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Hood (headgear)

A hood is a type of headgear or headwear that covers most of the head and neck, and sometimes the face. Hoods that cover mainly the sides and top of the head, and leave the face mostly or partly open may be worn for protection from the environment (typically cold weather or rain), for fashion, as a form of traditional dress or uniform, or in the case of knights, an armoured hood is used for protection against bladed weapons. In some cases, hoods are used to prevent the wearer from seeing where they are going (e.g., in cases where a prisoner is hooded). Hoods with eye holes may be used for religious purposes to prevent the wearer from being seen. In the case of Ku Klux Klan members, terrorists, or criminals such as robbers, a hood with eye holes helps prevent identification.

Etymology
The word traces back to Old English hod "hood," from Proto-Germanic *hodaz (cf. Old Saxon, Old Frisian hod "hood," Middle Dutch hoet, Dutch hoed "hat," Old High German huot "helmet, hat, Gugel", German Hut "hat," Old Frisian hode "guard, protection"), from PIE *kadh- "cover". The modern spelling was developed in the 15th century to indicate a "long" vowel which is no longer pronounced as such.

History and description
Historically, hoods were either similar to modern hoods, often forming part of a cloak or cape, or a separate form of headgear. Hoods with short capes, called chaperons in French, were extremely common in medieval Europe, and later evolved into big hats. Soft hoods were worn by men under hats. Hoods have also been used as part of uniforms for organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

A hood to hide or control the wearer often covers the whole head, with the result that the wearer can see little or nothing, like a blindfold, or it can be to prevent identification of the wearer. It may be used on or by a person who has been arrested or kidnapped, or about to suffer judicial execution; this practice is known as hooding. The hood may be simply a bag; it may be intended to be, and/or experienced as, humiliating (see hood event).

Traditional women's hoods varied from close-fitting, soft headgear (e.g. snood) to stiffened, structured hoods (e.g. gable hood) or very large coverings made of material over a frame which fashionable women wore over towering wigs or hairstyles to protect them from the elements (e.g. calash).

Today, fashion hoods are generally soft headcoverings which form part of a larger garment (e.g. an overcoat, shirt or cloak; an exception is a rain hood which is not part of a larger garment). They can be pulled up over the head when needed, or left to hang down the back when not. They may also be detachable to turn a winter overcoat into a summer one, or may be designed to be folded or rolled into a small pocket in the neck of the garment when not in use. A familiar type of soft and smooth fashion hood is the visored bubble rainhood, which consists of a 3-sectioned bucket-style bubble hood with its 2 side sections extending frontwards towards the front center of the neck. The distinguishing feature is a curvy, wavy swerve U-bowl shaped duckbill pouf visor, which serves as a shield to guard the eyes, so that rain water or snow does not get in contact with the face. The rainhood visor is sometimes flipped slightly upwards, or cupped upwards into a pouf; the outermost swoop curve may then dip downwards towards the wearer’s eyes for added protection. Small clips are affixed to the sides along the hood next to the visor to help it keep its pouffed shape.

Types
The Inuit peoples of the Arctic are expert clothing manufacturers, and the women's anorak, technically called an amauti, features a large hood used to shelter an infant on its mother's back.

In Japan hoods covered with chainmail or armour plates (tatami zukin) were worn by samurai warriors and their retainers.

Scuba divers who dive in cold water often wear neoprene wetsuit hoods for thermal insulation or watertight latex rubber drysuit hoods to prevent water ingress. They cover the whole head and neck except the face.

Academic dress
An academic hood is a component of academic dress that is an often bright and decorative garment worn over a gown and used only at graduations or on other special occasions. The shape of hoods of universities and colleges in the UK and in many Commonwealth countries have been derived from those prescribed at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford bachelors and masters use a 'simple' (or 'Burgon' shape) consisting of hood with a cowl (headcovering) but without a cape, whereas the University of Cambridge uses a 'full' shape, with both cowl and square cape and substantial liripipe for all hoods. Other English universities use one of these patterns or adapt them; for example, the University of London uses the full Cambridge shape but with rounded corners to the cape. Newer universities, such as the University of Kent use a hood with triangular cape but with no cowl, and with a distinctive V-shaped segment denoting the faculty. The hoods of the University of Aberdeen have a rounded flat cape but no cowl.

