In the old days, achieving esoteric knowledge meant being initiated into the mystical arts, learning secrets unknown to normal people. Now when a topic is called esoteric, it is usually something not so mystical but difficult to penetrate: financial accounting can seem esoteric to people who get easily stunned filling out their tax forms.
Esotericism, also known as the Western Mysterious Tradition, is an academic term for a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that have developed within Western society. They are largely different from both the orthodox Judeo-Christian religion and enlightened rationalism. A transdisciplinary field, esotericism has permeated various forms of Western philosophy, religion, pseudoscience, art, literature, and music, continuing to affect intellectual ideas and popular culture.
The idea of categorizing a wide range of Western traditions and philosophies together under the rubric that we now call "esotericism" developed in Europe in the late 17th century. Various scholars have debated the precise definition of Western esotericism, with a number of different options proposed. A modelscholar adopts the definition of "esotericism" from certain esoteric schools of thought, treating "esotericism" as a perennialist occult inner tradition. A second perspective considers esotericism as a category that encompasses worldviews that seek to embrace an "enchanted" worldview in the face of growing disheartening. A third considers Western esotericism as a category that encompasses all the "rejected knowledge" of Western culture that is accepted neither by the scientific establishment nor by orthodox religious authorities.
The earliest traditions that they would later analyze as forms of Western esotericism emerged in the eastern Mediterranean during late antiquity, where Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism developed as distinct schools of thought than what became mainstream Christianity. In Renaissance Europe, interest in many of these ancient ideas increased, with various intellectuals seeking to combine "pagan" philosophies with Kabbalah and with Christian philosophy, leading to the emergence of esoteric movements such as Christian theosophy. The seventeenth century saw the development of initiatory societies that professed an esoteric knowledge such as Rosicrucianismand Freemasonry, while the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century led to the development of new forms of esoteric thought.
