Deconstructing "Western esotericism': on Wouter Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy

This paper discusses a number of consequences that although not always intended by the author can be drawn from the radically historicist approach adopted by Wouter J. Hanegraaff in his monograph Esotericism and the Academy. These consequences are the atomization of esotericism' into a disparate range of ideas, practices, and currents with few if any shared elements; a better approximation to contemporary anthropological views of culture and cultural innovation; a focus on polemical strategies rather than substantive contents and a concomitant possibility of cross-cultural comparison; a reluctance to engage with theories of broader scope; and a vacillation between seeing esotericism' as merely a waste-basket category and attempting nonetheless to salvage a minimal substantive definition.