The pattern of hoods in the US largely follow an intercollegiate code. The length of the hood and the width of its velvet trim indicate the academic achievement level of the wearer; the color of the trim indicates the discipline/field in which the degree is held; and the lining of hoods in academic dress represents the particular institution from which the degree was earned.

title: Hood (headgear)


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Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle

Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle (1628 – 24 February 1685) was an English military leader and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1653 and 1660 and was created Earl of Carlisle in 1661.

Biography
Howard was the son and heir of Sir William Howard of Naworth in Cumberland, by Mary, daughter of William Eure, 4th Baron Eure and great-grandson of Lord William Howard, "Belted Will" (1563–1640), the third son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. In 1645 he conformed to the Church of England and supported the government of the Commonwealth, being appointed High Sheriff of Cumberland in 1650. He bought Carlisle Castle and became governor of the town. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Worcester on Oliver Cromwell's side and made a member of the council of state in 1653, chosen captain of the protector's bodyguard and selected to carry out various public duties. In 1653 he was nominated as Member of Parliament for the Four Northern Counties in the Barebones Parliament. He was elected MP for Cumberland in 1654.

In 1655 Howard was given a regiment, was appointed a commissioner to try the northern rebels, and a deputy major-general of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland. He was re-elected MP for Cumberland in 1656. In 1657 he was included in Cromwell's House of Lords and voted for the protector's assumption of the royal title the same year. In 1659 he urged Richard Cromwell to defend his government by force against the army leaders, but his advice being refused he used his influence in favour of a restoration of the monarchy, and after Richard's fall he was imprisoned. In April 1660 he sat again in parliament for Cumberland, and at the Restoration was made custos rotulorum and Lord Lieutenant of Cumberland and Lord Lieutenant of Westmorland.

On 20 April 1661 Howard was created Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Earl of Carlisle; the same year he was made Vice-Admiral of Northumberland, Cumberland and Durham, and in 1662 joint commissioner for the office of Earl Marshal. In 1663 he was appointed ambassador to Russia, Sweden and Denmark, and in 1668 he carried the Garter to Charles XI of Sweden.

In 1667 Howard was made lieutenant-general of the forces and joint commander-in-chief of the four northernmost counties. In 1672 he became one of the commissioners for the office of Lord Lieutenant of Durham, and in 1673 deputy earl marshal. He commanded a regiment in the fresh-raised Blackheath Army of 1673, which was intended to see action against the Dutch. Following the Treaty of Westminster the regiment was disbanded.

In 1678 he was appointed governor of Jamaica, but his instructions to introduce Poynings' Law to the island were successfully opposed by planters elected to the Jamaican Assembly. Calling the elected members "fools, asses, beggars and cowards", the governor arrested their leaders, William Beeston (governor) and Samuel Long, father of Jamaican planter-historian Edward Long. However, when they were deported back to England, Beeston and Long successfully argued their case, and the governor's instructions were cancelled. He was reappointed governor of Carlisle. He died in 1685, and was buried in York Minster.

Family
He married Anne (died 1696), daughter of Edward Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick and great-granddaughter of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, by whom he had six children:
 * Edward Howard, 2nd Earl of Carlisle (c. 1646–1692)
 * Lady Katherine Howard (29 July 1662 – March 1682)
 * Frederick Christian Howard (5 November 1664 – October 1684), killed at the Siege of Luxembourg
 * Charles Howard (5 September 1668 – 3 April 1670)
 * Lady Mary Howard (died 27 October 1708), married Sir John Fenwick, 3rd Baronet
 * Lady Anne Howard, married Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston

Colonel Thomas Howard (died 1678), notorious for the 1662 duel where he left Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover for dead (they were rivals for the affections of Anna Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury), was his younger brother. He was pardoned and soon afterwards married as her third husband Mary Stewart, Duchess of Richmond.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle


text: Talk:Culture of South Africa

title: Talk:Culture of South Africa


text:
Talk:Kumite

Untitled
This article needs a rewrite, especially near the end (use of "you" isn't good and especially "I am sure you will enjoy..."). In fact I'd consider this a stub and will now mark it as such. --Furrykef 15:41, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

MUCH better. :) --Furrykef 07:53, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

For practitioners of full contact karate, "pulling" a technique and "controlling" a technique are very different. "Pulling" a technique is throwing that technique such that, although it is thrown with full force, it is stopped just before, or just after contact is made. "Controlling" a technique is throwing the technique properly (with good form), to the desired target, and with appropriate force.

