Western esotericism

Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition,^[1] is a term scholars use to classify a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthodox Judeo-Christian religion and Age of Enlightenment rationalism.^[2] It has influenced, or contributed to, various forms of Western philosophy, mysticism, religion, pseudoscience, art, literature, and music.

The idea of grouping a wide range of Western traditions and philosophies together under the term esotericism developed in 17th-century Europe. Various academics have debated numerous definitions of Western esotericism. One view adopts a definition from certain esotericist schools of thought themselves, treating "esotericism" as a perennial hidden inner tradition. A second perspective sees esotericism as a category of movements that embrace an "enchanted" worldview in the face of increasing disenchantment. A third views Western esotericism as encompassing all of Western culture's "rejected knowledge" that is accepted neither by the scientific establishment nor orthodox religious authorities.

The earliest traditions of Western esotericism emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, where Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Neoplatonism developed as schools of thought distinct from what became mainstream Christianity.^[3] Renaissance Europe saw increasing interest in many of these older ideas, with various intellectuals combining pagan philosophies with the Kabbalah and Christian philosophy, resulting in the emergence of esoteric movements like Christian Kabbalah and Christian theosophy. The 17th century saw the development of initiatory societies professing esoteric knowledge such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, while the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century led to the development of new forms of esoteric thought. The 19th century saw the emergence of new trends of esoteric thought now known as occultism. Significant groups in this century included the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Also important in this connection is Martinus Thomsen's "spiritual science". Modern paganism developed within occultism and includes religious movements such as Wicca. Esoteric ideas permeated the counterculture of the 1960s and later cultural tendencies, which led to the New Age phenomenon in the 1970s.

The idea that these disparate movements could be classified as "Western esotericism" developed in the late 18th century, but these esoteric currents were largely ignored as a subject of academic enquiry. The academic study of Western esotericism only emerged in the late 20th century, pioneered by scholars like Frances Yates and Antoine Faivre.

The concept of the "esoteric" originated in the 2nd century^[4] with the coining of the Ancient Greek adjective esôterikós ("belonging to an inner circle"); the earliest known example of the word appeared in a satire authored by Lucian of Samosata^[5] (c. 125 – after 180).

In the 15th and 16th centuries, differentiations in Latin between exotericus and esotericus (along with internus and externus) were common in the scholar discourse on ancient philosophy. The categories of doctrina vulgaris and doctrina arcana are found among Cambridge Platonists. Perhaps for the first time in English, Thomas Stanley, between 1655 and 1660, would refer to the Pythagorean exoterick and esoterick. John Toland in 1720 would state that the so-called nowadays "esoteric distinction" was a universal phenomenon, present in both the West and the East. As for the noun "esotericism", probably the first mention in German of Esoterismus appeared in a 1779 work by Johann Georg Hamann, and the use of Esoterik in 1790 by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. But the word esoterisch had already existed at least since 1731–1736, as found in the works of Johann Jakob Brucker; this author rejected everything that is characterized today as an "esoteric corpus". In this 18th century context, these terms referred to Pythagoreanism or Neoplatonic theurgy, but the concept was particularly sedimentated by two streams of discourses: speculations about the influences of the Egyptians on ancient philosophy and religion, and their associations with Masonic discourses and other secret societies, who claimed to keep such ancient secrets until the Enlightenment; and the emergence of orientalist academic studies, which since the 17th century identified the presence of mysteries, secrets or esoteric "ancient wisdom" in Persian, Arab, Indian and Far Eastern texts and practices (see also Early Western reception of Eastern esotericism)^[6]

The noun "esotericism", in its French form "ésotérisme", first appeared in 1828^[7] in the work by Protestant historian of gnosticism^[8] Jacques Matter [fr] (1791–1864), Histoire critique du gnosticisme (3 vols.).^[9][10] The term "esotericism" thus came into use in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment and of its critique of institutionalised religion, during which alternative religious groups such as the Rosicrucians began to disassociate themselves from the dominant Christianity in Western Europe.^[11] During the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars increasingly saw the term "esotericism" as meaning something distinct from Christianity—as a subculture at odds with the Christian mainstream from at least the time of the Renaissance.^[11] After being introduced by Jacques Matter in French, the occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Lévi (1810–1875) popularized the term in the 1850s.^[9] Lévi also introduced the term l'occultisme, a notion that he developed against the background of contemporary socialist and Catholic discourses.^[12] "Esotericism" and "occultism" were often employed as synonyms until later scholars distinguished the concepts.^[13]

