Esotericism in Western Culture with Prof Wouter Hanegraaff
About this episode
The episode features a discussion with Professor Wouter J. Hanegraaff about his book on esotericism in Western culture and its significance in cultural history.
Join me for a live conversation with Professor Wouter J. Hanegraaff on his recent book Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge, published by Bloomsbury in 2025. In this interview, we will explore why esotericism should not be treated as a marginal curiosity, but as a central dimension of Western cultural history. The book is presented by both the publisher and Hanegraaff as a substantially revised, rewritten, and expanded reworking of his earlier 2013 Guide for the Perplexed, now reframed around the ideas of counter-normativity and “rejected knowledge”. Together, we will discuss how dominant accounts of “Western culture” have excluded forms of knowledge associated with magic, Hermetism, paganism, and other heterodox traditions, and why Hanegraaff argues that this exclusion has been deeply tied to Eurocentric and colonial models of civilisation. We will also examine what it means to “reject the rejection of rejected knowledge”, and how this changes the way we understand the history of religion, philosophy, science, and culture in the Greater West. This livestream will be of interest to anyone working on esotericism, the history of ideas…
People in this episode
Host: Dr Angela Puca
Guest: Professor Wouter J. Hanegraaff
Topics covered
- esotericism
- Western culture
- cultural history
- rejected knowledge
- magic
- paganism
- colonialism
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Bloomsbury
Books & works: Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge, Guide for the Perplexed
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