Esotericism, in short, refers to any philosophy, religion, tradition, society, practice or belief that is intended to be understood or exercised by a select few with specialized knowledge or interests, oftentimes determined via initiations, symbolically or literally. In academia, esotericism is often divided into two distinct groups: eastern and western. Eastern esotericism most commonly references Tantra, a yogic tradition that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium AD onwards, continuously present in various sects of Dharmic religious tradition, although can also encompass Zoroastrianism, Yezidi religion, esoteric sects of Islam in the Mashriq, etc. under the broader label ‘Eastern esotericism’. Tantra (lit. 'expansion-device, salvation-spreader; loom, weave, warp') revolves around the concept of bodily mastership, transmuting energy for ascension; there is a large emphasis on sexual liberation, symbolic of creation in the union of polarities. Vajrayāna (lit. ‘diamond vehicle’), or Tantric Buddhism, is an esoteric Buddhist tradition with specific lineages and lineage holders throughout Tibet, Nepal, other Himalayan states, East Asia, and Mongolia. By contrast, Western esotericism refers to a wide range of loosely related philosophies, disciplines, and movements that developed in Western society, such as neoplatonism, gnosticism, hermeticism, kabbalah, etc., and is often considered a ‘perennial hidden inner tradition’ in and of itself. The early stages of western esotericism started with platonism, the magnum opus of Ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428 – 348 BC), who proposed that mathematics and other abstract principles in human culture are timeless entities, purely objective, completely independent of the material world, as well as the symbols humanity uses to represent them. Neoplatonism is a modern term for the branches of platonic philosophy that uphold monism, the belief that all known to be in existence comes from a singular source, or the One, and suggest that the permeating quality of objective entities is evidence of this. Neoplatonism later served as a foundation for gnosticism and hermeticism.
Gnosticism is the collection of mystic ideas and disciplines that prioritizes the personal attainment of knowledge, or gnosis, over orthodox teachings in the exoteric aspects of Abrahamic religions. Gnostic cosmogony is also distinct, identifying the God of the Old Testament, or YHWH, as the demiurge, an evil or flawed subordinate of the true hidden God, or the One, who exceeds the confines of the material universe.
Hermeticism is an occult system based upon the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary figure of Graeco-Egyptian syncretic origin. Hermeticism can be considered a sort of practical application of gnosticism. Mysticism describes the nature of seeking contemplation and personal union with the divine, as seen in gnosticism, and occultism refers to beliefs or practices that are supernatural in nature and implement the use of ritual magic and divination, such as hermeticism and Renaissance magic.
All of these movements were at their height during Antiquity, and later underwent a massive resurgence in 15th and 16th century Europe, known as Renaissance magic, which introduced, or at least defined, perennial philosophy. Renaissance magic was not only highly syncretic, but also typically ceremonial, “high magic”, while also acknowledging, classifying and even incorporating pre-existing forms of folk magic, “low magic”, as magia naturalis. The two other major forms of Renaissance magic included theurgia, or theurgy, and goetia. Theurgy, in essence, is an ascetic practice, with techniques involving abstinence, extensive prayer, the calling of angels, and submission to God, while Goetia implies ecstatic rituals, biddings with demons, and pacts with the Devil, and with this grittier nature, served as one of the earliest recorded forms of what we now refer to as traditional witchcraft.
Practitioners of folk magic can be best described as cunning folk. The cunning folk, spiritual healers and witch doctors who cared for their communities, are a worldwide phenomena spreading across several centuries, but have been primarily observed in Christian Europe as remnants of a pagan past. To just name a few, there’s the curanderos in Spain, benzedeiros in Portugal, benandanti in Italy, devins-guérisseurs in France, toverdokters in the Netherlands, kräuterhexen in Germany, kloge folk in Denmark, vedmaki across Eastern Europe, tietäjät in Finland, banfháidh or fáidhbhean in Ireland, amongst countless others. The cunning folk exist to cure anything from a toothache to the spirit who makes a bump in the night; they are an integral aspect of many cultures.
