Historiographical Concepts in the Study of Western Esotericism

Dan Attrell discusses the debates in the recent literature of “Western Esotericism”, “Hermeticism”, and “Platonic Orientalism”

Bibliography:

Bogdan, Henrik. Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
(http://amzn.to/2hi6YiH)

Filoramo, Giovanni. “Some Reflections on Wouter Hanegraaff’s Esotericism and the Academy.” Religion 43 (2), 2013: 213-218.

Hammer, Olav. “Deconstructing ‘Western Esotericism’: On Wouter Hanegraaff’s Esotericism and the Academy.” Religion 43 (2), 2013: 241-251.

Hanegraaff, Wouter. “Beyond the Yates Paradigm: The Study of Western Esotericism between Counterculture and New Complexity.” Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 1 (1), 2001: 5-37.

Hanegraaff, Wouter. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. (http://amzn.to/2wHFhFA)

Hanegraaff, Wouter. “How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World.” Religion 33 (4), 2003: 357-380.

Hanegraaff, Wouter. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996. (http://amzn.to/2hiybl4)

Hanegraaff, Wouter. “The power of ideas: esotericism, historicism, and the limits of discourse.” Religion 43 (2), 2013: 252-273.

King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘The Mystic East’. London: Routledge, 1999. (http://amzn.to/2wHGX1J)

Macfie, Alexander. Orientalism: A Reader. Edimburgh: Edimburgh University Press, 2000. (http://amzn.to/2jKBUN2)

Otto, Bernd-Christian Otto. “Discourse theory trumps discourse theory: Wouter Hanegraaff’s Esotericism and the Academy.” Religion 43 (2), 2013: 231-240.

Pasi, Marco. “The problems of rejected knowledge: thoughts on Wouter Hanegraaff’s Esotericism and the Academy.” Religion 43 (2), 2013: 201-212.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Styers, Randall. Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. (http://amzn.to/2wy818x)

Walbridge, John. The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhrawardī and Platonic Orientalism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. (http://amzn.to/2xnTPxu)