The Study of Western Esotericism in East-Central Europe—With a Focus on the Last Decades
Aries January 30, 2023 G. Szönyi
Since the early 2000s, the academic study of Western esotericism has grown considerably, aided by the founding of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) in 2005. In East-Central Europe, the collapse of communist regimes between 1989 and 1991 allowed scholars to pursue research in fields previously only tolerated. Scholars from the region formed the Central and Eastern European Network for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism (CEENASWE) under ESSWE. This article introduces a special issue surveying recent research, moving geographically from north to south, and reviews work from Poland, Czechia, and Hungary in the form of a Forschungsbericht, a term recalling Jürgen Habermas.