Traditional witchcraft, in purists’ terms, is any form of magic, but most often, folk magic, that upholds additional themes of transgression and liminality, and often heavily weaves the practitioner’s local folklore and cultural biases into the work. It is largely of a European context, however, most communities across Latin America also carry their own version of traditional witchcraft, brujería, juxtaposed with curanderismo, indigenous healing. Traditional witchcraft as a broader label also encompasses pre-Gardnerian or non-Gardnerian traditions of the modern witchcraft revival, such as Cochrane’s Craft and the Anderson Feri tradition; occasionally, the former may be referred to as traditional folkloric witchcraft to make the distinction. Paganism is yet another virtually unhelpful umbrella term, from Latin paganus, or country dweller, used to describe Rome’s own hillbillies, those who lived on the outskirts of major cult centers and had little exposure to the rising new religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity, and little desire to educate themselves, let alone convert to, the new, foreign, frightening way of life of them there city folk. Paganism in modern use, however, broadly refers to any variation of pre-Abrahamic polytheism, predominantly Proto-Indo-European derived and ancient Semitic mythologies. Neopagan religions, like Wicca, are typically categorized separately from pagan reconstructionist religions, such as Hellenismos, in that neopaganism is inspired by pagan faiths, whilst pagan reconstruction actively seeks to revive paganism as accurately as possible, some even with the ultimate goal of identical resurgence. Wicca and Traditional Witchcraft, with capital T’s and W’s, broke off from each other in a loud and dramatic fashion akin to the Great Schism of Catholicism and Orthodoxy. But, you know, with eccentric Brits who both self-identified as witches.
Shamanism refers to a broad range of ethnic-specific religious practices with a firm belief in a spirit world and the use of altered states of consciousness to access ‘medicine’ from said spirit world(s). The word shaman is derived from šamán, the name of a tribal healer amongst the Tungusic peoples of Siberia, later reapplied by sociologists for tribal healers with similar beliefs across endless cultures around the globe, predominantly in the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa. Shamanism is also sometimes applied to various pre-Christian European practices, although this is generally regarded as insensitive, in lieu of the increasing prominence of neoshamanism amongst inexperienced upper and middle class Anglo-Americans, who are, in fact, not shamans.
Animism is an academic term to help describe the traditional spiritual belief that souls or spirits exist, not only in humans, but also in the Genii locorum (s. Genius loci), the animals, plants, trees, stones, and all natural forces and phenomena such as the rain, sun and moon. It’s the core root of virtually every religion on earth. Animism is the belief that through a network of spirits, or the Anima mundi, everything is connected and communication with oneness is possible through this spiritual membrane. This means humanity, long ago, was intimately tied with the land itself; our well-being didn’t just depend on taking advantage of natural resources, but relied on being in tune with the surrounding world and working with it, both physically and spiritually to ensure our survival. Animism may be an ancient belief system, but it’s deeply ingrained in us as human beings to see our natural environment as more than just a beneficial component to our survival. We can also see animistic beliefs more modernized when children believe their toys possess souls, or when family relics uphold great value. Animism has not and will not disappear from this earth as long as us humans and nature’s creations alike inhabit it. Polytheism is born from animism. Some of the earliest forms of polytheism were astrological cults, where observations of the unfathomably large celestial bodies as seen from earth became paramount to, not only survival, but the evolution of culture itself. Polytheism today can be divided into two categories: soft polytheism and hard polytheism. Soft polytheism suggests that the gods of one pantheon manifest themselves by different names and with different attributes in another’s pantheon; this approach to religion was adhered to by the Romans, who not only absorbed gods from other pantheons into their own, but actively sought their own gods within the beliefs of neighboring civilizations they came into contact with. Hard polytheism, on the other hand, is the fundamental belief that all gods are separate; Zeus is not Jupiter, Quetzalcoatl is not Kukulkan, etc. Henotheism is the belief in polytheism, i.e. multiple gods, but the worship of just one, whether it be seen as a superior, a tutelary deity, a patron of a certain class or race of people, or even a domestic protector of individual families. Similarly, duotheism, the belief in two gods, will often have a consorted pair of gods with similar functions, with the ultimate belief that all gods are aspects of one god, and all goddesses are aspects of one goddess. Monotheism began with henotheism. Most notably, the Yahweh of the major Abrahamic religions was once a chief god of the Canaanite pantheon, equated with Jupiter, with Asherah or Astarte as his consort. Pantheism is the belief that God and the material universe are synonymous; God did not simply create the world, but He is the world. The term pantheism was coined by Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for heresy. Similarly, panentheism states that God is the world, and God simultaneously exists outside the world; the world being engulfed in the incomprehensible thing we call God.