STUDY
Get the FREE Occult Masterclass now
Want to study magic but don't know where to start? This free masterclass will walk you through the definitions of the Occult & Esotericism as we explore Medieval & Late Antique Magic.
Listen to the Podcast
With a wide range of guests in the fields of academia, self development and occultism, there's something for every stage of your journey.
Resources
Here is a list of links to institutions & research projects currently ongoing in the field of Western Esotericism. You should find it useful to begin your studies.
An Introduction to Esotericism
Coming from the Latin "occulere", meaning "concealed", the occult as a term is inherently tied to ideas, concepts or images that are hidden, under the surface or secret. It is the study of that which is unknown & mysterious by its nature.
Often interchanged (somewhat incorrectly) with Esotericism, in recent years, scholars & academics have taken a more curious glance towards these strange, mysterious and oftentimes outlandish and revelatory ideas & currents of thought.
Esotericism provides an opportunity to examine a society from the inside out. For centuries the Western World has only focused on the external/traditional pillars of society –the mainstream Abrahamic faiths, rational philosophy and empirical science.
Esotericism presents a “hidden pillar” on which our society is built but never discussed. It doesn’t fit in any of the other established fields of study. It is deeper and more complex than religion, but is not just a philosophy…and you’d be hard pressed to call it a full on “science”…and yet, it has influenced all of these fields behind the scenes.
Or keep reading...
A Darker Enlightenment
Prior to the 18th century, Esotericism and the Occult were widely respected and recognised as academic pursuits, with theologians, philosophers, and practitioners of the Natural Sciences debating their implications. It’s only since the Enlightenment that it vanished from intellectual discourse and textbooks.
Following the Enlightenment, an inherently mechanistic worldview emerged as scholars sought to distance themselves from the mainstream Church. This act of rebellion, while necessary & admirable, set up our approach to emerging fields of science, which left behind anything that was deemed the domain of the incorporeal and non-rational.
Following WWII there was an explosion of Neopagan and New Age Movements that brought spirituality back into the mainstream that has not stopped since. As such, since the 1990s, the situation in academia has begun to improve and Esotericism is once again a valid field of study.
The word “Esoteric” first appears in the 2nd century AD, but was only really used in a definitive context in the late 1700s where it came into German as esoterik, migrated to French scholarship (under the name l’esoterisme) in 1828 before finally arriving in English in 1883.
This means that “Western Esotericism” is not a natural term, but one that academics apply retrospectively to a wide range of different currents, ideas, groups and practices that existed before the 18th century. “Western Esotericism” is a modern scholarly construct used to describe similar behaviours or practices across time, not a tradition that actually existed in history. This doesn’t mean there’s nothing “real” about the field. On the contrary, Western Esotericism emerged because academics and historians began to see structural and thematic similarities between the ideas and worldviews of a variety of thinkers and movements throughout history.
Prototypes of Mystery
Several scholars have tried to set up series of “criteria” to decide whether something fits into an “Esoteric Current”. In theory, if a concept or worldview displayed some classic tell tail "signs" of esotericism, then it must be esoteric. The most famous of these were the works on the French scholar Antoine Faivre, who in 1992 created a list of four “intrinsic” characteristics of Esotericism as well as two “non-intrinsic” ones. Faivre's four intrinsic archetypes were: Correspondences; Living Nature; Imagination/Meditations and Transmutation. The two non intrinsic were Transmission and Concordance.
Favire's work was revolutionary, but not without fault. Esotericism deals with very personal, subjective and mystical experience…things that -by their nature, shatter every neat box.
Instead we would like to propose a different archetype for the definition of our field. Instead, we invite you to consider Esotericism as a prototype; a kind of spectrum where movements, texts and practices can be more or less mystical in nature, but are still included under the banner of “Esoteric”. In our everyday life we do not categorise things by means of formal lists of criteria, but rather by comparing them to prototypes. A prototype can be thought of a cluster of characteristics that is seen as being a “good example” of a class of things.
When you think in terms of prototypes, you ask whether the thing in question resembles the best example of that class that you personally hold in your experience, not whether it meets specific rules or criteria. As a consequence however, depending on which model someone uses, some historical currents will be included and others discarded because they don’t match a scholar's personal view. These biases must be acknowledged in order for us to progress.
