Contemporary Esotericism

Egil Asprem, Kennet Granholm

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317543565
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The study of contemporary esoteric discourse has hitherto been a largely neglected part of the new academic field of Western esotericism. Contemporary Esotericism provides a broad overview and assessment of the complex world of Western esoteric thought today. Combining historiographical analysis with theories and methodologies from the social sciences, the volume explores new problems and offers new possibilities for the study of esoterica. Contemporary Esotericism studies the period since the 1950s but focuses on the last two decades. The wide range of essays are divided into four thematic sections: the intricacies of esoteric appeals to tradition; the role of popular culture, modern communication technologies, and new media in contemporary esotericism; the impact and influence of esotericism on both religious and secular arenas; and the recent 'de-marginalization' of the esoteric in both scholarship and society.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm

The academic study of Western esotericism is well into its second decade of professionalization and institutionalization. University departments and study programmes have been established, specialist book series and journals launched, academic societies founded, and several international conferences and panels are organized every year. In addition, scholars in other subdisciplines of religious studies are starting to take notice of the scholarship produced within the field. However, the religious studies scholars who are most likely to take an interest will also notice a striking gap in scholarship on the esoteric: very little research exists on contemporary phenomena. Several contemporary currents that can be regarded as historically and/or typologically related to esotericism have been the focus of scholars in other branches of religious studies. For example, sociologists of new religious movements have debated “New Age spiritualities” for decades, and “pagan studies”¹ has in recent years emerged as its own religious studies subfield. Meanwhile, scholars working in the field of esotericism have (with a few notable exceptions) neglected such developments.²

The neglect is largely due to the strong historiographical emphasis in previous research on Western esotericism. Although the professionalization of the field has largely come about within religious studies, major scholarly impulses have come from historians of ideas, historians of science, and historians of art - typically specializing in Renaissance and early modern European culture. Expertise in the field has clustered around these lines of historical inquiry, with the most influential definitions and delimitations of the field following suit with the interests of central researchers.³ In addition, despite an often-stated embrace of interdisciplinarity, an overall reluctance to incorporate social scientific approaches has characterized the field. This has certainly had some repercussions: a fundamental challenge for the study of the esoteric in the present day is that it is not sufficient to simply transpose theories, definitions and methodologies developed for the study of, say, Renaissance magic to analyse contemporary magical practices. In short, studying contemporary phenomena poses both new problems and intriguing possibilities, the challenge to incorporate social scientific theories and methodologies being a central one. It would seem that for a proper study of contemporary esotericism to succeed, several theoretical and methodological concerns need to be addressed.

Starting from these observations, the present volume brings into attention the multifaceted status of esoteric discourse in the contemporary West. The authors combine historical awareness and findings from the historical study of esoteric currents with new theory and methodology required for contemporary issues. The chapters deal with currents and issues of particular importance for understanding the place of the esoteric in today’s world, and specifically discuss theoretical and methodological implications raised by the study of contemporary esotericism.

UNRAVELLING PROBLEMS WITH THE STUDY OF ESOTERICISM

As already noted, the relative lack of research on contemporary esotericism from scholars in the field seems to be connected in part with a general reluctance to incorporate perspectives, theories, and methodology from the social sciences. In fact, it is commonplace within the field to encounter at least a mild form of hostility towards social science, although it is seldom developed into an explicit polemic. One resulting problem is that any introductory course on esotericism that aims to deal also with contemporary phenomena cannot rely solely on standard introductory volumes and reference works in the field. As none of these sufficiently address contemporary expressions and concerns, they must be complemented by scholarship from elsewhere, which most often needs to be “translated” to fit overall themes and approaches. Kocku von Stuckrad’s otherwise competent Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge (2005) is, for example, rather thin on recent and contemporary developments, although it does end with a general discussion of “Esotericism and Modernity”.⁴ This is a result of the lack of scholarship in the field in this subject area, and von Stuckrad makes no claim to provide a detailed account here. However, the problem is more acute in Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction (2008), where something in the way of a claim to completeness is made. The book contains a chapter entitled “Ritual Magic from 1850 to the Present”,⁵ but curiously “the present” seems to end in the 1950s!

The neglect of contemporary phenomena can partly be attributed to the fact that most researchers in the field identify themselves as historians, and often regard the present as outside their area of interest and expertise. This, of course, is a limited view of “history”, which, after all, is constantly created. The realm of the historian thus includes the present and the recent past. Another related reason can be sought in the methodological familiarity and “comfort zone” of the strict historian. While historical material may appear “frozen in time” and thus ordered and easier to subject to meticulous scrutiny, tracing lineages, historical relations and so forth, contemporary material will seem chaotic and ever-changing, and consequently more difficult to “catch” in the way one is used to from historical records. An investigation of such material can be frustrating, and can easily appear unorganized and “unscientific”

This historical bias can be exemplified by way of an anecdote from a conference a few years back. A speaker who had presented an overview of Russian esotericism, neopaganism, secret societies, and related publications up to the mid-twentieth century was asked the question: “What about expressions of these trends in contemporary Russia?” The response was simply, “I am a historian, not an anthropologist” thus positioning the question as irrelevant in the context (which, of course, it was not). Whatever the reasons for exclusions of this kind, it seems clear that historical studies from the field of Western esotericism must be combined with scholarship from studies of new religions, “pagan studies” and so on if a more comprehensive picture is sought. In order to succeed, bridges must be constructed to overcome the incongruities in method, theory and approaches that exist between the different segments of complementary scholarship.

The incongruities partly depend on differing disciplinary rationales, with most studies of contemporary “esotericism” being sociologically or sometimes anthropologically informed. The dislike of social scientific approaches in the study of esotericism was already noted. To the present authors, this aversion seems connected to similar biases in the history of religion, which followed the influence of Mircea Eliade. Eliade and the phenomenological school of “history of religion” associated with him tended to oppose sociology due to what was perceived as its inherent “reductionism”⁶ In short, sociology was claimed to present the religious as not forming a phenomenon sui generis, but instead being an expression of broader social forces. In religious studies at large, this fear of reductionism was heavily discussed and criticized more than twenty years ago, and, despite the occasional local outbreak, aversions of this kind now seem rather dated.⁷ In current scholarship on esotericism, however, this “ghost of Eliade” may still be felt – as, for example, when Goodrick-Clarke dismisses “definitions of ‘the esoteric’ in terms of discourse, social constructions, and legitimacy” because they “lack a hermeneutic interpretation of spirit and spirituality as an independent ontological reality” – that is, refusing to describe “it” as something sui generis and irreducible, indeed as “an autonomous and essential aspect of the relationship between the mind and the cosmos”.⁸

There seems to be a fear that dealing with sociological issues will in some way diminish or infringe on the value of the subject. As many of the influences of Eliade have been purged – such as his problematic ahistorical approach to history – this simplistic paranoia about sociological reductionism should be discarded as well. Involving sociological perspectives, and looking at the role played by social factors in the formations of the esoteric, does not need to mean that one reduces one’s subject to these particular social factors. Nevertheless, the accusations of sociological approaches having been reductionist to the extreme are not entirely unprovoked. Looking at sociological studies of the occult/esoteric we find a strong focus on its “deviance”,⁹ with Marcello Truzzi even calling it “a wastebasket, for knowledge claims that are deviant in some way”.¹⁰ While the notion of deviance, so popular in sociological research of the 1970s, has been largely left aside in specialist sociology on, for example, new religious movements, associated problems remain in sociological research more broadly. Here, for example, “the occult” often stands for little more than supernatural beliefs which are difficult to place into any other category.¹¹ This, of course, makes “esoteric”/”occult” utterly useless in any meaningful analytical capacity. As Hanegraaff argued over a decade ago, the main problem of these sociological constructs of “the occult” is precisely their neglect, and preclusion, of historicity.¹² Despite these obvious prior shortcomings, we stress that the historiographic study of the esoteric could still benefit from sociological perspectives, just as sociological studies need to be informed by the conceptual frameworks and historical awareness developed by historical research.