Also many styles of full contact karate do not practice full contact kumite in the dojo at all times. A common rule is for the more advanced karateka to fight at slightly above the level of the less advanced --24.195.60.53 13:06, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

External links modified
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disambiguation needed?
I thought kumite (before I knew about this term) meant the specific secret tournament in Bloodsport (if it exists) not just a general term for sparring, is that another meaning of it? 71.184.110.64 (talk) 05:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Pronountiation
I would appreciate a pronunciation hint for 組手 or ku-mi-te, best in IPA-spelling. In my understanding, it should be porounced like "cumite" in spanish, not like "kyu-mayt". ThomasPusch (talk) 11:20, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Kumite


text:
User talk:97michaelliu

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

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title: User talk:97michaelliu


text:
User talk:Alfa

''' Please post new messages at the bottom of my talk page, SIGN YOUR POSTS (with four tildes: ~ ), and use headlines when starting new topics. Thank you. '''

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

 * How to edit a page
 * How to write a great article
 * Naming conventions
 * Manual of Style

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you feel like it, you may leave a note at the new user log too.

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

Dori | Talk 15:44, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)

User talk page warnings
I noticed that you've been countering the vandalous edits by 210.74.156.131, but haven't issued them any warnings (I issued one for the 2/12/05 edit). You can get those here. Sometimes it stops vandals, but if not, provides a threshold that can justify blocking them if need be if they vandalize past a final warning, when you would report them here for administrative action. Cheers. -- Broken Sphere Msg me 16:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Responding to the person who left you a message on their talk page is fine because like you said, if you responded here I might not have seen it unless I checked back. Glad to see that your efforts succeeded and good luck vandal fighting, it's a neverending job. -- Broken Sphere Msg me 17:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

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George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle

George William Frederick Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle, (18 April 1802– 5 December 1864), styled Viscount Morpeth from 1825 to 1848, was a British statesman, orator, and writer.

Life
Carlisle was born in Westminster, London, the eldest son of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle by his wife Lady Georgiana Cavendish, eldest daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire. Lord Lanerton and Charles Howard were his younger brothers. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he earned a reputation as a scholar and writer of graceful verse, obtaining in 1821 both the chancellor's and the Newdigate prizes for a Latin poem, Paestum, and an English one. He maintained his interest in poetry throughout his life, exchanging sonnets with William Wordsworth. In 1826 he accompanied his maternal uncle, the Duke of Devonshire, to the Russian Empire, to attend the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I, and became a great favourite in society at St Petersburg.

At the general election in 1826 Carlisle was returned to parliament as member for the family borough of Morpeth (in Northumberland), a seat he held until 1830, and then represented Yorkshire until 1832 and the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1832 to 1841 and from 1846 to 1848. The latter year he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords.

Carlisle served under Lord Melbourne as Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1835 and 1841, under Lord John Russell as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests from 1846 to 1850 and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1850 to 1852 and under Lord Palmerston as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1855 to 1858 and again from 1859 to 1864. In 1835 he was appointed to the Privy Councils of the United Kingdom and Ireland. He served as a Lord in Waiting to the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838.

On 2 April 1853, he was given the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh, and in 1855, he was made a Knight of the Garter.

In the six weeks after he stepped down as Chief Secretary of Ireland in 1841, the signatures of 160,000 men and women who appreciated his service were gathered on 652 sheets of paper and stuck together, creating the Morpeth Roll, a continuous roll measuring 420 metres.

Lord Carlisle died unmarried at Castle Howard in December 1864, aged 62, and was buried in the family mausoleum. He was succeeded in the earldom by his younger brother, Reverend William George Howard.

Legacy
On Bulmer Hill, about a mile from Bulmer village in North Yorkshire, is the Carlisle Memorial Column, erected by public subscription to his memory in 1869–70. It is inscribed: AD MDCCCLXIX: IN PRIVATE LIFE WAS LOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM BY HIS PUBLIC CONDUCT WON the RESPECT of his COUNTRY and LEFT THE BRIGHT EXAMPLE OF A TRVE PATRIOT AND EARNEST CHRISTIAN VIIth EARL of CARLISLE

Statues of him by the Irish sculptor John Henry Foley were also erected in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and in Brampton, Carlisle in Cumbria, both in 1870. The statue in Brampton stands on Brampton motte and depicts him in the robes of a Knight of the Garter. The statue in Phoenix Park stood in the Peoples' Garden until 1956, when it was blown off its plinth in an explosion, and subsequently removed to Castle Howard in Yorkshire. The plinth it once stood on remains in place.

title: George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle


text:
Boniface Alexandre

Boniface Alexandre (31 July 1936 – 4 August 2023) was a Haitian politician. Alexandre served as the provisional president of Haiti following the 2004 coup d'état that removed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office. He served until May 2006.

