotericism] has |
9858_94 | begun to overflow its boundaries on all sides", with both Faivre and Karen-Claire Voss stating that |
9858_95 | Western esotericism consists of "a vast spectrum of authors, trends, works of philosophy, religion, |
9858_96 | art, literature, and music". |
9858_97 | Scholars broadly agree on which currents of thought fall within a category of esotericism—ranging |
9858_98 | from ancient Gnosticism and Hermetism through to Rosicrucianism and the Kabbalah and on to more |
9858_99 | recent phenomenon such as the New Age movement. Nevertheless, esotericism itself remains a |
9858_100 | controversial term, with scholars specialising in the subject disagreeing as to best define it. |
9858_101 | Esotericism as a universal, secret, inner tradition |
9858_102 | Some scholars have used Western esotericism to refer to "inner traditions" concerned with a |
9858_103 | "universal spiritual dimension of reality, as opposed to the merely external ('exoteric') religious |
9858_104 | institutions and dogmatic systems of established religions." This approach views Western |
9858_105 | esotericism as just one variant of a worldwide esotericism at the heart of all world religions and |
9858_106 | cultures, reflecting a hidden esoteric reality. This use is closest to the original meaning of the |
9858_107 | word in late antiquity, where it applied to secret spiritual teachings that were reserved for a |
9858_108 | specific elite and hidden from the masses. This definition was popularised in the published work of |
9858_109 | nineteenth-century esotericists like A.E. Waite, who sought to combine their own mystical beliefs |
9858_110 | with a historical interpretation of esotericism. It subsequently became a popular approach within |
9858_111 | several esoteric movements, most notably Martinism and Traditionalism. |
9858_112 | This definition, originally developed by esotericists themselves, became popular among French |
9858_113 | academics during the 1980s, exerting a strong influence over the scholars Mircea Eliade, Henry |
9858_114 | Corbin, and the early work of Faivre. Within the academic field of religious studies, those who |
9858_115 | study different religions in search of an inner universal dimension to them all are termed |
9858_116 | "religionists". Such religionist ideas also exerted an influence on more recent scholars like |
9858_117 | Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke and Arthur Versluis. |
9858_118 | Versluis for instance defined "Western esotericism" as "inner or hidden spiritual knowledge |
9858_119 | transmitted through Western European historical currents that in turn feed into North American and |
9858_120 | other non-European settings". He added that these Western esoteric currents all shared a core |
9858_121 | characteristic, "a claim to gnosis, or direct spiritual insight into cosmology or spiritual |
9858_122 | insight", and accordingly he suggested that these currents could be referred to as "Western |
9858_123 | gnostic" just as much as "Western esoteric". |
9858_124 | There are various problems with this model for understanding Western esotericism. The most |
9858_125 | significant is that it rests upon the conviction that there really is a "universal, hidden, |
9858_126 | esoteric dimension of reality" that objectively exists. The existence of this universal inner |
9858_127 | tradition has not been discovered through scientific or scholarly enquiry; this had led some to |
9858_128 | claim that it does not exist, though Hanegraaff thought it better to adopt a view based in |
9858_129 | methodological agnosticism by stating that "we simply do not know - and cannot know" if it exists |
9858_130 | or not. He noted that, even if such a true and absolute nature of reality really existed, it would |
9858_131 | only be accessible through "esoteric" spiritual practices, and could not be discovered or measured |
9858_132 | by the "exoteric" tools of scientific and scholarly enquiry. Hanegraaff pointed out that an |
9858_133 | approach that seeks a common inner hidden core of all esoteric currents masks that such groups |
9858_134 | often differ greatly, being rooted in their own historical and social contexts and expressing |
9858_135 | mutually exclusive ideas and agendas. A third issue was that many of those currents widely |
9858_136 | recognised as esoteric never concealed their teachings, and in the twentieth century came to |
9858_137 | permeate popular culture, thus problematizing the claim that esotericism could be defined by its |
9858_138 | hidden and secretive nature. Moreover, Hanegraaff noted that when scholars adopt this definition, |
9858_139 | it shows that they subscribe to the religious doctrines espoused by the very groups they are |
9858_140 | studying. |
9858_141 | Esotericism as an enchanted world view |
9858_142 | Another approach to Western esotericism treats it as a world view that embraces "enchantment" in |
