ISSN 1567-9896
25 papers in the library · 13 citations · publishing 2010-2026
Aries July 27, 2026 Kevin Korczyk
Karl von Eckartshausen (1752–1803) is usually remembered for his short book on Christian mysticism— The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary (1802)—that inspired many later esoteric thinkers in Britain and the continent. Although mostly known during his lifetime as a popular Catholic author, Eckartshausen was also discussed by his German Romantic contemporaries—including Hamann, Novalis, Goethe, and...
Aries July 27, 2026 A. Diržys
Despite undergoing a visible yet ambiguous reception in the field of philosophy, contemporary realisms remain understudied as objects of esotericism. This ambiguity points to the realist movement’s partial divergence from the canonical understanding of intellectual history, prompting an investigation into its possible comparison with the conceptual framework of esotericism. In this article, I...
Aries July 27, 2026 Alonzo Heino
The article conducts a philosophical analysis of a selection of theosophical writings pertaining to art. The first grouping consists of shorter contributions, by figures like Franz Evers, published in the German magazine Sphinx during the 1890s. The article then analyzes Annie Besant’s and Charles Leadbeater’s views, focusing on their book Thought-Forms (1905), which is often mentioned as...
Aries July 27, 2026 James von Orelli
The veil of Isis is a central image in the history of western esotericism, used by the Freemasons, Rosicrucians and Theosophists. At the turn of the nineteenth century, there was an uptick in interest in the veil from German philosophers, especially in its aesthetic dimension: with the veil, Schiller poetically considers the limits of subjectivity, Goethe explores the representation of nature,...
Aries June 4, 2026 Dell J. Rose
Abstract This article discusses the reception and adaptation of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg’s thought in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan. It situates this reception in the context of Japanese esoteric thought during the Meiji era. Japanese intellectuals called Swedenborg the world’s greatest theologian, even the Buddha of the North. Yet his importance to Meiji-era...
Aries September 17, 2025 Mikheil V. Kakabadze
Abstract This article analyses Ernst Bloch’s (1885–1977) discourse on occultism in the interwar period and its reception among Marxist intellectuals. In particular, it draws attention to Bloch’s sustained treatment of “occultism” in Heritage of Our Times (1935), and illustrates how Bloch did not merely equate but rather negotiate various links between occultism, irrationalism, and fascism in a...
Aries September 3, 2025 Elly Moseson
Abstract This article concerns a Hasidic homily describing a technique for lucid dream cultivation. The homily outlines a worldview in which fantasy and reality merge, and thoughts, both positive and negative, have real cosmic and personal consequences. To counter the allure of sexual fantasy, the homily recommends a form of Neoplatonic contemplation widely taught within early Hasidic circles....
Aries August 14, 2025 P. Horák
Occultism significantly shaped European society, culture, and politics during the fin de siècle and interwar periods. While scholarship has extensively examined Western European and global occult movements, Eastern Europe—particularly Slavic countries—has only recently gained attention. This article compares Czech and Austrian occultism to analyze how race, ethnicity, and nationalism were...
Aries July 15, 2025 Julian Strube
Abstract This article analyzes the New Right’s engagement with esotericism and its impact on far-right politics since the postwar period. While dismissing “New Age” esotericism, the New Right holds Traditionalism in high esteem, particularly Julius Evola (1898–1974). Evola’s relevance is largely due to new translations and framings of his works since the 1990s and their active dissemination in...
Aries March 19, 2024 Mattias Gori Olesen
While the intertwinement of Indian anti-colonial politics and Theosophy is well-known, the entanglement of esotericism and anti-colonial endeavors in the modern Arab world remains understudied. The article contributes to this area of research by demonstrating how certain strands of “Western” and “Eastern” esotericisms found resonance among early twentieth-century Arab intelligentsia and...
Aries October 10, 2023 Steven Engler, Mark Q. Gardiner
This article moves past discussing definitions of esotericism to clarifying the nature of definition itself. After reviewing different approaches to definition, we argue that rigid definitions (which propose necessary and sufficient conditions) are problematic, and that fluid definitions (which seek to clarify, explain, teach etc.) are a better alternative. We then discuss homeostatic property...
Aries August 17, 2023 Vasileios M. Meletiadis
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of the first two editions of Peter Carroll’s Liber Null (1978, 1981). Along with Ray Sherwin’s The Book of Results (1979, 1980, 1981), they shape the earliest corpus of chaos magic literature. Often overlooked due to their rarity and the availability of the mainstream 1987 edition of Liber Null, these two, the so-called white and red editions, offer a...