Biography
Alexandre was raised by his uncle, Martial Célestin, Haiti's first prime minister. Trained as a lawyer, he worked for a law firm in Port-au-Prince for 25 years before being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1992. Aristide appointed him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2002.

Alexandre, as the Chief Justice and therefore next in the presidential line of succession, assumed the office of president after the coup. During Alexandre's acting presidency, Amnesty International reported "excessive use of force by police officers", extrajudicial executions, a lack of investigations into these, escalation of "unlawful killings and kidnappings by illegal armed groups", failure of officials to prevent and punish violence against women, dysfunctionality of the justice system, and forty or more people imprisoned without charge or trial.

Alexandre left office on 14 May 2006, when René Préval, winner of the February 2006 presidential election, was sworn in as president.

Boniface Alexandre died at his home in Port-au-Prince, on 4 August 2023, four days after his 87th birthday.

title: Boniface Alexandre


text:
Western esotericism

Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to classify a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthodox Judeo-Christian religion and Age of Enlightenment rationalism. It has influenced various forms of Western philosophy, mysticism, religion, pseudoscience, art, literature, and music.

The idea of grouping a wide range of Western traditions and philosophies together under the term esotericism developed in 17th-century Europe. Various academics have debated numerous definitions of Western esotericism. One view adopts a definition from certain esotericist schools of thought themselves, treating "esotericism" as a perennial hidden inner tradition. A second perspective sees esotericism as a category of movements that embrace an "enchanted" worldview in the face of increasing disenchantment. A third views Western esotericism as encompassing all of Western culture's "rejected knowledge" that is accepted neither by the scientific establishment nor orthodox religious authorities.

The earliest traditions of Western esotericism emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, where Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Neoplatonism developed as schools of thought distinct from what became mainstream Christianity. Renaissance Europe saw increasing interest in many of these older ideas, with various intellectuals combining pagan philosophies with the Kabbalah and Christian philosophy, resulting in the emergence of esoteric movements like Christian Kabbalah and Christian theosophy. The 17th century saw the development of initiatory societies professing esoteric knowledge such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, while the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century led to the development of new forms of esoteric thought. The 19th century saw the emergence of new trends of esoteric thought now known as occultism. Significant groups in this century included the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Also important in this connection is Martinus Thomsen's "spiritual science". Modern paganism developed within occultism and includes religious movements such as Wicca. Esoteric ideas permeated the counterculture of the 1960s and later cultural tendencies, which led to the New Age phenomenon in the 1970s.

The idea that these disparate movements could be classified as "Western esotericism" developed in the late 18th century, but these esoteric currents were largely ignored as a subject of academic enquiry. The academic study of Western esotericism only emerged in the late 20th century, pioneered by scholars like Frances Yates and Antoine Faivre.

Etymology
The concept of the "esoteric" originated in the 2nd century with the coining of the Ancient Greek adjective esôterikós ("belonging to an inner circle"); the earliest known example of the word appeared in a satire authored by Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – after 180).

In the 15th and 16th centuries, differentiations in Latin between exotericus and esotericus (along with internus and externus) were common in the scholar discourse on ancient philosophy. The categories of doctrina vulgaris and doctrina arcana are found among Cambridge Platonists. Perhaps for the first time in English, Thomas Stanley, between 1655 and 1660, would refer to the Pythagorean exoterick and esoterick. John Toland in 1720 would state that the so-called nowadays "esoteric distinction" was a universal phenomenon, present in both the West and the East. As for the noun "esotericism", probably the first mention in German of Esoterismus appeared in a 1779 work by Johann Georg Hamann, and the use of Esoterik in 1790 by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. But the word esoterisch had already existed at least since 1731-1736, as found in the works of Johann Jakob Brucker; this author rejected everything that is characterized today as an "esoteric corpus". In this 18th century context, these terms referred to Pythagoreanism or Neoplatonic theurgy, but the concept was particularly sedimentated by two streams of discourses: speculations about the influences of the Egyptians on ancient philosophy and religion, and their associations with Masonic discourses and other secret societies, who claimed to keep such ancient secrets until the Enlightenment; and the emergence of orientalist academic studies, which since the 17th century identified the presence of mysteries, secrets or esoteric "ancient wisdom" in Persian, Arab, Indian and Far Eastern texts and practices (see also Early Western reception of Eastern esotericism)

