What it is
"Western esotericism" is a name that historians use for a large family of currents in European and American thought: Hermetism, Gnosticism, and the later Platonists; Kabbalah and its Christian adaptations; learned magic, astrology, and alchemy; Paracelsianism, Rosicrucianism, and Christian theosophy; the high-degree fraternities of the eighteenth century; mesmerism and Spiritualism; the occult revival, Theosophy, and Anthroposophy; modern Paganism and the New Age. Most of the books in our North Gate, and many at the others, belong to it.
None of the people who wrote those books called themselves Western esotericists. The category was made later, at first by their enemies and then by historians, and it is still argued over. This guide describes how the category was made and how it has been studied. It is the place to begin if you want to know why a library shelves Boehme beside the Hermetica, or why a university historian might write about tarot.
Where to begin
Read Antoine Faivre's Access to Western Esotericism for the definition that dominated the field for a generation, and Frances Yates's Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition for the book that changed what historians thought worth studying. Then read our own guide to Starting Your Research, which applies the same distinctions at the shelf.
The words
The Greek adjective esoterikos, "belonging to an inner circle", first appears in the second century CE, in a satire by Lucian. Philosophers before him had distinguished between teaching given within the walls of a school and teaching published to the world: Aristotle spoke of his "exoteric discourses", and later writers claimed that Pythagoras and Plato kept an inner doctrine for their pupils. The early modern scholars took up the distinction, and the noun followed in the age of the Enlightenment.
-
The History of Philosophy Thomas Stanley. English. 1655 to 1662. T 3
The first history of ancient philosophy in English, and probably the first English book to divide the followers of Pythagoras into the "exoterick" and the "esoterick".
-
Clidophorus John Toland. English. 1720. D 7
A freethinker argues that the philosophers of every nation kept a double doctrine, one for the public and one for the initiated, and that they did so to protect themselves from priests. The esoteric as a weapon of the Enlightenment.
-
Histoire critique du gnosticisme Jacques Matter. French. 1828. D 2
A Protestant historian's study of the Gnostics, which contains the first known use of the noun esoterisme. Eliphas Levi took up the word in the 1850s, together with occultisme, and the two were used as synonyms until historians began to distinguish them. Shelved with the Gnostic literature.
The making of a category
The first people to treat these currents as one family were their opponents.
-
Platonisch-Hermetisches Christenthum Ehregott Daniel Colberg. German. Two volumes, 1690 and 1691. D 7
A Lutheran theologian gathers the Paracelsians, the followers of Weigel, the Rosicrucians, and the theosophers under one name, "Platonic-Hermetic Christianity", and traces them all to the corruption of the faith by pagan philosophy. Hostile from beginning to end, and the first book to see the family whole.
-
Unparteyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie (Impartial History of the Church and of Heretics) Gottfried Arnold. German. 1699 and 1700. D 7
A Pietist historian reverses the verdict. In Arnold's history the heretics, mystics, and visionaries are often the true Christians, and the orthodox are the persecutors. Much read by Boehme's later followers.
-
Historia critica philosophiae Johann Jakob Brucker. Latin. Five volumes, 1742 to 1744. T 3
The great Enlightenment history of philosophy, in which the Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and theosophical writers are set apart as a confused and superstitious tradition unworthy of the name of philosophy. Its judgment shaped the teaching of philosophy for a very long time.
After Brucker, the currents in this guide were filed under "superstition", "magic", and "the occult", and serious scholars generally left them alone. Rejecting them became one of the ways a modern scholar showed that the academy was home. Their history was written, for the most part, by their own enthusiasts.
The historians of the Renaissance
The change began among historians of the Renaissance in the first half of the twentieth century, many of them refugees from Germany, who found that they could not explain Ficino, Pico, or Bruno without taking magic, astrology, and the Hermetica seriously.
-
Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella D. P. Walker. 1958. T 3
A short, exact study of how Renaissance philosophers tried to use music, images, and the spirit of the world to draw down the powers of the stars, and of the theological trouble they got into. Still the best place to see the method at work.
-
Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance Edgar Wind. 1958. T 3
How the painters and poets of the Renaissance used the pagan mysteries, read through Neoplatonic eyes, to say things about love, beauty, and the soul. A book about art that is also a book about esoteric hermeneutics.
-
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition Frances A. Yates. 1964. T 3
Argued that a Hermetic and magical tradition ran through the Renaissance and helped prepare the scientific revolution. Historians of science have since rejected much of the thesis, but the book made the subject respectable, and almost everyone in the field since has started by agreeing or disagreeing with it. For her later work on the manifestos, see Rosicrucians and Christian Theosophy.
