34 papers in the library · 209 citations · publishing 1997-2026
UvA-DARE May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff 8 citations preprint
in: Beatriz Caiuby Labate & Henrik Jungaberle (eds.), The Internationalization of Ayahuasca, Lit Verlag: Zürich / Berlin 2011, 85-103.
UvA-DARE May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff 2 citations preprint
in: Sergey Pakhomov (ed.), Mystic and Esoteric Movements in Theory and Practice, Fifth International Conference: History and Discourse, Historical and Philosophical Aspects of the Study of Esotericism and Mysticism, Russian Christian Academy for Humanities: St. Petersburg 2012, 113-129.
UvA-DARE May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
in: Boaz Huss (ed.), Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival (The Goldstein-Goren Library of Jewish Thought Publication No. 14), Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press: Beer-Sheva 2011, 251-266.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Jeffrey J. Kripal preprint
in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff & Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds.), Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism, Brill: Leiden / Boston 2008 [U.S. Paperback edition: Fordham University Press: New York 2011, ix-xxii.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
in: Egil Asprem & Kennet Granholm (eds.), Contemporary Esotericism, Equinox: Sheffield 2012, 392-409.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
in: Antoine Faivre & Wouter J. Hanegraaff (eds.), Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion: Selected Papers presented at the 17th Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Mexico City 1995 (Gnostica 2) Peeters: Louvain 1998., 11-61.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 2, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
in: Antoine Faivre & Wouter J. Hanegraaff (eds.), Western Esotericism and the Science of Religion: Selected Papers presented at the 17th Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, Mexico City 1995 (Gnostica 2) Peeters: Louvain 1998., vii-xvii.
UvA-DARE April 30, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff 39 citations preprint
Correspondences 3 (2015), 55-91.
UvA-DARE April 29, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff 17 citations preprint
in: April D. DeConick (ed.), Religion: Secret Religion, MacMillan 2016, 155-170.
UvA-DARE April 29, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
in: Hans Thomas Hakl (ed.), OCTAGON, vol. 2 (English) : The Quest for Wholeness mirrored in a Library dedicated to Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Esotericism in particular, Gaggenau: Scientia Nova 2016, 25-34.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) April 29, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
[Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed Ch. 3. Apologetics and Polemics], Aliter 5 (2015), 84-107.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) April 28, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Peter J. Forshaw & Marco Pasi (eds.), Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism, Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2019, 145-152.
Correspondences April 26, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff preprint
in: Hanegraaff & Mukhopadhyay, “Translating Esotericism,” Correspondences 11:1 (2023), 67-73.
Correspondences April 26, 2026 Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Mriganka Mukhopadhyay preprint
in: Hanegraaff & Mukhopadhyay (eds.), Translating Esotericism, special issue Correspondences 11:1 (2023), 1-30.
November 17, 2025 Wouter J. Hanegraaff
in: Julian Strube, Marleen Thaler & Dominic Zöhrer (eds.), Subtle Energies in Therapy, Spirituality, Arts & Politics: 1800-Present, Brill: Leiden / Boston 2026, 187-206.
October 1, 2025 Wouter J. Hanegraaff
That’s a very loaded question, so I’ll try to unpack it carefully. First of all, it is important to see that the study of Western esotericism involves much more than studying “esotericists.” Today it is not so hard to find groups or individuals who understand the terminology as a marker of identity, meaning that they would accept or even actively embrace it as a label for who they are and what...
October 1, 2025 Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Peter J. Forshaw, Marco Pasi
Ten years ago the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP) of the University of Amsterdam celebrated its first decennial anniversary by publishing a memorial volume. Paying playful homage to the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, who stands at the origin and symbolic centre of the field of research nowadays known as “Western esotericism,” it was titled...
2025 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 publicationWestern Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed(2013), Wouter J. Hanegraaff demonstrates that the exclusion of “rejected knowledge” from...
June 30, 2022 Wouter J. Hanegraaff
In Egypt during the first centuries CE, men and women would meet discreetly in their homes, in temple sanctuaries, or insolitary places to learn a powerful practice of spiritual liberation. They thought of themselves as followers of Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary master of ancient wisdom. While many of their writings are lost, those that survived have been interpreted primarily as...
Aries June 22, 2022 Wouter J. Hanegraaff, J. Brach, Marco Pasi
This article provides a biographical overview and analysis of the life and career of Antoine Faivre (1934–2021), the French scholar who first conceptualized esotericism as an academic field of study and also stood at the cradle of the journal Aries. After his early years as a scholar of literature, Faivre’s mature career can be divided into four main periods: (1) from 1961 to 1969, he...
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 16, 2022 Wouter J. Hanegraaff
With special reference to Diotima’s teaching in Plato’s Symposium , this chapter discusses the central importance to Hermetic spirituality of beauty and reverence ( eusebeia ), Hermetic psychological theory, and the centrality of imagination to the Hermetic concept of “becoming aiōn ” and gaining cosmic consciousness.
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 16, 2022 Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Having attained rebirth, the pupil’s mind was opened permanently to the universal cosmic consciousness of Gods own imagination. As described in a unique Coptic treatise, s/he could then make a further ascent beyond the cosmos to experience the Ogdoad of universal Life, the Ennead of universal Light, and even glimpse the pēgē , the divine Source of manifestation.
SUNY Press eBooks November 1, 2020 Wouter J. Hanegraaff 8 citations
in: Hans-Martin Krämer & Julian Strube (eds.), Theosophy Across Boundaries : Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement, State University of New York Press : Albany 2020, 29-64.
International Journal for the Study of New Religions February 20, 2017 Wouter J. Hanegraaff 3 citations
This article calls attention to the important but neglected French Mesmerist, Spiritualist, Swedenborgian, and occultist Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet (1809-1885), while concentrating on his significance as a forgotten pioneer of modern entheogenic esotericism. Like other occultist practitioners during the period prior to modern Theosophy (notably Emma Hardinge Britten and Paschal Beverley Randolph),...
April 1, 2013 Wouter J. Hanegraaff
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’. He argues that Antoine Faivre's small French textbook L’ésotérisme (1992) marked the beginning of a more...