Beyond the Yates Paradigm: the Study of Western Esotericism Between Counterculture and New Complexity1

Abstract

The study of western esotericism finds itself in the middle of a process of academic professionalization and institutionalization2. Before addressing some problems connected with this development, and as an introduction to them, I would like to draw a parallel which may seem surprising at first sight. It is well known that the turbulent period of the 1960s produced, among many other things, the so-called sexual revolution: a complex social phenomenon with wide-ranging effects, including the emergence of the academic study of sexuality and sex-related problems in the context of new disciplines such as gender studiesj. While this revolution has not led to the sexually liberated culture once predicted by its defenders, it did succeed in breaking the social taboo on sex as a subject of discussion, in the academy and in society as a whole4. New disciplines such as gender studies have flourished since the 1960s, and there can be no doubt that any attempt to curtail or suppress scholarly discussion and research related to sexuality would nowadays be rejected by academics as an unacceptable infringement on intellectual freedom. Parallel to the sexual revolution, the countercultural ferment of the 1960s produced a popular revolution of religious consciousness, with widespread interest in western esotericism as one of its major manifestations5. As will be