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Textbooks and introductions to Western Esotericism

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 43; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0048721x.2012.733245

1096-1151

Wouter J. Hanegraaff,

Jungian Analytical Psychology

Abstract This article reviews the presently available supply of textbooks and introductions to the new academic field of study known as 'Western esotericism'. By analogy with computer software, the author refers to the early 'religionist' phase of research in this domain as 'Western esotericism 1.0'. He argues that Antoine Faivre's small French textbook L'ésotérisme (1992) marked the beginning of a more satisfactory upgrade that might be referred to as 'Western esotericism 2.0' and remains dominant in teaching and research today. A critical review of textbooks and introductions representative of this second phase of academic professionalisation reveals a number of structural problems and weaknesses ('bugs and design faults') that need to be corrected in order for the field to complete its adolescence and reach academic maturity. To accommodate the needs and new perspectives of the upcoming generation of scholars in this field, it is therefore time for an upgrade to 'Western esotericism 3.0'. Keywords: Western esotericismthe OccultAntoine FaivreKocku von StuckradUlrike PetersDavid S. KatzArthur VersluisNicholas Goodrick-ClarkeHartmut Zinser Notes 1Faivre's Citation1992 introduction was not the very first: two years earlier, Pierre A. Riffard had published a volume titled L'ésotérisme (Riffard 1990), comprising a first part called 'Qu'est-ce que l'ésotérisme' ('What is esotericism?') and a second part 'Anthologie de l'ésotérisme occidental' ('Anthology of Western Esotericism'). Parallel to Faivre, Jean-Pierre Laurant published a small introduction (L'ésotérisme) that appeared one year later, in Citation1993. 2The methodological flaw in such an approach does not lie in the fact that it is a scholarly construct: this it shares with any other scholarly definition or demarcation of 'esotericism'. Rather, the problem is that the business of defining and demarcating a historical field of research can never be convincing unless it reflects a flexible and open-ended dialectics between inductive and deductive perspectives (Hanegraaff Citation1996/1998: 7–8; Snoek Citation1987: 9). Surely no useful concept of 'esotericism' can simply be extrapolated from the historical data, but projecting such a concept on them is not a solution either. 3For the correct explanation, see Van den Broek (Citation2005: 489). What makes such a statement naïve is its apparent assumption that the C.H. originated in antiquity as one single collection of numbered treatises, whereas anybody who has looked at the topic a bit more thoroughly knows that we are dealing with separate treatises that were collated only at a much later date. 4For a similar case, see my review of Burton and Grandy's spectacularly amateurish Magic, Mystery, and Science, published by a university press (Hanegraaff Citation2004); and see also the case of Hartmut Zinser (below). Another painful case is Nadya Chishty-Mujahid's An Introduction to Western Esotericism, with a foreword by Grandy (see my short review in Nova Religio: CitationHanegraaff forthcoming). 5The shocking news of Goodrick-Clarke's passing on 29 August 2012, at an age of only 59, came when the present article was already in production. He will be remembered as one of the chief pioneers of the study of Western esotericism, and his death means a serious blow not just to the Exeter programme and its students but to the field as a whole.