Western esotericism: Towards an integrative model of interpretation

Despite the fact that during the last fifteen years we have witnessed the emergence of a research field of ‘Western esotericism’, scholars are still far from agreeing on definitions of ‘esotericism’. For an academic ‘field’, however, that wants to establish international networks and to bring together scholars from various research areas and disciplines, it is highly desirable to provide an interpretational framework in which these different studies find their place. The main argument of this article is that such common ground can be found only when esotericism is seen not as a selection of historical ‘currents’, however defined, but as a structural element of Western culture. After reviewing the most influential approaches to Western esotericism, this article identifies two dimensions of an esoteric discourse: claims of higher knowledge and ways of accessing this ‘truth’. To these dimensions can be added certain world views that are typically involved in there discourses. The interpretative model proposed here aims at critically addressing basic aspects of Western self-understanding including the rhetorics of rationality, science, enlightenment, progress and absolute truth. It postulates that conflicts of religious world views, identities and forms of knowledge lie at the heart of Western cultural history.     

What is it all about? Some reflections on Wouter Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy

In reviewing the growth of the field of study of ‘Western esotericism,’ this article compares the attempts at delineating its intellectual and religious genealogy by von Stuckrad (Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2010) and Hanegraaff (Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). The essay challenges the thesis that ‘Western esotericism’ was a decisive element in the formation of modern Western identities and some other elements of the reconstruction of the origin of the field delineated by Hanegraaff.     

Hidden presence: race and/in the history,construct, and study of western esotericism

ABSTRACT

Except for a few studies that explore the intersections between esoteric ideas/practices and white supremacy, race has largely been ignored in the field of Western esotericism. This article seeks to partake in remedying this lacuna. To do so, it provides a deconstructive analysis of the way race has operated in the field. I argue that race, although consistently overlooked, has functioned as a ‘hidden presence’ that has shaped both the historical formation of the field and the construct of Western esotericism – so much so, in fact, that we may conceive it as a subtext in and for the dominant ‘grand narrative’ of Western esotericism. In conclusion, I investigate recent attempts to omit ‘Western’ as a definitive adjective in the study of esotericism, thereby proposing that, even as we move ‘beyond the West,’ we must also continue to investigate the entanglements of ‘Western’ and whiteness.     

A common whore and her relations

This paper engages in a critical discussion of Wouter Hanegraaff's book Western Esotericism and the Academy (2012), acknowledging its importance but also focusing on some points that appear problematic. Particular attention is given to the concept of ‘Platonic Orientalism,’ the concept of ‘form of thought,’ and the theoretical basis for a satisfactory etic definition of ‘Western esotericism.’ Hanegraaff claims that his book offers a solid argument for understanding Western esotericism ‘ultimately’ as a ‘historiographical concept,’ rather than as a ‘form of thought.’ This claim is questioned in the paper.     

Reverse-engineering ‘esotericism': how to prepare a complex cultural concept for the cognitive science of religion

The article introduces a framework for preparing complex cultural concepts for the cognitive science of religion (CSR) and applies it to the field of Western esotericism. The research process (‘reverse engineering') rests on a building block approach that, after problematic categories have been deconstructed, seeks to reconstruct new scholarly objects in generic terms that can be operationalized in interdisciplinary contexts like CSR. A four-step research process is delineated, illustrated by a short discussion of previous work on ‘Gnosticism,' ‘magic,' and ‘religion,' before applying it to ‘esotericism.' It is suggested that the implicit scholarly objects of esotericism scholarship can be reconstituted in generic terms as concerned with processes of creating and disseminating ‘special knowledge.' Five definitional clusters are identified in the literature; these provide a basis for formulating research programs on the psychological and cognitive level, drawing on metarepresentational processes, event cognition, and psychological dispositions for altering experience.     

Hidden or Forbidden,Elected or Rejected: Sufism as ‘Islamic Esotericism’?

The article analyses the background of a popular conception of Sufism as equivalent to ‘Islamic esotericism’ by tracing two different but sometimes confluent currents: reifications of Sufism within Western romanticist and modern environments, and the approach to it in Islamic reformist movements. A further aim is to nuance and problematize such understandings, making use of examples from both historical and contemporary Sufism. Finally, the article briefly discusses possible pros and cons related to the interbreeding of Islamic Studies and the academic studies of Western esotericism.     

