Liber XV · History & Scholarship · Chapter III: Historians & Scholars
ESSWE: The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism
The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), founded in 2005: its aims, biennial conferences from Tübingen to Vilnius 2025 and networks.
The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) is the learned society of the academic field of esotericism studies. Founded in 2005, it brings together university scholars, doctoral students and independent researchers who study currents such as Hermeticism, alchemy, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, theosophy, occultism and modern spirituality. It holds a conference every two years, the tenth of which met in Vilnius in June 2025 on the theme "Esotericism and Rationality", and it is associated with the journal Aries.
Why a learned society was needed§
By the early 2000s Western esotericism had acquired the basic structures of an academic discipline. The École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris had housed a chair since 1965, held from 1979 to 2002 by Antoine Faivre; the University of Amsterdam had created its chair for the History of Hermetic Philosophy in 1999; and Brill had relaunched the journal Aries in 2001. In 2005 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke opened the Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism in England.
What the field lacked was an organisation that could bring its scattered members together, represent them in the wider academic world, and give students and independent scholars a professional community. Researchers worked in departments of history, religious studies, philosophy, literature, art history and the history of science, and many were isolated in their own institutions. Learned societies perform exactly this role in other disciplines, and in 2005 scholars associated with the Paris and Amsterdam centres and other European universities founded ESSWE for the purpose.
Aims and character of the society§
The society's aims are to promote the academic study of Western esotericism, to encourage contact between researchers, and to support teaching and publication. Like other scholarly associations, it is non-confessional. Membership is open to anyone with a serious interest in the field, but ESSWE does not promote any esoteric teaching, order or practice, and it does not judge whether esoteric claims are true. This stance follows the "empirical" or historical approach championed by Faivre and Wouter Hanegraaff, which distinguished academic research from both advocacy and debunking.
The word "Western" in the society's name has itself become a subject of discussion. Some members have argued that esotericism should be studied in global perspective, given the long exchanges with Islamic, Jewish, South Asian and East Asian traditions; others defend the term as describing a specific historical field. The society's conferences have increasingly included papers on non-European contexts and on the global spread of esoteric ideas.
The biennial conferences§
The centre of ESSWE's activity is its conference, held every two years at a different European university. The first took place at the University of Tübingen in 2007. It was followed by meetings at Strasbourg (2009), Szeged in Hungary (2011), Gothenburg (2013), Riga (2015), Erfurt (2017) and Amsterdam (2019). The eighth conference, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, was held in 2022, and the ninth met in Malmö, Sweden, in 2023, restoring the odd-year rhythm.
Each conference has a general theme, chosen to draw together papers from different periods and disciplines, alongside open sessions on any subject in the field. Keynote lectures, panels on particular currents, and meetings of the society's networks fill two or three days. Selected papers are often published afterwards in edited volumes, several of them in Brill's Aries Book Series. For a young field, these gatherings have done much to create a shared sense of method and a common bibliography.
The tenth conference: Vilnius 2025§
The tenth biennial conference took place at Vilnius University in Lithuania on 26–28 June 2025, with sessions in the university's historic Old Town campus. It was organised by ESSWE in partnership with the Lithuanian Esotericism Study Group, Vilnius University and the Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute, and it coincided with the society's twentieth anniversary.
Its theme, "Esotericism and Rationality", went to the heart of the field's history. Esoteric currents have often been described, by critics and admirers alike, as the irrational "other" of Western reason, a view examined in our article on Esotericism and the Academy. The conference invited scholars to test that assumption: how esoteric authors understood reason and evidence, how scientific and occult research have overlapped, and how the boundary between rational and irrational has been drawn. Keynote lectures addressed, among other subjects, occult research in the United States military and the cultural history of rationality, gender and the construction of reason's "other" in modernity, and Daoist internal alchemy as represented in The Secret of the Golden Flower, a text once made famous in the West through Richard Wilhelm and C. G. Jung (see our article on Taoist internal alchemy).
The choice of Vilnius also reflected the growth of research in Central and Eastern Europe, where the history of esotericism under and after communist rule has become an active area of study. Lithuania has its own chapters in that history: the philosopher and writer Vydūnas (Wilhelm Storost) drew on Theosophy and Indian thought in his vision of national and spiritual renewal, and the poet Oscar Milosz, born in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later Lithuania's diplomatic representative in Paris, wrote mystical and cosmological works admired by later esotericists. Local scholars have also studied interwar occult circles, astrology and spiritualism, and the revival of alternative spirituality after 1990, all subjects that link the region to the wider European story.
Networks, prizes and support for scholarship§
Between conferences ESSWE works through networks of members with shared interests. Thematic networks have grouped scholars of esotericism in antiquity and of contemporary esotericism, among other subjects, and regional networks support research in particular countries or language areas. The society keeps contact with sister organisations such as the Association for the Study of Esotericism, based in North America.
The society also awards prizes for outstanding theses, helping early-career scholars, and has sponsored independent scholarly initiatives. Among these was the open-access journal Correspondences, whose hosting costs ESSWE helped to fund for several years. Members receive Aries and a newsletter that reports on new publications, appointments and events across the field.
ESSWE and the growth of the field§
The founding of ESSWE marks the moment when esotericism studies became a self-sustaining academic community rather than the work of a few individual pioneers. In two decades the society has helped train a generation of scholars, given the field a public face, and fostered contacts with neighbouring disciplines. Its conferences are where new approaches are tried and debated, from the sociology of contemporary spirituality to the history of alchemy and science.
For anyone curious about how historians now study magic, alchemy or the occult, the society's conference programmes and associated publications offer a good overview of current research. Our guide to historians and scholars of esotericism introduces the people and institutions behind it.
Frequently asked questions§
What is ESSWE?§
ESSWE is the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, a learned society founded in 2005 to promote the academic, historical study of esoteric currents. It organises biennial conferences and is associated with the journal Aries.
Where was the tenth ESSWE conference held?§
It was held at Vilnius University in Lithuania on 26–28 June 2025, on the theme "Esotericism and Rationality". The meeting marked the society's twentieth anniversary.
Does ESSWE teach or practise esotericism?§
No. ESSWE is a scholarly society. It studies esoteric currents historically and does not promote any esoteric doctrine or practice, though its members hold a wide range of personal views.
Can non-academics join ESSWE?§
Membership is open to students, independent researchers and others with a serious interest in the academic study of esotericism, not only to university staff. Details are set by the society and may change.
Sources and further reading§
- Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism — Wouter J. Hanegraaff, 2005
- Esotericism and the Academy — Wouter J. Hanegraaff, 2012
- Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed — Wouter J. Hanegraaff, 2013
- The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction — Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 2008
- The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism — Glenn Alexander Magee, 2016