Esotericism and Religious Studies: Historical Relationships and Contemporary Challenges
Method & Theory in the Study of Religion June 24, 2025 Carole M. Cusack
The academic study of Esotericism emerged alongside Religious Studies and Sociology, with pioneering work in the 1970s by sociologists and historians of religion. The field proper began with Antoine Faivre's 1994 book Access to Western Esotericism. Over the following three decades, the field expanded and fragmented. The article argues that both Religious Studies and Esotericism Studies underwent a parallel shift: rejecting universalist typologies and text-based studies to focus on lived experience, establishing deconstructive relativism as the dominant mode. More recently, postmodern trends have given way to a retheorized realism that remains aware of researcher positionality and contested access to knowledge.