Western esotericism and the history of European science and medicine in the early modern period

Summary

Esoteric belief systems, which prioritize inner knowledge gained through direct apprehension or internal illumination rather than public pedagogy, have historically been excluded from the academic study of science and medicine since the Enlightenment. These systems operate within worldviews that include their own physics and metaphysics, making them comparable to other cosmologies. Historians of science find particular value in examining points of confrontation and zones of commonality between occult and manifest sciences, as these are where the disciplinary boundaries of modern science are negotiated.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The history of science and the history of medicine were, from their beginnings as subjects in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment periods, hostile to esoteric ideas and practices and generally excluded them from the scope of academic study. Esoteric belief systems by definition prioritize inner knowledge, knowledge that is not attainable or transferable by the standard practices of public pedagogy, but rather is acquired by direct apprehension or by internal illumination. I call these ‘belief systems’, because people who defend esoteric knowledge do so within a worldview, a physics and metaphysics that explains and makes sense of their hopes and experiences. Such belief systems can therefore be compared with other worldviews—cosmologies in the most general sense of the term—and points of tangency, or even zones of interpenetration, can be examined. It is just such points of confrontation and zones of commonality between the occult and manifest sciences which are of particular interest to historians of science, because it is here that the disciplinary boundaries of modern science are being negotiated.