The noun "esotericism", in its French form "ésotérisme", first appeared in 1828 in the work by Protestant historian of gnosticism (1791–1864), Histoire critique du gnosticisme (3 vols.). The term "esotericism" thus came into use in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment and of its critique of institutionalised religion, during which alternative religious groups such as the Rosicrucians began to disassociate themselves from the dominant Christianity in Western Europe. During the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars increasingly saw the term "esotericism" as meaning something distinct from Christianity—as a subculture at odds with the Christian mainstream from at least the time of the Renaissance. After being introduced by Jacques Matter in French, the occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Lévi (1810–1875) popularized the term in the 1850s. Lévi also introduced the term l'occultisme, a notion that he developed against the background of contemporary socialist and Catholic discourses. "Esotericism" and "occultism" were often employed as synonyms until later scholars distinguished the concepts.

Philosophical usage
In the context of Ancient Greek philosophy, the terms "esoteric" and "exoteric" were sometimes used by scholars not to denote that there was secrecy, but to distinguish two procedures of research and education: the first reserved for teachings that were developed "within the walls" of the philosophical school, among a circle of thinkers ("eso-" indicating what is unseen, as in the classes internal to the institution), and the second referring to those whose works were disseminated to the public in speeches and published ("exo-": outside). The initial meaning of this last word is implied when Aristotle coined the term "exoteric speeches" (ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι), perhaps to refer to the speeches he gave outside his school.

However, Aristotle never employed the term "esoteric" and there is no evidence that he dealt with specialized secrets; there is a dubious report by Aulus Gellius, according to which Aristotle disclosed the exoteric subjects of politics, rhetoric and ethics to the general public in the afternoon, while he reserved the morning for "akroatika" (acroamatics), referring to natural philosophy and logic, taught during a walk with his students. Furthermore, the term "exoteric" for Aristotle could have another meaning, hypothetically referring to an extracosmic reality, ta exo, superior to and beyond Heaven, requiring abstraction and logic. This reality stood in contrast to what he called enkyklioi logoi, knowledge "from within the circle", involving the intracosmic physics that surrounds everyday life. There is a report by Strabo and Plutarch, however, which states that the Lyceum's school texts were circulated internally, their publication was more controlled than the exoteric ones, and that these "esoteric" texts were rediscovered and compiled only with the efforts of Andronicus of Rhodes.

Plato would have orally transmitted intramural teachings to his disciples, the supposed "esoteric" content of which regarding the First Principles is particularly highlighted by the Tübingen School as distinct from the apparent written teachings conveyed in his books or public lectures. Hegel commented on the analysis of this distinction in the modern hermeneutics of Plato and Aristotle:

To express an external object not much is required, but to communicate an idea a capacity must be present, and this always remains something esoteric, so that there has never been anything purely exoteric about what philosophers say.

In any case, drawing from the tradition of discourses that supposedly revealed a vision of the Absolute and truth present in mythology and initiatory rites of mystery religions, Plato and his philosophy began the Western perception of esotericism, to the point that Kocku von Stuckrad stated "esoteric ontology and anthropology would hardly exist without Platonic philosophy." In his dialogues, he uses expressions that refer to cultic secrecy (for example, ἀπορρήτων, aporrhéton, one of the Ancient Greek expressions referring to the prohibition of revealing a secret, in the context of mysteries ). In Theaetetus 152c, there is an example of this concealment strategy:

"Can it be, then, that Protagoras was a very ingenious person who threw out this obscure utterance for the unwashed like us but reserved the truth as a secret doctrine (ἐν ἀπορρήτῳ τὴν ἀλήθειαν) to be revealed to his disciples?"

The Neoplatonists intensified the search for a "hidden truth" under the surface of teachings, myths and texts, developing the hermeneutics and allegorical exegesis of Plato, Homer, Orpheus and others. Plutarch, for example, developed the justification of a theological esotericism, and Numenius wrote "On the Secrets of Plato" (Peri tôn para Platoni aporrhèta).

Probably based on the "exôtikos/esôtikos" dichotomy, the Hellenic world developed the classical distinction between exoteric/esoteric, stimulated by criticism from various currents such as the Patristics. According to examples in Lucian, Galen and Clement of Alexandria, at that time it was a common practice among philosophers to keep secret writings and teachings. A parallel secrecy and reserved elite was also found in the contemporary environment of Gnosticism. Later, Iamblichus would present his definition (close to the modern one), as he classified the ancient Pythagoreans as either "exoteric" mathematicians or "esoteric" acousmatics, the latter being those who disseminated enigmatic teachings and hidden allegorical meanings.

