Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge

by Wouter J. Hanegraaff

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 publication Western A Guide for the Perplexed (2013), Wouter J. Hanegraaff demonstrates that the exclusion of “rejected knowledge” from normative accounts of Western civilization is the reflection of a narrow Eurocentric ideology that became the template for discrediting and ultimately destroying so-called “primitive” cultures associated with “superstition” and “pagan idolatry” during the global colonial age.

Rejecting this “rejection of rejected knowledge” means restoring the suppressed to its legitimate place in history and cultural analysis. Through this approach, Wouter J. Hanegraaff depicts a radically inclusive vision of the Greater West and its forgotten histories, from pagan antiquity through Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures up to secular modernity and beyond.

Genres: Religion, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Anthropology

344 pages, Paperback

Published May 29, 2025

About the author

Wouter J. Hanegraaff (1961) studied classical guitar at the Municipal Conservatory at Zwolle (1982-1987) and Cultural History at the University of Utrecht (1986-1990), with a specialization in alternative religious movements in the 20th century. From 1992-1996 he was a research assistant at the department for Study of Religions of the University of Utrecht, where he defendedhis dissertation New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought on 30 november 1995 (cum laude). From 1996 to 2000 he held a postdoctoral fellowship from the Dutch Assocation for Scientific Research (NWO), and spent a period working in Paris. On 1 september 1999 he was appointed full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. From 2002-2006 he was president of the Dutch Society for the Study of Religion (NGG). From 2005-2013 he was President of the EuropeanSociety for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE). In 2006 he was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen, KNAW); since 2013 he is an honorary member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.

Editorial Activities

From 2001-2010 Hanegraaff was editor (with Antoine Faivre and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke) of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism (Brill publ.) and from 2006-2010 editor of the " Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism" (Brill publ.). He is member of the editorial board of the journals Aries (Brill), Numen (Brill), Religion Compass and Esoterica , and of the advisory board of Journal of Contemporary Religion (Carfax) and Nova Religio (University of California Press).

Reviews

[Nick Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read Hanegraaff's previous iteration of his historical introduction to Western Esotericism (2013), which had its strengths (a good introduction and overview) and weaknesses (the somewhat exclusivistic nature of "Western" esotericism in isolation from global currents), and found this new book to be a very marked improvement, and more than that, a call for scholars in the humanities to revision their own disciplines in light of the truly global nature of esotericism in terms of its immense relevance and historical presence within all of our disciplines, especially scholars of religion. For too long now our field has been embarrassed by the esoteric dimension of culture, the fact that mystical experiences of gnosis permeate all humanistic disciplines from the beginning (religion, science, philosophy, etc.) and have historically informed the development of these fields. It is also a call to action, to recenter our historical consciousness in terms of real proper and global awareness of history and away from narrow Eurocentric, shadow-Enlightenment and Protestant polemics against the "occult, esoteric, weird, etc." as something other that is beneath proper religion, beneath proper rationality, and beneath proper study. All of these criticisms are no older than the 18th century, barely a blip in the history of humanity, and they are not serving culture in the 21st century. In fact, what we have come to consider "normal" about reality is a deeply biased and narrow view with a basis in exclusivistic distinctions stemming from religious fundamentalism seeking to purge reality of what it considers "heretical" (the entire history of "pagan" philosophy, without which Christianity would not even exist). This book is a call to see reality in its fullness and produce scholarship which is up to the task of describing such visions, which are not peripheral to human culture, or Western culture, or contemporary globalized culture. Although I don't agree with everything Hanegraff has written here, this is a great achievement that scholars absolutely need to take notice of if we want the humanities to remain relevant and perform the tasks which they were created to do.

[WJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ideas do not live in a social vacuum” says Hanegraaff and maybe scholars 30 years from now will tease out this author’s social universe and criticize both focus & conclusions as necessarily skewed by that universe. But his argument in terms of the significance to actual history of the weird, the magic, the esoteric, the knowledge rejected through conscious or unconscious bias, should stay the course. The need to read actual sources without blinkers. Obvious but difficult. The excellent cover painting is of an owl, a bird with sometimes cryptic plumage, a contradictory symbol in different cultures. Sometimes wisdom, death, wealth, sometimes misfortune. It could be read as symbolic of the vagaries, the subjective nature, of interpretation. Which would fall into the interpretation trap the book warns against. But one real interest of the owl is that it leads the reader to the intriguing art of Jan Mankes.