Results 161 to 170 of about 6,117 (218)

Introduction. Western Esotericism And Polemics

2007
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this volume on religious polemics. The volume deals with a specific subset of such responses, as they have taken place within the religiously plural European milieu: polemics involving discourses and practices associated with western esotericism.
Hammer, Olav, von Stuckrad, Kocku
openaire   +5 more sources

Freemasonry and Western Esotericism

2014
This chapter discusses the complex relationship between Freemasonry and Western esotericism by approaching the issue from two perspectives. First, by analysing a central esoteric discourse in the specific context of Freemasonry, namely the use of secrecy in Freemasonry and its relation to the concept of initiation and claims to absolute knowledge ...
Henrik Bogdan, Henrik Bogdan
openaire   +3 more sources

Western esotericism: Towards an integrative model of interpretation

Religion, 2005
Abstract Despite the fact that during the last fifteen years we have witnessed the emergence of a research field of ‘Western esotericism’, scholars are still far from agreeing on definitions of ‘esotericism’. For an academic ‘field’, however, that wants to establish international networks and to bring together scholars from various research areas and
openaire   +4 more sources

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.
openaire   +1 more source

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 ...
openaire   +1 more source

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’.
openaire   +3 more sources

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 ...
openaire   +2 more sources

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.
openaire   +2 more sources

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
openaire   +1 more source

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
openaire   +1 more source