One aspect of the historiographic study of esotericism which becomes increasingly problematic when we move to contemporary expressions is a predominant focus on elite representatives. In a Faivrean approach, the “esoteric form of thought” is primarily expressed in the intellectual philosophies and theologies of men like Ficino, Pico, Paracelsus, Bruno, Dee, Khunrath, Maier, Fludd, and so on, whereas “lowbrow” folk expressions are typically neglected.¹³ This also involves the elevation of originally more popular material to “high culture” when the need arises; the origins of Rosicrucianism from a fictitious “ludibrium” (to paraphrase the statement of Johann Valentin Andreae, one of the masterminds behind the Rosicrucian manifestos) might already indicate this tension.¹⁴ Partly this might be due to fewer traces of “lowbrow culture” having survived in historical records, but the overall ethos nevertheless introduces major problems when examining contemporary esotericism. Pamphlets of “New Age spirituality” will undoubtedly compare unfavourably with the philosophy of Ficino, and online message board discussions between contemporary Satanists are less impressive than an arcane letter correspondence between alchemists in the early modern “republic of letters”.¹⁵ This does not, however, automatically imply that such materials are any less important for academic research, and scholars should in any case avoid such biases. As we will suggest, the elite bias becomes particularly problematic when recognizing that contemporary esotericism is intimately, and increasingly, connected with popular culture and new media.

In conclusion, then, the agenda of the present volume is twofold: first, to emphasize the need for expanding the field of Western esotericism to encompass contemporary issues; and second, in so doing, to integrate the study of esotericism firmly with approaches and perspectives from the study of religion more broadly. Not only do we believe that such integration is imperative in order to sufficiently explore contemporary esotericism, but it also seems desirable in order to prevent the field from falling into professional isolation. Avoiding that fate and instead inviting a constructive and integrative dialogue between esotericism research and other subdisciplines of religious studies, especially the social scientific ones, has the promise of benefiting all parties. This volume offers an attempt to open up the field in these ways and provide mutual relevance. In so doing, it will be found to ask more new questions than it will answer.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

The volume is divided into four parts, each with a specific focal point. These deal with issues of tradition in esotericism; with the impact of new media and popular culture on the esoteric today; with “esoteric transfers” (i.e. the influence of the esoteric on other social spheres that are traditionally thought of as “non-esoteric” and “non-religious”); and with the esoteric “leaving the margins” in a multitude of ways. While thematically separated, the sections are also tightly interwoven. As will become apparent in reading the book, chapters in one section frequently interact with the themes of other ones, and cross-references between chapters are frequent. Furthermore, there is a red thread running throughout the volume, which attempts to introduce a unity which is more common to monographs than to edited works. Thus, all chapters of the volume deal to some degree with issues of methodology and theory relevant particularly for the examination of contemporary esotericism, while at the same time engaging with associated issues in religious studies at large.

Tradition

The appeal to tradition, particularly connected to lost ancient wisdom, or perennial higher truth, is a central feature of much esoteric discourse, but so is the rhetoric of rationality and notions of progress and growth. Furthermore, claims to tradition are intrinsically linked to questions of identity and positioning in broader discursive fields, including politics and religion. The chapters of this section deal with the claims to, and constructions of, tradition in contemporary esoteric discourse, and elucidate the significance of tradition vis-à-vis conceptions of “modernity”

In Chapter 2, the first chapter of Part I, Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm provide an introduction to the overall theme, discussing issues of general relevance to the construction of tradition and looking at these issues in the more focused context of the esoteric. Esotericism has historically been deeply connected to the concept of “tradition” in several ways, from a preoccupation with “perennial philosophy” and “ancient sages” on the emic level, to be...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• Part I: Tradition
• Part II: Popular Culture And New Media
• Part III: Esoteric Transfers
• Part IV: Leaving The Margins
• Bibliography, Discography and Filmography
• Index