Reading Western Esotericism: George Gurdjieff and His “Cunning” Esotericism
Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review 2020 Makhabbad Maltabarova
Studies of western esotericism in the twentieth century proposed a certain number of characteristics as fundamental and universal to esotericism. This article first reviews Antoine Faivre’s intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics and Wouter J. Hanegraaff’s typology of esotericism, constituting the so-called empirical historical method. Next, it considers the case of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff...