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...
October 1, 2025
Marco Pasi
Quite a few things, in fact. Sex has always been an important component of Western esotericism, even if not necessarily the most conspicuous one. 1 But what do we mean by it? Sex is, of course, a very generic term, which can refer to different aspects in what is a broad area of human experience. First of all, it can relate to the concept of “eros” as a universal law of attraction (which usually...
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...
Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft
December 1, 2011
Marco Pasi
This article argues that Aleister Crowley’s desire to understand his own occultism in naturalized and psychologized terms was in tension with his view of himself as the leader and founder of a new religion. Crowley’s attitudes towards spiritualist phenomena are here examined together with his views on yoga and magic, showing how Crowley saw himself as leading a life of continuous and consistent...
2010
Marco Pasi
25 citations
One of the most interesting aspects of the academic study of Western esotericism, as it has developed in the last twenty years, is precisely the qualification of this phenomenon as Western, on which there seems to be general agreement among the specialists working in the field. The empirical-historical approach advocated by scholars such as Faivre and Wouter J. Hanegraaff rejected the...