Western Esotericism as a Discipline: Faivre, Hanegraaff and the Aries Journal

What the field is now

The western esotericism tarot question is the one the deck has not been asked. Not what the cards mean, and not where the cards came from, but what field the deck sits in now that the field has a name, a definition, and a journal.

Western esotericism is an academic field. That is the fact that the tarot reader does not usually hold. The deck sits inside a field, and the field has a name, and the field has a definition, and the definition is not the reader's.

The field is not the practice. The field is the study of the practice, and the study has a method, and the method is not the practice. The field is where the tarot is read as an object, and the reading of the field is not the reading of the deck.

The Wikipedia entry on western esotericism describes the field as a distinct area of study that has been established over the last two decades, with its own journal, its own conference, its own training. The journal is Aries, the journal for the study of Western Esotericism, published by Brill. The conference is the annual congress of the International Society for the History of Western Esotericism. The training is the chair at the University of Amsterdam, the first and still the most important center for the field.

That is the field. The field is real, and the field is not the deck, and the deck is one of the objects the field studies.

The four criteria

The definition of the field, in the form the discipline has settled on, is the one Antoine Faivre gave in the 1980s. The definition is not a single criterion. It is four criteria, and an object counts as western esotericism if it satisfies them.

The four criteria, as described in the Wikipedia entry on Faivre and in the review by Olav Hammer, are: correspondence, the living universe, imagination, and mediation.

Correspondence is the principle that the levels of reality are linked. The microcosm reflects the macrocosm. The card reflects the sky. The sky reflects the card. This is the criterion the tarot sits on most directly.

The living universe is the principle that the cosmos is not a mechanism. It is alive. It responds. It is not the clockwork of the Newtonian universe. It is the cosmos that the Golden Dawn assumed when it built the correspondences.

Imagination is the principle that the faculty of the imagination is not a defect. It is the faculty that bridges the levels. The imagination is not the opposite of reason. The imagination is the bridge between the levels that reason cannot cross.

Mediation is the principle that the human being stands between the levels. The human being is the mediator. The reader is the mediator. The deck is the instrument of the mediation.

These four criteria are the definition. The definition is not the reader's definition. The reader's definition is the practice. The field's definition is the study of the practice.

Hanegraaff and the counter-definition

Wouter Hanegraaff, the professor at the University of Amsterdam, is the counter-definition. His book, Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2013), is the standard introduction to the field, and it is not a book about the tarot. It is a book about the field, and the field is defined by what it is not.

Hanegraaff's definition is the counter-norm. Western esotericism is not a religion. It is not a philosophy. It is not a science. It is the knowledge that was rejected by the academy, and the field is the study of that rejected knowledge.

This is the counter-definition that the tarot reader does not usually hold. The deck is not a system. The deck is a piece of rejected knowledge. The field is the place where the rejected knowledge is read as an object, and the reading is not the practice.

The Aries journal and the field's self-image

The Aries journal is the field's self-image. The journal publishes the work of the field, and the work of the field is the study of the object, not the practice of the object. The journal is not a magazine of practice. It is a journal of study, and the study is the field.

The journal is published by Brill, and it was edited for a period by Faivre, Hanegraaff, and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. The three editors are the three names that the field carries. Faivre gave the definition. Hanegraaff gave the counter-definition and the institutional home. Goodrick-Clarke gave the critical edge, the study of the esoteric in the political sphere.

This is the distinction that matters for the deck. The deck is studied in the journal. The deck is practiced in the reading. The study is not the practice. The practice is not the study.

The Wikipedia entry on western esotericism describes the field as having its own methodological criteria, and the criteria are the four of Faivre, with the counter-definition of Hanegraaff as the boundary. The field is the study of the object that satisfies the four criteria, and the boundary is the rejection by the academy.

Where the deck sits in the western esotericism tarot definition

The deck satisfies the four criteria in the form the field gives them. Correspondence is the principle of the deck, and the Golden Dawn correspondence table is the deck's correspondence made explicit. The living universe is the principle that the deck assumes when it reads the sky onto the card. Imagination is the faculty that the reading exercises, the faculty that bridges the level of the question and the level of the card. Mediation is the position of the reader, the position that stands between the question and the answer.

This is not a historical claim. The fifteenth-century deck did not satisfy the four criteria, because the four criteria did not exist. The deck satisfies the criteria now, because the field exists now, and the field reads the deck as the object that satisfies them.

The fair reading of this is that the field gives the deck a frame that the practice does not have. The practice has the deck. The field has the deck plus the definition plus the journal plus the conference plus the chair at the University of Amsterdam. The frame is not the deck. The frame is what the deck is studied as.

What this gives the reader

The practical payoff is a frame. The deck sits inside a field, and the field has a definition, and the definition is not the reader's. The reader can hold the deck as an object of the field, and the reading can hold the field as the frame.

The deck is one of the objects that satisfies the four criteria. The deck is correspondence, the living universe, imagination, and mediation. The deck is the object, and the field is the study of the object, and the reading is the practice of the object.

This is the western esotericism tarot frame. It is not a reading about what the cards mean. It is a reading about where the deck sits in the field, and why the field is not the deck, and why the deck is inside the field.

The sources for this are the same as the sources for the field itself. The Wikipedia entry on Antoine Faivre (en.wikipedia.org). The Wikipedia entry on western esotericism (en.wikipedia.org). The profile of Wouter J. Hanegraaff at the University of Amsterdam (uva.nl). The review by Olav Hammer, which describes the four criteria of Faivre (tandfonline.com).

For the deck as a correspondence system, see the companion article on the Golden Dawn correspondences. Golden Dawn Tarot Correspondences Explained For the Fool and the zero position, see the tzimtzum article. Tzimtzum and the Fool: A Card for the Withdrawal of Light

The deck is inside the field. The field is not the deck. The reading is the practice of the deck, and the study is the study of the deck, and the two are not the same thing. Read the deck as an object of the field, and the field gives the deck a frame.