Aries June 22, 2023 Piotr Sobkowiak 1 citation
Abstract During the last decades of the eighteenth century, knowledge about Siberia inspired Catherine II to create the main character of one of her comedies, The Siberian Shaman. Taking Foucault’s dispositif-concept as its theoretical premise, the present paper discusses the historical context in which The Siberian Shaman was written, deconstructs the identity of the comedy’s main character,...
Aries January 30, 2023 Ionuț Daniel Băncilă 2 citations
Abstract As an expression of the complex global religious entanglements, esoteric knowledge did appeal also to Eastern Europe, in Romania being particularly imprinted by the local religious discourses and practices characteristic to Orthodox Christianity. This paper attempts to briefly sketch the indigenization of esoteric “currents” such as alchemy, spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy,...
Aries January 30, 2023 Жолт Кормош 1 citation
Abstract In this paper I offer a concise analysis of contemporary scholarship on esotericism in the countries of former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. After a brief historical contextualization, I examine the development and principal features of this scholarship over the last three decades. My main argument is that, due to various historical reasons, there is a stark discrepancy between the abundant...
Aries January 30, 2023 Pavel Horák
Abstract The article discusses the reception of occultism in Central Europe through a case study of the most sophisticated Czech occult society, Universalia: The Society of Czechoslovak Hermeticist. Established in the Czechoslovak Republic of the 1920s, dissolved by the Nazi regime in 1941, and subsequently revived in the 1990s, Universalia significantly shaped the Czech occult milieu through...
Aries January 30, 2023 G. Szönyi
Since the early 2000s the study of (Western) esotericism has gone through a great development, partly boosted by the establishment of ESSWE in 2005. In East-Central Europe an upsurge in interest started with the changing of the communist regimes in 1989–1991 and scholars became liberated to enhance their studies in fields previously at best tolerated in those countries. Scholars from our region...
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...
Aries December 6, 2021 Agnieszka Podolecka, Leslie S. Nthoi 2 citations
Abstract The article argues that “esotericism” can usefully be applied to a number of religious currents in Southern Africa. With a focus on Botswana, we survey a range of practices, from traditional “shamanic” healing to Pentecostal NRM s to New Age spiritualities and neoshamanism, some presented here for the first time. The term esotericism is useful for analysing the religious situation in...
Aries November 22, 2021 Z. Kostićová
Carlos Castaneda has been studied mostly as a fraud anthropologist, novelist/philosopher and a contributor to the emerging phenomenon of neo-shamanism. Instead, this article focuses on Castaneda’s individual philosophy and religious system as developed in his written works. A threefold classification is proposed—early, transitional, and late works, complete with chief characteristics of each....
Aries August 3, 2021 Christine J. Ferguson 2 citations
Abstract Over the last decade, esotericism studies has witnessed a distinct literary turn, as more and more of the field’s primarily religious studies-based researchers have recognized the value, and indeed, centrality, of imaginative literature to the transmission of occult and new religious ideas. Although welcome, this impetus has sometimes taken an anti-aesthetic shape, reducing the texts...
Aries June 30, 2021 Misha Kakabadze
The ambiguity of "high" in High Culture: Drugs, Mysticism, and the Pursuit of Transcendence in the Modern World aptly captures the subject matter of Christopher Partridge's historical study.On the one hand, High Culture deals with the cultural history of "getting high"; it looks at how individuals have taken psychoactive substances and combined their experiences with esoteric, mystical, and...
Aries December 14, 2020 Manon Hedenborg White 1 citation
hedenborg white Aries -Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 21 (2021) 1-11
Aries September 16, 2019 G. Djurdjevic
Aleister Crowley was considerably influenced by the doctrines of Theravāda Buddhism, which he studied in his youth, both theoretically and practically. He correlated its principles to the principles of scientific agnosticism and considered that its objectives could also be achieved through the practice of ceremonial magic. His eventual acceptance of Thelema’s religious philosophy led to his...
Aries 2010 Antoine Faivre 4 citations
Book Reviews / ARIES . () – © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/156798910X520647 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions : A Historical Intro- duction , Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press . pp. and illustrations. ISBN ----. This is not the first book devoted to a comprehensive presentation of the subject, but among...