Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521196215)

Academics tend to look on 'esoteric', 'occult' or 'magical' beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the Renaissance have tried to come to terms with a cluster of 'pagan' ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion and Greek rationality. Expelled from the academy on the basis of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics, these traditions have come to be perceived as the Other by which academics define their identity to the present day. Hanegraaff grounds his discussion in a meticulous study of primary and secondary sources, taking the reader on an exciting intellectual voyage from the fifteenth century to the present day and asking what implications the forgotten history of exclusion has for established textbook narratives of religion, philosophy and science.

Author: Wouter J. Hanegraaff
ISBN-10: 0521196213
ISBN-13: 9780521196215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/19/2012
Pages: 480
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.95lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 1.30d