Conceptual development
The concept of "Western esotericism" represents a modern scholarly construct rather than a pre-existing, self-defined tradition of thought. In the late 17th century, several European Christian thinkers presented the argument that one could categorise certain traditions of Western philosophy and thought together, thus establishing the category now labelled "Western esotericism". The first to do so, Ehregott Daniel Colberg (1659–1698), a German Lutheran theologian, wrote Platonisch-Hermetisches Christianity (1690–91). A hostile critic of various currents of Western thought that had emerged since the Renaissance—among them Paracelsianism, Weigelianism, and Christian theosophy—in his book he labelled all of these traditions under the category of "Platonic–Hermetic Christianity", portraying them as heretical to what he saw as "true" Christianity. Despite his hostile attitude toward these traditions of thought, Colberg became the first to connect these disparate philosophies and to study them under one rubric, also recognising that these ideas linked back to earlier philosophies from late antiquity.

In 18th-century Europe, during the Age of Enlightenment, these esoteric traditions came to be regularly categorised under the labels of "superstition", "magic", and "the occult" – terms often used interchangeably. The modern academy, then in the process of developing, consistently rejected and ignored topics coming under "the occult", thus leaving research into them largely to enthusiasts outside of academia. Indeed, according to historian of esotericism Wouter J. Hanegraaff (born 1961), rejection of "occult" topics was seen as a "crucial identity marker" for any intellectuals seeking to affiliate themselves with the academy.

Scholars established this category in the late 18th century after identifying "structural similarities" between "the ideas and world views of a wide variety of thinkers and movements" that, previously, had not been in the same analytical grouping. According to the scholar of esotericism Wouter J. Hanegraaff, the term provided a "useful generic label" for "a large and complicated group of historical phenomena that had long been perceived as sharing an air de famille."

Various academics have emphasised that esotericism is a phenomenon unique to the Western world. As Faivre stated, an "empirical perspective" would hold that "esotericism is a Western notion." As scholars such as Faivre and Hanegraaff have pointed out, there is no comparable category of "Eastern" or "Oriental" esotericism. The emphasis on Western esotericism was nevertheless primarily devised to distinguish the field from a universal esotericism. Hanegraaff has characterised these as "recognisable world views and approaches to knowledge that have played an important though always controversial role in the history of Western culture". Historian of religion Henrik Bogdan asserted that Western esotericism constituted "a third pillar of Western culture" alongside "doctrinal faith and rationality", being deemed heretical by the former and irrational by the latter. Scholars nevertheless recognise that various non-Western traditions have exerted "a profound influence" over Western esotericism, citing the example of the Theosophical Society's incorporation of Hindu and Buddhist concepts like reincarnation into its doctrines. Given these influences and the imprecise nature of the term "Western", the scholar of esotericism Kennet Granholm has argued that academics should cease referring to "Western esotericism" altogether, instead simply favouring "esotericism" as a descriptor of this phenomenon. Egil Asprem has endorsed this approach.

Definition
The historian of esotericism Antoine Faivre noted that "never a precise term, [esotericism] has begun to overflow its boundaries on all sides", with both Faivre and Karen-Claire Voss stating that Western esotericism consists of "a vast spectrum of authors, trends, works of philosophy, religion, art, literature, and music". Scholars broadly agree on which currents of thought fall within a category of esotericism—ranging from ancient Gnosticism and Hermeticism through to Rosicrucianism and the Kabbalah and on to more recent phenomenon such as the New Age movement. Nevertheless, esotericism itself remains a controversial term, with scholars specialising in the subject disagreeing as to how best to define it.

As a universal secret inner tradition

Some scholars have used Western esotericism to refer to "inner traditions" concerned with a "universal spiritual dimension of reality, as opposed to the merely external ('exoteric') religious institutions and dogmatic systems of established religions." This approach views Western esotericism as just one variant of a worldwide esotericism at the heart of all world religions and cultures, reflecting a hidden esoteric reality. This use is closest to the original meaning of the word in late antiquity, where it applied to secret spiritual teachings that were reserved for a specific elite and hidden from the masses. This definition was popularised in the published work of 19th-century esotericists like A.E. Waite, who sought to combine their own mystical beliefs with a historical interpretation of esotericism. It subsequently became a popular approach within several esoteric movements, most notably Martinism and Traditionalism.

