Esotericism and Democracy: Some Clarifications
At the invitation of the German Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education), on 5 September this year I gave the opening lecture for the conference Esoterik und Democratie – Ein Spannungsverhältnis (Esotericism and Democracy: A Tense Relation). As the lecture was meant for a general non-academic German audience, I gave a broad introduction to (the study of) esotericism, with special attention to political concerns about the relation between contemporary esotericism and far-right activism online and offline. In view of current debates about “the West,” this was a welcome opportunity to also clarify the relation, as I see it, between esotericism as “rejected knowledge” and the historical dynamics of what I refer to as “internal eurocentrism.” I have edited my text for online publication here, and added footnotes (but please note that due to some kind of technical issue that I have not been able to figure out, they are not clickable: to find them, you