In the context of Ancient Greek philosophy, the terms "esoteric" and "exoteric" were sometimes used by scholars not to denote that there was secrecy, but to distinguish two procedures of research and education: the first reserved for teachings that were developed "within the walls" of the philosophical school, among a circle of thinkers ("eso-" indicating what is unseen, as in the classes internal to the institution), and the second referring to those whose works were disseminated to the public in speeches and published ("exo-": outside). The initial meaning of this last word is implied when Aristotle coined the term "exoteric speeches" (ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι), perhaps to refer to the speeches he gave outside his school.^[14]

However, Aristotle never employed the term "esoteric" and there is no evidence that he dealt with specialized secrets; there is a dubious report by Aulus Gellius, according to which Aristotle disclosed the exoteric subjects of politics, rhetoric and ethics to the general public in the afternoon, while he reserved the morning for "akroatika" (acroamatics), referring to natural philosophy and logic, taught during a walk with his students.^[15][16] Furthermore, the term "exoteric" for Aristotle could have another meaning, hypothetically referring to an extracosmic reality, ta exo, superior to and beyond Heaven, requiring abstraction and logic. This reality stood in contrast to what he called enkyklioi logoi, knowledge "from within the circle", involving the intracosmic physics that surrounds everyday life.^[17] There is a report by Strabo and Plutarch, however, which states that the Lyceum's school texts were circulated internally, their publication was more controlled than the exoteric ones, and that these "esoteric" texts were rediscovered and compiled only with the efforts of Andronicus of Rhodes.^[18][19]

Plato would have orally transmitted intramural teachings to his disciples, the supposed "esoteric" content of which regarding the First Principles is particularly highlighted by the Tübingen School as distinct from the apparent written teachings conveyed in his books or public lectures.^[14][20] Hegel commented on the analysis of this distinction in the modern hermeneutics of Plato and Aristotle:

To express an external object not much is required, but to communicate an idea a capacity must be present, and this always remains something esoteric, so that there has never been anything purely exoteric about what philosophers say.^[21]

In any case, drawing from the tradition of discourses that supposedly revealed a vision of the Absolute and truth present in mythology and initiatory rites of mystery religions, Plato and his philosophy began the Western perception of esotericism, to the point that Kocku von Stuckrad stated "esoteric ontology and anthropology would hardly exist without Platonic philosophy."^[22] In his dialogues, he uses expressions that refer to cultic secrecy^[23] (for example, ἀπορρήτων, aporrhéton, one of the Ancient Greek expressions referring to the prohibition of revealing a secret, in the context of mysteries^[24]). In Theaetetus 152c, there is an example of this concealment strategy:

Can it be, then, that Protagoras was a very ingenious person who threw out this obscure utterance for the unwashed like us but reserved the truth as a secret doctrine (ἐν ἀπορρήτῳ τὴν ἀλήθειαν) to be revealed to his disciples?^[23]

The Neoplatonists intensified the search for a "hidden truth" under the surface of teachings, myths and texts, developing the hermeneutics and allegorical exegesis of Plato, Homer, Orpheus and others.^[23] Plutarch, for example, developed the justification of a theological esotericism, and Numenius wrote "On the Secrets of Plato" (Peri tôn para Platoni aporrhèta).^[25]

Probably based on the "exôtikos/esôtikos" dichotomy, the Hellenic world developed the classical distinction between exoteric/esoteric, stimulated by criticism from various currents such as the Patristics.^[26] According to examples in Lucian, Galen and Clement of Alexandria, at that time it was a common practice among philosophers to keep secret writings and teachings. A parallel secrecy and reserved elite was also found in the contemporary environment of Gnosticism.^[27] Later, Iamblichus would present his definition (close to the modern one), as he classified the ancient Pythagoreans as either "exoteric" mathematicians or "esoteric" acousmatics, the latter being those who disseminated enigmatic teachings and hidden allegorical meanings.^[14]

The concept of "Western esotericism" represents a modern scholarly construct rather than a pre-existing, self-defined tradition of thought.^[29] In the late 17th century, several European Christian thinkers presented the argument that one could categorise certain traditions of Western philosophy and thought together, thus establishing the category now labelled "Western esotericism".^[30] The first to do so, Ehregott Daniel Colberg [de] (1659–1698), a German Lutheran theologian, wrote Platonisch-Hermetisches Christianity (1690–91). A hostile critic of various currents of Western thought that had emerged since the Renaissance—among them Paracelsianism, Weigelianism, and Christian theosophy—in his book he labelled all of these traditions under the category of "Platonic–Hermetic Christianity", portraying them as heretical to what he saw as "true" Christianity.^[31] Despite his hostile attitude toward these traditions of thought, Colberg became the first to connect these disparate philosophies and to study them under one rubric, also recognising that these ideas linked back to earlier philosophies from late antiquity.^[32]

In 18th-century Europe, during the Age of Enlightenment, these esoteric traditions came to be regularly categorised under the labels of "superstition", "magic", and "the occult"—terms often used interchangeably.