Discourse theory trumps discourse theory: Wouter Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy

This review article argues that Wouter Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy is deeply influenced by a methodological cluster usually referred to as ‘discourse theory.’ That the author is not willing to classify his own approach as such is explained with recourse to his dispute with Kocku von Stuckrad, who, according to Hanegraaff, would embody discourse theory, whereas Hanegraaff would embody history. A comparison of Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) and von Stuckrad's Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities (Leiden: Brill, 2010) reveals that this is a misleading classification and that Hanegraaff's study comes closer to what discourse theory is all about. As a consequence, Esotericism and the Academy is the very first study on ‘Western esotericism’ that offers a convincing justification of this particular label as an overarching discursive category.     

Deconstructing ‘Western esotericism’: on Wouter Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy

This paper discusses a number of consequences that – although not always intended by the author – can be drawn from the radically historicist approach adopted by Wouter J. Hanegraaff in his monograph Esotericism and the Academy. These consequences are the atomization of ‘esotericism’ into a disparate range of ideas, practices, and currents with few if any shared elements; a better approximation to contemporary anthropological views of culture and cultural innovation; a focus on polemical strategies rather than substantive contents and a concomitant possibility of cross-cultural comparison; a reluctance to engage with theories of broader scope; and a vacillation between seeing ‘esotericism’ as merely a waste-basket category and attempting nonetheless to salvage a minimal substantive definition.     

Western esotericism: Towards an integrative model of interpretation

Despite the fact that during the last fifteen years we have witnessed the emergence of a research field of ‘Western esotericism’, scholars are still far from agreeing on definitions of ‘esotericism’. For an academic ‘field’, however, that wants to establish international networks and to bring together scholars from various research areas and disciplines, it is highly desirable to provide an interpretational framework in which these different studies find their place. The main argument of this article is that such common ground can be found only when esotericism is seen not as a selection of historical ‘currents’, however defined, but as a structural element of Western culture. After reviewing the most influential approaches to Western esotericism, this article identifies two dimensions of an esoteric discourse: claims of higher knowledge and ways of accessing this ‘truth’. To these dimensions can be added certain world views that are typically involved in there discourses. The interpretative model proposed here aims at critically addressing basic aspects of Western self-understanding including the rhetorics of rationality, science, enlightenment, progress and absolute truth. It postulates that conflicts of religious world views, identities and forms of knowledge lie at the heart of Western cultural history.     

Conspirituality Reconsidered: How Surprising and How New is the Confluence of Spirituality and Conspiracy Theory?

Those who have followed the development of online new religiosity over the past decade will not have failed to notice that conspiracy theories and ‘New Age’ ideas are thriving together. But how new and how surprising is the phenomenon of ‘conspirituality’? In the present article, we challenge the thesis put forward by Charlotte Ward and David Voas in their article of 2011, published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion, that a confluence of spirituality and conspiracism has emerged in the past two decades as a form of New Age theodicy. Instead, we argue, on theoretical grounds, that conspirituality can be viewed as a predictable result of structural elements in the cultic milieu and, on historical grounds, that its roots stretch deep into the history of Western esotericism. Together, these two considerations allow us not only to suggest that conspirituality is old and predictable, but also to identify a large potential for further research which will contribute to the study of conspiracy culture and enable a new line of comparative research in religious studies.     

Jung and Lévy-Bruhl

Abstract: For his knowledge of ‘primitive’ peoples, C. G. Jung relied on the work of Lucien Lévy‐Bruhl (1857–1939), a French philosopher who in mid‐career became an armchair anthropologist. In a series of books from 1910 on, Lévy‐Bruhl asserted that ‘primitive’ peoples had been misunderstood by modern Westerners. Rather than thinking like moderns, just less rigorously, ‘primitives’ harbour a mentality of their own. ‘Primitive’ thinking is both ‘mystical’ and ‘prelogical’. By ‘mystical’, Lévy‐Bruhl meant that ‘primitive’ peoples experience the world as identical with themselves. Their relationship to the world, including to fellow human beings, is that of participation mystique. By ‘prelogical’, Lévy‐Bruhl meant that ‘primitive’ thinking is indifferent to contradictions. ‘Primitive’ peoples deem all things identical with one another yet somehow still distinct. A human is at once a tree and still a human being. Jung accepted unquestioningly Lévy‐Bruhl's depiction of the ‘primitive’ mind, even when Jung, unlike Lévy‐Bruhl, journeyed to the field to see ‘primitive’ peoples firsthand. But Jung altered Lévy‐Bruhl's conception of ‘primitive’ mentality in three key ways. First, he psychologized it. Whereas for Lévy‐Bruhl ‘primitive’ thinking is to be explained sociologically, for Jung it is to be explained psychologically: ‘primitive’ peoples think as they do because they live in a state of unconsciousness. Second, Jung universalized ‘primitive’ mentality. Whereas for Lévy‐Bruhl ‘primitive’ thinking is ever more being replaced by modern thinking, for Jung ‘primitive’ thinking is the initial psychological state of all human beings. Third, Jung appreciated ‘primitive’ thinking. Whereas for Lévy‐Bruhl ‘primitive’ thinking is false, for Jung it is true—once it is recognized as an expression not of how the world but of how the unconscious works. I consider, along with the criticisms of Lévy‐Bruhl's conception of ‘primitive’ thinking by his fellow anthropologists and philosophers, whether Jung in fact grasped all that Lévy‐Bruhl meant by ‘primitive’ thinking.     