9858_143 | contrast to world views influenced by post-Cartesian, post-Newtonian, and positivist science that |
9858_144 | sought to "dis-enchant" the world. That approach understands esotericism as comprising those world |
9858_145 | views that eschew a belief in instrumental causality and instead adopt a belief that all parts of |
9858_146 | the universe are interrelated without a need for causal chains. It stands as a radical alternative |
9858_147 | to the disenchanted world views that have dominated Western culture since the scientific |
9858_148 | revolution, and must therefore always be at odds with secular culture. |
9858_149 | An early exponent of this definition was the historian of Renaissance thought Frances Yates in her |
9858_150 | discussions of a Hermetic Tradition, which she saw as an "enchanted" alternative to established |
9858_151 | religion and rationalistic science. However, the primary exponent of this view was Faivre, who |
9858_152 | published a series of criteria for how to define "Western esotericism" in 1992. Faivre claimed that |
9858_153 | esotericism was "identifiable by the presence of six fundamental characteristics or components", |
9858_154 | four of which were "intrinsic" and thus vital to defining something as being esoteric, while the |
9858_155 | other two were "secondary" and thus not necessarily present in every form of esotericism. He listed |
9858_156 | these characteristics as follows: |
9858_157 | "Correspondences": This is the idea that there are both real and symbolic correspondences existing |
9858_158 | between all things within the universe. As examples for this, Faivre pointed to the esoteric |
9858_159 | concept of the macrocosm and microcosm, often presented as the dictum of "as above, so below", as |
9858_160 | well as the astrological idea that the actions of the planets have a direct corresponding influence |
9858_161 | on the behaviour of human beings. |
9858_162 | "Living Nature": Faivre argued that all esotericists envision the natural universe as being imbued |
9858_163 | with its own life force, and that as such they understand it as being "complex, plural, |
9858_164 | hierarchical". |
9858_165 | "Imagination and Mediations": Faivre believed that all esotericists place great emphasis on both |
9858_166 | the human imagination, and mediations—"such as rituals, symbolic images, mandalas, intermediary |
9858_167 | spirits"—and mantras as tools that provide access to worlds and levels of reality existing between |
9858_168 | the material world and the divine. |
9858_169 | "Experience of Transmutation": Faivre's fourth intrinsic characteristic of esotericism was the |
9858_170 | emphasis that esotericists place on fundamentally transforming themselves through their practice, |
9858_171 | for instance through the spiritual transformation that is alleged to accompany the attainment of |
9858_172 | gnosis. |
9858_173 | "Practice of Concordance": The first of Faivre's secondary characteristics of esotericism was the |
9858_174 | belief—held by many esotericists, such as those in the Traditionalist School—that there is a |
9858_175 | fundamental unifying principle or root from which all world religions and spiritual practices |
9858_176 | emerge. The common esoteric principle is that attaining this unifying principle can bring the |
9858_177 | world's different belief systems together in unity. |
9858_178 | "Transmission": Faivre's second secondary characteristic was the emphasis on the transmission of |
9858_179 | esoteric teachings and secrets from a master to their disciple, through a process of initiation. |
9858_180 | Faivre's form of categorisation has been endorsed by scholars like Goodrick-Clarke, and by 2007 |
9858_181 | Bogdan could note that Faivre's had become "the standard definition" of Western esotericism in use |
9858_182 | among scholars. However, in 2013 the scholar Kennet Granholm stated only that Faivre's definition |
9858_183 | had been "the dominating paradigm for a long while" and that it "still exerts influence among |
9858_184 | scholars outside the study of Western esotericism". The advantage of Faivre's system is that it |
9858_185 | facilitates comparing varying esoteric traditions "with one another in a systematic fashion." |
9858_186 | However, many scholars have criticised Faivre's theory, pointing out various weaknesses. Hanegraaff |
9858_187 | claimed that Faivre's approach entailed "reasoning by prototype" in that it relied upon already |
9858_188 | having a "best example" of what Western esotericism should look like, against which other phenomena |
9858_189 | then had to be compared. The scholar of esotericism Kocku von Stuckrad (born 1966) noted that |
9858_190 | Faivre's taxonomy was based on his own areas of specialism—Renaissance Hermeticism, Christian |
9858_191 | Kabbalah, and Protestant Theosophy—and that it was thus not based on a wider understanding of |
9858_192 | esotericism as it has existed throughout history, from the ancient world to the contemporary |
Subsets and Splits