Three Models of Esoteric Thought
Romantic Lost Wisdom
Those categories proposed by Favire are the best example of this Model. Take a look at his categories again: Correspondences, Living Nature, Imagination/Meditations, Transmutation. What kind of mentality do you think he had when making these?
Most of these categories are Romantic/enchanted ideas that are set against the materialistic worldviews of modern science. Where science argues for cause and effect, he argues for a connected universe where everything corresponds to each other, where science sees nature as a mechanistic machine, he sees it as alive and filled with a life force or energy, where science focuses on rational thought and objectivity, he focuses on the imagination and subjective experience and Transmutation is a means by which humans or nature may be changed into a higher spiritual state.
In other words, “Esotericism” to Faivre is seen as a radical alternative to the materialistic worldviews of modern science and Western culture. For him (and this Model), the best examples of the Esoteric can be found in the Early Modern Period with Paracelsus, Christian Theosophy and the Romantics. In practice, this means the focus largely stays on the Renaissance and Pre-Enlightenment period in this Model, where it is seen as the “Golden Age of Esotericism”
Here, ancient sources are acknowledged as backgrounds or precursors, rather than manifestations of the Esoteric in their own right. Equally, this Model tends to minimise or even deny all the Occult Orders and movements that developed in the 19th and 20th centuries as part of Esotericism, since they are seen as just disenchanted copies of the Renaissance magicians.
Occulture
There’s no doubt that all the magickal Orders that popped up after the 18th century –and in present day, proclaim to be working off of ideas or practices that have their origins in the pre-Enlightenment world. But it would be wrong to say that such traditions are complete survivals from the past, continuing in their original form without being affected or changed by modern trends and developments.
As we saw, that idea that magick and the Occult is primitive, resistant to change and static is completely false and is nothing more than a materialistic cliché. Instead, it’s more correct to say that the ideas and practices that were inherited from the Renaissance and Early Modern Period were hugely transformed from the 19th century onwards under the impact of new cultural and intellectual developments.
While the Romantic Model implies that the modern magickal Orders are nothing but second hand copies or deformities of the “real Esotericism” of the Renaissance, this Model acknowledges that it was only after the 18th century that the "Occult" began to emerge as a social phenomena in its own right and as an actual network of societies such as the Golden Dawn & Theosophy movements.
Before the 18th century, the study of the Esoteric was a purely academic one that was manifest in theses and learned writings. It was only after the 18th century that the Occult and Esoteric took the form of actual organisations or schools in an effort to compete with churches in the religious market.
Here, “Esotericism” isn’t seen as something to be nostalgic about, and any idea of an “Ancient Oriental Wisdom” is denied, instead, it is seen as a dimension of modern society that holds implications for 21st century social dynamics and religion.
Inner Mysteries
Esotericism can be defined as the expression of the inner traditions of religion concerned with a universal mystic or spiritual wisdom or dimension of reality, as opposed to the exoteric religions that are dogmatic.
This model is the closest to the historical definition of “Esoteric” as “that which is internal or hidden” when it referred to secret knowledge reserved for a spiritual elite like the Pythagorean Brotherhoods or the Mystery Cults.
Exoteric religious teachings are meant for the uneducated masses that can be kept satisfied with simple ritual observance and dogmatic belief systems. It is believed that under the surface of conventional religion are deeper truths that are known only to those who are initiated into the true Mysteries of that religion and philosophy.
Here, true “Esoteric Spirituality” is seen as one, unified truth that is independent of social, historical or cultural changes. In theory, regardless of the time period or tradition in which you’re raised, if you are unsatisfied with the outward appearance and dogma of normal religion, you will always be able to access a hidden universal truth about the spiritual nature of the world and Divinity that all the mystics and spiritual teachers of the past were referencing.
In this Model, “Western Esotericism” is seen as only one part of a much larger field of universal Esoteric teachings of all non-Western religions and cultures –which includes Buddhism, Hinduism, Shamanism, among others.
No matter what the religion or culture, every tradition has a hidden level of Mysteries that point to the same spiritual truth under the surface.
Go Deeper With Our Occultism Course
Discover the deeper history of esotericism with our Occult Mystery & Magic course. We will take you through a historical analysis of magical thought from the Palaeolithic to 21st century, all the while teaching you the practical elements of each system & stream from the Greco Egyptian Magical Papyri to the Liber Null.
Go to Courses