Making sense of social research: how useful is the Hawthorne Effect?

‘The Hawthorne Effect’ is a phrase frequently employed in textbooks and other academic discourse. It appears to have been coined over 50 years ago and alludes to the outcome of research undertaken two decades earlier. This paper seeks to elucidate how the term ‘Hawthorne Effect’ has come to be used. A variety of texts will be presented to demonstrate the many different and often contradictory meanings ascribed to the term. A consideration of Guerin's review of research in social facilitation suggests the complexity of issues that seem to be involved in the use of the term ‘Hawthorne Effect’ is such that greater precision is required. Ultimately, we conclude, the term has no useful role in the discussion of research findings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Georges Dumézil: Theories,Critiques and Theoretical Extensions

Georges Dumézil, best known as the deviser of the theory of a tripartite patterning impulse in the cultures making up the Indo-European (I-E) linguistic group, spent sixty years refining this concept, and adding other themes such as the bifurcation of his fonctions and the concept of Interfunctional War. Before his death, his ideas were used to explain I-E patterns in cultural areas such as the Celtic, the Norse-Scandinavian and the Western medieval; since his death, his theorised structures have served as a base for such extensions as a ‘fourth’ function, a feminine potency to the formula and age-set-divisions as a part of the patterning impulse. Critics have concentrated on philological points, though some have denied the existence of the I-E tripartite division tout court. Just before Dumézil's death a variation on the ‘revisionist’ line began to accuse him of suspect personal–political opinions, and these accusations continue. The ultimate usefulness of Dumézil is the flexibility of his system and the extraordinary range of materials one can draw into his theories; his value is as a ‘medium’ for further research and theoretical structuring.     

The second wave of critical engagement with Stanley Milgram's ‘obedience to authority’ experiments: What did we learn?

The study critically examines contemporary academic engagement with Stanley Milgram's classic ‘obedience to authority’ experiments. It argues that, following what will be termed the ‘first wave of criticism’ (1964 to mid-1980s) and ‘consensus and canonization’ (mid-1980s to mid-2000s), this present-day phase has constituted a veritable ‘second wave of criticism’. The ‘second wave’ is reviewed in terms of, first, a return to fundamental dilemmas around the experiments (i.e., replication, ethics, methodology, and theory); and second, a recourse to novel data sources as well as theoretical and epistemological-methodological developments. Such integration of traditional concerns and new perspectives has resulted in focus being redirected to a forgotten aspect of the experiments: the interactional production of affective dynamics in the lab. Although the ‘second wave’ will be critiqued for selectively focusing on either affective atmosphere or interactional process, the paper will conclude with the suggestion that bringing these two aspects together continues to promise a theoretical contribution to the understanding of the experiments not seen before.     

On Rooting Religious Studies: The Metaphysical Proposal of René Guénon

The present article problematizes current dominating approaches to method and theory in the study of religion by pointing to their inapplicability to theorists working outside secular worldviews. The first section of this article introduces decolonialist narratives by touching on important topics which are subsumed within larger discussions, such as secularism, positionality, and others. This is done by putting René Guénon (1886–1951) in conversation with other theorists, the foremost of whom is Bruce Lincoln. Section two introduces Guénon using Wael Hallaq's categorisation of him as a subversive author, and sections three and four elaborate on his subversion through touching on two key theories. The first relates to problematizations of the term ‘religion’ itself along with a treatment of Guénon's actual theory of religion. The second is Guénon's metaphysical method, which, contrasted against the historical, opens new avenues for our study of the past in manners unrestricted to materialism alone, expanding thereby the academic frameworks with which we come to the table in the academic study of religion.     

