Results 161 to 170 of about 6,083 (195)

Reading Western Esotericism: George Gurdjieff and His “Cunning” Esotericism

Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review, 2020
Studies of western esotericism in the twentieth century proposed a certain number of characteristics as fundamental and universal to esotericism. This article first reviews Antoine Faivre’s intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics and Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s typology of esotericism, constituting the so-called empirical historical method.
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Western Esotericism and Islamic Mysticism

2022
This book offers a comprehensive study of the works of the Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff, with a particular focus on Sufism and its place in his teaching. Gurdjieff remains an important figure in the history of Western esoteric thought, while also enjoying both academic interest and popularity in modern spiritual ...
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Textbooks and introductions to Western Esotericism

Religion, 2013
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’.
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Deconstructing ‘Western esotericism’: on Wouter Hanegraaff'sEsotericism and the Academy

Religion, 2013
This paper discusses a number of consequences that – although not always intended by the author – can be drawn from the radically historicist approach adopted by Wouter J. Hanegraaff in his monograph Esotericism and the Academy. These consequences are the atomization of ‘esotericism’ into a disparate range of ideas, practices, and currents with few if ...
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Teaching Experiential Dimensions of Western Esotericism

2011
This contribution is based an innovative program that has been running since 1999 at the University of Amsterdam, in a context that (like most European programs in the study of religion) emphasizes critical historical research on a basis of methodological agnosticism or religious neutrality.
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Seer Stones and Western Esotericism

2020
Chapter One contextualizes Joseph Smith's use of a "seer stone" to compose the Book of Mormon within contemporary folk magic practices, the philosophies of Western esotericism, and Christian occultism. The seer stone (sometimes described as a "Urim and Thummim") represented one of several folk magic practices that the Smith family pursued, most notably
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Western Esotericism and the Science of Religions

Numen, 1995
AbstractThe term “esotericism” refers here to the modern esoteric currents in the West (15th to 20th centuries), i.e. to a diverse group of works, authors, trends, which possess an “air de famille” and which must be studied as a part of the history of religions because of the specific form it has acquired in the West from the Renaissance on. This field
Karen-Claire Voss, Antoine Faivre
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Esotericism in Western Culture

This accessible introduction by the world’s leading expert explains why the study of esotericism is not a marginal pursuit but belongs at the center of modern research in the humanities. Reflecting updates in the field since the foundational publicationWestern Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed(2013), Wouter J.
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The New Age Movement And Western Esotericism

2007
This chapter provides a general overview of the New Age movement. It outlines the main avenues by which New Age is connected to Western Esotericism, with an eye to the continuities as well as the differences between both. The development of the New Age movement (or movements) since the 1950s is not devoid of its ironic, or if one wishes, its ...
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The presentation of the Essenes in western esotericism

Journal of Contemporary Religion, 1998
Abstract Since the eighteenth century the idea originated in Western esoteric circles that the Jewish Essenes were a genuine esoteric group, whose beliefs continued in the new groups of the Freemasons or Rosicrucians. At the end of the last century, the idea of the Essenes as forerunners of modern Western esotericism was further developed by Schuri and
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