-
Eros and Magic in the Renaissance Ioan P. Couliano. French, 1984. English translation 1987. D 7
Reads Renaissance magic as a science of the imagination, the art of manipulating the images through which desire works, and finds its heirs in modern advertising and propaganda. Brilliant and provocative. Its author was murdered in 1991, at forty-one.
The founding of a field
In 1965, at the prompting of the scholar of Islamic mysticism Henry Corbin, the first academic chair in the history of Christian esotericism was created in Paris. Its first holder was Francois Secret, a specialist in Christian Kabbalah. In 1979 the chair passed to Antoine Faivre, who widened it to the esoteric and mystical currents of modern Europe and held it until 2002. Chairs followed in the Netherlands in 1999 and in England in 2005, and by the early 2000s the field had its own journals, conferences, and degree programs.
-
Les Kabbalistes chretiens de la Renaissance Francois Secret. French. 1964. D 3
A dense, learned survey of the Christian Kabbalists from Pico to the seventeenth century, by the first holder of the Paris chair. Shelved with Kabbalah.
-
Access to Western Esotericism Antoine Faivre. French, 1992, as L'esoterisme. English, enlarged, 1994. D 7
Proposes that esotericism is a form of thought marked by four intrinsic characteristics: correspondences between all parts of the universe, as above so below; nature as alive and full of hidden powers; the imagination and its mediations, such as rituals, symbols, and intermediary spirits; and the experience of inner transmutation. Two further characteristics are often present: the practice of concordance, which seeks one root beneath all traditions, and transmission from master to pupil. For a generation this was the standard definition.
-
The Western Esoteric Traditions Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. 2008. D 7
A clear historical introduction from the Hermetica to the New Age, by the historian who held the first chair in the subject in England. The best single survey by an author no longer living.
What is esotericism? Four answers
Scholars agree, broadly, on which currents belong to the family. They do not agree on what makes them a family. Four answers have been given, and each has its books on our shelves.
- A hidden inner tradition. There is one secret wisdom at the heart of all religions, and esotericism is its Western form. This is the view of many esotericists themselves, from Arthur Edward Waite to Rene Guenon and the Traditionalists, and it influenced scholars of religion such as Mircea Eliade and Henry Corbin. Its weakness for the historian is that it assumes what it ought to prove, and it hides the real differences between the currents.
- An enchanted view of the world. Esotericism is a way of seeing the cosmos as alive and bound together by correspondences, opposed to the disenchanted world of mechanical science. This was the view of Yates and, more precisely, of Faivre. Critics have pointed out that it fits Renaissance Hermetism and Christian theosophy, Faivre's own specialties, better than it fits other periods.
- A claim to higher knowledge. Esotericism is a way of speaking: the claim to possess a wisdom superior to other accounts of the world, revealed through secrecy, initiation, contact with higher beings, or personal experience. This approach treats esotericism as a recurring element of Western culture rather than a set of schools.
- Rejected knowledge. Esotericism is everything that the Enlightenment's idea of proper religion, proper reason, and proper science pushed out, the academy's waste-paper basket. The definition explains why these currents were neglected for so long. Critics reply that it makes the category so wide as to be useless.
There is a further argument over the word "Western". Theosophy took reincarnation from India, Spiritualism flourished in Brazil, and esoteric ideas have traveled in every direction. Some scholars now prefer to say simply "esotericism".
Insiders and outsiders
Students of religion distinguish between the emic, the point of view of the believer, and the etic, the point of view of the observer. The alchemist describing his work is emic. The historian explaining it is etic. Good scholarship needs both: the insider's sources read with enough sympathy to understand them, and the outsider's questions asked without deciding the answer in advance.
In this field the line is crossed constantly. Many historians of esotericism are read by practitioners as authorities, and their careful phrase "the esoteric traditions" is quoted back to them as though it named a single thing. Practitioners write history, and historians sometimes practice. Our collection policy keeps both on the same shelves and asks of each book simply what it is.
Things to watch for
- A category, not a tradition. "Western esotericism" is a scholars' umbrella opened over the currents after the fact. A book that speaks of "the Western Mystery Tradition" as a single unbroken lineage is making a claim, not reporting a finding.
- Esoteric and occult. The words were synonyms in the nineteenth century. Scholars now often use "occultism" for the movements after about 1850 and "esotericism" for the whole family. Booksellers use both for anything at all.
- The marketing word. On the cover of a modern paperback, "esoteric" may mean only "spiritual". Look inside for the sources.
- Recent scholarship. The field has grown very quickly since the 1990s. Like all our guides, this one lists only older landmark works by authors no longer living. For current work, ask at the desk.
On the shelves
Histories, methods, and reference works of the academic field are shelved at the North Gate in class D 7. The great histories of Renaissance thought stand in the Tower at T 3, with Thorndike's History of Magic and Experimental Science. Related pages: Esoteric Literature: The North Gate, Hermetic Literature, and The Occult Revival.