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  • Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture by Wouter J. Hanegraaff
  • Glenn Alexander Magee
Wouter J. Hanegraaff. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 468. Cloth, $110.00.

“Esotericism” refers, more or less, to what used to be called “the occult.” It comprises such matters as astrology, alchemy, kabbalism, magic, and theosophy—to name just a few. In other words, it refers to just about everything that came to be marginalized in the modern period as “superstition” and “pseudo-science,” and anathematized by scientists and philosophers. In recent decades, there has been an explosion of scholarly interest in esotericism, partly because of research revealing that many “canonical” scientists and philosophers of the past [End Page 496] were strongly interested in these “irrational” currents. The philosophers include Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and Schopenhauer; the scientists include Newton. Such examples tend to embarrass today’s historians of science and philosophy. In this fascinating book, Wouter Hanegraaff argues that there is a simple reason for this embarrassment: the very identity of the modern intellectual has been formed in opposition to esotericism. To be rational, modern, and enlightened, in other words, means not to believe in any of these things.

On the one hand, Esotericism and the Academy details the process by which these esoteric currents came to be taken as belonging together in one category. On the other hand, it shows how our modern conceptions of “true” science and “true” philosophy were formed in opposition to this “other.” Hanegraaff is eminently qualified to tell this tale. One of the leading figures in the academic study of esotericism, he is Professor of the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. His account of the “historical construction” of esotericism is fascinating in itself, but its implications for our understanding of the development of the history of philosophy as an academic field will be of greatest interest to professional philosophers.

Hanegraaff offers a fascinating account of modern histories of philosophy, covering many little-known but important figures. He begins with the Renaissance humanists, who argued for a fanciful “genealogy” in which figures such as Plato, Plotinus, and Hermes Trismegistus were all seen as conduits for the transmission of an ancient wisdom whose source, ultimately, was God. This “ancient wisdom narrative” became enormously influential and was, in effect, the first modern attempt at a history of philosophy. However, in the late seventeenth century, Protestant German historians launched a fierce attack against it. Their purpose was to “purify” Christian theology of pagan contamination. Thus, out went Gnosticism, Hermetism, kabbalism, magic, alchemy, theosophy, and generally anything that purported to convey special, non-Christian revelations. Unwittingly, these German historians had created the category of “esotericism” as a kind of wastebasket for rejected knowledge. Even though the figures and currents dumped into it often had little or nothing in common with one another, they would nevertheless forever after be understood as somehow belonging together in a kind of “counter-tradition.” Secular Enlightenment historians essentially took up the approach of the Protestants, although they rejected esoteric authors and ideas not because they conflicted with Christian doctrine, but because they deemed them “irrational.” The result was the construction of the history of philosophy that we know today.

Hanegraaff thus argues that esoteric figures and ideas were marginalized simply due to the prejudices of historians. From this, he draws a radical conclusion: the history of philosophy needs to be completely re-conceived. He writes near the end of the book, “[I]t is simply unacceptable to reduce figures like Marsilio Ficino or Giovanni Pico della Mirandola to mere footnotes in the history of philosophy, as remains standard in most current philosophy programs and textbooks” (377).

Hanegraaff recommends that future historians of philosophy treat esotericism with “methodological agnosticism” (357–58): they should merely report the claims of esotericists, not pass judgment on their truth or falsity. The problem with this, however, is that histories of philosophy are written by professional philosophers, who are interested in the history of their discipline because they think it is useful for the discovery of truth. If esoteric ideas were...

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