This definition, originally developed by esotericists themselves, became popular among French academics during the 1980s, exerting a strong influence over the scholars Mircea Eliade, Henry Corbin, and the early work of Faivre. Within the academic field of religious studies, those who study different religions in search of an inner universal dimension to them all are termed "religionists". Such religionist ideas also exerted an influence on more recent scholars like Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke and Arthur Versluis. Versluis for instance defined "Western esotericism" as "inner or hidden spiritual knowledge transmitted through Western European historical currents that in turn feed into North American and other non-European settings". He added that these Western esoteric currents all shared a core characteristic, "a claim to gnosis, or direct spiritual insight into cosmology or spiritual insight", and accordingly he suggested that these currents could be referred to as "Western gnostic" just as much as "Western esoteric".

There are various problems with this model for understanding Western esotericism. The most significant is that it rests upon the conviction that there really is a "universal, hidden, esoteric dimension of reality" that objectively exists. The existence of this universal inner tradition has not been discovered through scientific or scholarly enquiry; this had led some to claim that it does not exist, though Hanegraaff thought it better to adopt a view based in methodological agnosticism by stating that "we simply do not know – and cannot know" if it exists or not. He noted that, even if such a true and absolute nature of reality really existed, it would only be accessible through "esoteric" spiritual practices, and could not be discovered or measured by the "exoteric" tools of scientific and scholarly enquiry. Hanegraaff pointed out that an approach that seeks a common inner hidden core of all esoteric currents masks that such groups often differ greatly, being rooted in their own historical and social contexts and expressing mutually exclusive ideas and agendas. A third issue was that many of those currents widely recognised as esoteric never concealed their teachings, and in the 20th century came to permeate popular culture, thus problematizing the claim that esotericism could be defined by its hidden and secretive nature. He noted that when scholars adopt this definition, it shows that they subscribe to the religious doctrines espoused by the very groups they are studying.

As an enchanted world view

Another approach to Western esotericism treats it as a world view that embraces "enchantment" in contrast to world views influenced by post-Cartesian, post-Newtonian, and positivist science that sought to "dis-enchant" the world. That approach understands esotericism as comprising those world views that eschew a belief in instrumental causality and instead adopt a belief that all parts of the universe are interrelated without a need for causal chains. It stands as a radical alternative to the disenchanted world views that have dominated Western culture since the scientific revolution, and must therefore always be at odds with secular culture.

An early exponent of this definition was the historian of Renaissance thought Frances Yates in her discussions of a Hermetic Tradition, which she saw as an "enchanted" alternative to established religion and rationalistic science. The primary exponent of this view was Faivre, who published a series of criteria for how to define "Western esotericism" in 1992. Faivre claimed that esotericism was "identifiable by the presence of six fundamental characteristics or components", four of which were "intrinsic" and thus vital to defining something as being esoteric, while the other two were "secondary" and thus not necessarily present in every form of esotericism. He listed these characteristics as follows:

 * 1) "Correspondences": This is the idea that there are both real and symbolic correspondences existing between all things within the universe. As examples for this, Faivre pointed to the esoteric concept of the macrocosm and microcosm, often presented as the dictum of "as above, so below", as well as the astrological idea that the actions of the planets have a direct corresponding influence on the behaviour of human beings.
 * 2) "Living Nature": Faivre argued that all esotericists envision the natural universe as being imbued with its own life force, and that as such they understand it as being "complex, plural, hierarchical".
 * 3) "Imagination and Mediations": Faivre believed that all esotericists place great emphasis on both the human imagination, and mediations—"such as rituals, symbolic images, mandalas, intermediary spirits"—and mantras as tools that provide access to worlds and levels of reality existing between the material world and the divine.
 * 4) "Experience of Transmutation": Faivre's fourth intrinsic characteristic of esotericism was the emphasis that esotericists place on fundamentally transforming themselves through their practice, for instance through the spiritual transformation that is alleged to accompany the attainment of gnosis.
 * 5) "Practice of Concordance": The first of Faivre's secondary characteristics of esotericism was the belief—held by many esotericists, such as those in the Traditionalist School—that there is a fundamental unifying principle or root from which all world religions and spiritual practices emerge. The common esoteric principle is that attaining this unifying principle can bring the world's different belief systems together in unity.
 * 6) "Transmission": Faivre's second secondary characteristic was the emphasis on the transmission of esoteric teachings and secrets from a master to their disciple, through a process of initiation.

