MA in Western Esotericism

Introduction

The new MA in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter represents the first major initiative in this subject at a UK university. The subject is already taught in Continental Europe at the University of Amsterdam and at the Sorbonne (École Pratique des Hautes Études, EPHE), whose Emeritus Professor in the History of Esoteric and Mystical Currents, Antoine Faivre, established its disciplinary scope and methodology from the early 1970s onwards. Exeter , Amsterdam , and the Sorbonne are presently the only universities offering postgraduate courses or doctoral supervision in Western Esotericism.

The scholarly field of Western Esotericism is ably summarised in Modern Esoteric Spirituality, eds. Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman (SCM: London, 1993) in the "Encyclopaedia of World Spirituality" series edited by Ewert Cousins. Typically heterodox, rejuvenating and innovative, Western esoteric spirituality combines interiority, imagination, and an extension into cosmological speculation.

The Western esoteric traditions reach back to Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, and theurgy in the Hellenistic world during the first centuries AD. These early sources often reveal θεοσοφια (theosophia), wisdom or knowledge in things divine, attained through spiritual exercise, contemplation and ecstasy. The early Church Fathers regarded such theosophy and gnosis ambivalently, and their variable reception in the Western and Eastern churches during the early Middle Ages is now an expanding field of enquiry. The introduction of Greek, Arab and Jewish traditions into the medieval Latin West paved the way for the rediscovery of ancient texts and led to the scholarly revival of magic, astrology, alchemy and Kabbalah in the Renaissance. After the Reformation, these Hermetic sciences gave rise to such movements as Theosophy, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, with their proliferation of esoteric rites and symbolic systems in the eighteenth century. The modern revival of esotericism extends from Romantic Naturphilosophie to nineteenth-century occultism involving Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism, spiritualism, the ancient wisdom-tradition, and ceremonial magic and para-masonic orders. Today, Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society, Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy, C. G. Jung and his archetypal psychology, and Fourth Way movements are among the major currents of modern esotericism, an inspiration to contemporary thinkers and practitioners in the arts, education and medicine. Western esotericism has exerted a profound and increasingly acknowledged influence on religion and science, culture and literature, politics and society.

Course Structure and Modules

The purpose of the Master's programme in Western Esotericism is to introduce students to this new and expanding field of academic study, providing an adequate grounding in its historical, theological, and philosophical aspects. The MA course is designed to enable students to investigate the Western esoteric tradition from the Hellenistic period in late antiquity through the Renaissance and early modern period to the present. There are three main objectives. Firstly, to develop an understanding of the fundamental characteristics which define esoteric spirituality (correspondences, living nature, intermediaries and hierarchies, transmutation of the soul). This spirituality often manifests as a form of religious experience, while offering a perspective upon the individual soul in the context of nature and the universe. Secondly, to gain insight into the social, religious and philosophical changes, which are conducive to esotericism. Thirdly, to study a number of primary sources, showing the changing content, concerns, and purposes of esotericism over the centuries.

Further details about the programme and modules are available on the History department website. The programme specification for the MA in Western Esotericism gives full details of programme structures and requirements, educational aims, programme outcomes, teaching, learning and assessment methods etc.