(1) Secret; in the sense of teaching not revealed to those unworthy or unfit to receive it. Such teaching may refer to phenomenal or spiritual matters. (2) Symbolic; the inner or spiritual meaning underlying the literal surface meaning. Spiritual...

ESOTERICISM. Esotericism has several meanings. After presenting a list of them, this article deals with the use of the term in scholarly parlance and with the various approaches toward this academic speciality in religious studies. The substantive...

Esotericism refers to the doctrines or practices of esoteric knowledge, or otherwise the quality or state of being described as esoteric, or obscure.[1] Esoteric knowledge is that which is specialized or advanced in nature, available only to a narrow...

Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. By Hugh B. Urban. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006, 349 pages. Hardcover, $55.00. Thousands of people in the United States and Europe practice spiritual sexuality and Sex...

I IN THE FOURTH AND FINAL SECTION of Maimonides's preface to his Guide of the Perplexed, in the section labeled "Introduction" (muqaddima), the author lists seven "causes ... for the contradictory or contrary statements in any book or composition." (1) The best...

A final thrust of the crowbar cracked the wooden crate open, and the architect, the anthropologist and the mortar expert leaned in to look at the oddity that had drawn them to an out-of-the-way warehouse.It was a 3-foot-by-10-foot section of timeworn brick wall, its predictable...