What isitall about? Some reflections on Wouter Hanegraaff'sEsotericism and the Academy

In reviewing the growth of the field of study of ‘Western esotericism,’ this article compares the attempts at delineating its intellectual and religious genealogy by von Stuckrad (Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2010) and Hanegraaff (Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). The essay challenges the thesis that ‘Western esotericism’ was a decisive element in the formation of modern Western identities and some other elements of the reconstruction of the origin of the field delineated by Hanegraaff.