Constructing the collective unconscious

Abstract: Innovative attempts at collating Jungian analytical psychology with a range of ‘post‐modern’ theories have yielded significant results. This paper adopts an alternative strategy: a Lacanian vantage point on Jungian theory that eschews an attempt at reconciling Jung with post‐structuralism. A focused Lacanian gaze on Jung will establish an irreducible tension between Jung's view of archetypes as factors immanent to the psyche and a Lacanian critique that lays bare the contingent structures and mechanisms of their constitution, unveiling the supposed archetypes’a posteriori production through the efficacy of a discursive field. Theories of ideology developed in the wake of Lacan provide a powerful methodological tool allowing to bring this distinction into focus. An assembly of Lacan's fragmentary accounts of Jung will be supplemented with an approach to Jungian theory via ?i?ek's Lacan‐oriented theory of the signifying mechanism underpinning ‘ideology’. Accordingly, the Jungian archetype of the self, which is considered in some depth, can begin to be seen in a new light, namely as a ‘master signifier’, not only of Jung's academic edifice, but also —and initially—of the discursive strategies that establish his own subjectivity. A discussion of Jung's approach to mythology reveals how the ‘quilting point’ of his discourse comes to be coupled with a correlate in the Real, a non‐discursive ‘sublime object’ conferring upon archetypes their fascinating aura.     

Purity and danger in the solar temple

Based on research conducted in Québec, this study explores the shape of the social life, apocalyptic ideology and authority structure of the Ordre du Temple Solaire (OTS) or Solar Temple within the framework of Mary Douglas's typology of ‘group and grid’. The pollution fears and purity rituals of this controversial new religious movement are analysed as an important factor in their decision to orchestrate a religiously‐motivated mass suicide/homicide, explained in their suicide documents as a ‘transit’ (a magical feat of soul travel) to the Star Sirius. Douglas's insights into how the human body becomes a ‘natural symbol’ for small, persecuted groups, mirroring the social body and the vulnerability of its exits and entrances vis‐à‐vis the surrounding culture, are applied to the alternative patterns of sexuality and parenting in the OTS. It is suggested that the magical aspect of the mass suicide expressed a concern for purity and for protecting the boundaries of their community. It is also suggested that the ritual homicides in Morin Heights resemble the ‘witch‐hunts’ characteristic of Douglas's ‘small society’ that conceives of itself as the perfect, impermeable vessel.     

The study of religion(s) in Western Europe (I): Prehistory and history until World War II

This essay discusses main features and developments of the study of religion(s) in Western Europe. It attempts a historical, geographical, and thematic synthesis. Part I sketches the general academic framework of the academic study of religion(s) in Western Europe and addresses the question of the (historical and conceptual) roots of this field of study. It then discusses some key dimensions of the academic institutionalization of the study of religion(s) from the 1870s to Fascism and National Socialism, addressing such issues as chairs, congresses, periodicals, textbooks and reviewing previous research. Parts II and III are to follow.     

The study of religion(s) in Western Europe (I): Prehistory and history until World War II

This essay discusses main features and developments of the study of religion(s) in Western Europe. It attempts a historical, geographical, and thematic synthesis. Part I sketches the general academic framework of the academic study of religion(s) in Western Europe and addresses the question of the (historical and conceptual) roots of this field of study. It then discusses some key dimensions of the academic institutionalization of the study of religion(s) from the 1870s to Fascism and National Socialism, addressing such issues as chairs, congresses, periodicals, textbooks and reviewing previous research. Parts II and III are to follow.     

From,into, and back: translations of the Sami words noaidi and noaidevuohta in context

This article discusses how the Sami word noaidi and the word for the noaidi’s trade (noaidevuohta) have been translated in missionary texts and academic research. It traces context-related translations of these Sami concepts: first by clergy into terms connoted to ‘witchcraft’ and ‘sorcery’, then by scholars into the technical terms ‘shaman’ and ‘shamanism’, and finally by contemporary scholars by translating them back into indigenous terms. The article is divided into three parts that explore changes in translations of noaidi and noaidevuohta from three slightly differing perspectives: the translations from Sami to other languages, the translations of the Bible into Sami languages, and the academic practice of translating technical terms back to Sami. These changes open a window into the research history of Sami religion and the power asymmetries between the Sami and majority cultures: through this window one sees that translations are situated, context-bound, and laden with implicit assumptions.