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Introduction
- State University of New York Press
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Introduction In 2010, historian Monika Neugebauer-Wölk showed that the noun esotericism occurs as early as 1792. In that year, it appeared in German: Esoterik,1 in the context of debates concerning the secret teachings of Pythagoras against a background of Freemasonry. In a context with affinities to Romanticism, it first appeared in French in 1828 in Histoire critique du Gnosticisme et de son influence by Jacques Matter (as Jean-Pierre Laurant pointed out in 1992). The term has since revealed itself, in English and in other languages, as semantically expandable and permeable as one likes. To question its etymology (eso refers to the idea of interiority, and ter evokes an opposition) is hardly productive and often stems from a need to discover what “esotericism” in “itself” would be (its “true” nature). In fact, there is no such thing, although those who claim the contrary are many—these individuals approaching it according to their own definitions, in function of their own interests or ideological presuppositions . It seems more productive to us to begin by inventorying the various meanings that it takes according to the speakers. I. Five Meanings of the Word Esotericism 1. Meaning 1: A Disparate Grouping In this meaning, which is the most current, esotericism appears, for example, as the title of sections in bookshops and in much media 1. About that first know occurrence, see Monika Neugebauer-Wölk’s ground-breaking article (in Aries 10:1, 2010). As she explains, that term Esoterik was from the pen of Johann Philipp Gabler, who used it in his edition of Johann Gottfried Eichhorn’s Urgeschichte (1792). 1 2 ❖ W E S T E R N E S O T E R I C I S M discourse to refer to almost everything that exudes a scent of mystery. Oriental wisdom traditions, yoga, mysterious Egypt, ufology, astrology and all sorts of divinatory arts, parapsychology, various “Kabbalahs,” alchemy, practical magic, Freemasonry, Tarot, New Age, New Religious Movements, and channeling are found thus placed side by side (in English, the label used in the bookshops is often Occult or Metaphysics). This nebula often includes all sorts of images, themes, and motifs, such as ontological androgyny, the Philosopher’s Stone, the lost Word, the Soul of the World, sacred geography, the magic book, and so on. 2. Meaning 2: Teachings or Facts That Are “Secret” Because They Are Deliberately Hidden This is for example the “discipline of the arcane,” the strict distinction between the initiated and the profane. Thus, “esoteric” often is employed as a synonym of “initiatic,” including by certain historians treating doctrines that would have been kept secret, for example, among the first Christians. For the wider public, it also refers to the idea that secrets would have been jealously guarded during the course of centuries by the church magisterium, such as the secret life of Christ, his close relationship with Mary Magdalene—or that important messages would have been surreptitiously slipped into a work by their author. Novels like the parodical Il Pendolo di Foucault (1988) by Umberto Eco and the mystery-mongering The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown skillfully take advantage of the taste of a broad audience for what belongs to the so-called “conspiracy theories.” 3. Meaning 3: A Mystery Is Inherent in Things Themselves Nature would be full of occult “signatures”; there would exist invisible relationships between stars, metals, and plants; human History would also be “secret,” not because people would have wanted to hide certain events, but because it would contain meanings to which the “profane” historian would not have access. Occult philosophy, a term widely used in the Renaissance, is in its diverse forms an endeavor to decipher such mysteries. Similarly, some call the “hidden God” the “esoteric God” (the one not entirely revealed.) [54.226.126.38] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:56 GMT) I N T R O D U C T I O N ❖ 3 4. Meaning 4: “Gnosis,” Understood as a Mode of Knowledge Emphasizing the “Experiential,” the Mythical, the Symbolic, Rather Than Forms of Expression of a Dogmatic and Discursive Order The ways enabling one to gain this “way of knowledge” vary according to the schools; it is the subject of initiatic teachings given forth in groups claiming to possess it, but sometimes it is also considered as accessible without them. Understood in this way, esotericism often is associated with the notion of “religious marginality” for those who intend to make a distinction between...