Faivre's form of categorisation has been endorsed by scholars like Goodrick-Clarke, and by 2007 Bogdan could note that Faivre's had become "the standard definition" of Western esotericism in use among scholars. In 2013 the scholar Kennet Granholm stated only that Faivre's definition had been "the dominating paradigm for a long while" and that it "still exerts influence among scholars outside the study of Western esotericism". The advantage of Faivre's system is that it facilitates comparing varying esoteric traditions "with one another in a systematic fashion." Other scholars criticised his theory, pointing out various weaknesses. Hanegraaff claimed that Faivre's approach entailed "reasoning by prototype" in that it relied upon already having a "best example" of what Western esotericism should look like, against which other phenomena then had to be compared. The scholar of esotericism Kocku von Stuckrad (born 1966) noted that Faivre's taxonomy was based on his own areas of specialism—Renaissance Hermeticism, Christian Kabbalah, and Protestant Theosophy—and that it was thus not based on a wider understanding of esotericism as it has existed throughout history, from the ancient world to the contemporary period. Accordingly, Von Stuckrad suggested that it was a good typology for understanding "Christian esotericism in the early modern period" but lacked utility beyond that.

As higher knowledge
As an alternative to Faivre's framework, Kocku von Stuckrad developed his own variant, though he argued that this did not represent a "definition" but rather "a framework of analysis" for scholarly usage. He stated that "on the most general level of analysis", esotericism represented "the claim of higher knowledge", a claim to possessing "wisdom that is superior to other interpretations of cosmos and history" that serves as a "master key for answering all questions of humankind." Accordingly, he believed that esoteric groups placed a great emphasis on secrecy, not because they were inherently rooted in elite groups but because the idea of concealed secrets that can be revealed was central to their discourse. Examining the means of accessing higher knowledge, he highlighted two themes that he believed could be found within esotericism, that of mediation through contact with non-human entities, and individual experience. Accordingly, for Von Stuckrad, esotericism could be best understood as "a structural element of Western culture" rather than as a selection of different schools of thought.

As rejected knowledge
Hanegraaff proposed an additional definition that "Western esotericism" is a category that represents "the academy's dustbin of rejected knowledge." In this respect, it contains all of the theories and world views rejected by the mainstream intellectual community because they do not accord with "normative conceptions of religion, rationality and science." His approach is rooted within the field of the history of ideas, and stresses the role of change and transformation over time.

Goodrick-Clarke was critical of this approach, believing that it relegated Western esotericism to the position of "a casualty of positivist and materialist perspectives in the nineteenth-century" and thus reinforces the idea that Western esoteric traditions were of little historical importance. Bogdan similarly expressed concern regarding Hanegraaff's definition, believing that it made the category of Western esotericism "all inclusive" and thus analytically useless.

Late Antiquity
The origins of Western esotericism are in the Hellenistic Eastern Mediterranean, then part of the Roman Empire, during Late Antiquity. This was a milieu that mixed religious and intellectual traditions from Greece, Egypt, the Levant, Babylon, and Persia—in which globalisation, urbanisation, and multiculturalism were bringing about socio-cultural change.

One component of this was Hermeticism, an Egyptian Hellenistic school of thought that takes its name from the legendary Egyptian wise man, Hermes Trismegistus. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, a number of texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus appeared, including the Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, and The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth. Some still debate whether Hermeticism was a purely literary phenomenon or had communities of practitioners who acted on these ideas, but it has been established that these texts discuss the true nature of God, emphasising that humans must transcend rational thought and worldly desires to find salvation and be reborn into a spiritual body of immaterial light, thereby achieving spiritual unity with divinity.

Another tradition of esoteric thought in Late Antiquity was Gnosticism. Various Gnostic sects existed, and they broadly believed that the divine light had been imprisoned within the material world by a malevolent entity known as the Demiurge, who was served by demonic helpers, the Archons. It was the Gnostic belief that people, who were imbued with the divine light, should seek to attain gnosis and thus escape from the world of matter and rejoin the divine source.

A third form of esotericism in Late Antiquity was Neoplatonism, a school of thought influenced by the ideas of the philosopher Plato. Advocated by such figures as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus, Neoplatonism held that the human soul had fallen from its divine origins into the material world, but that it could progress, through a number of hierarchical spheres of being, to return to its divine origins once more. The later Neoplatonists performed theurgy, a ritual practice attested in such sources as the Chaldean Oracles. Scholars are still unsure of precisely what theurgy involved, but know it involved a practice designed to make gods appear, who could then raise the theurgist's mind to the reality of the divine.

Middle Ages
After the fall of Rome, alchemy and philosophy and other aspects of the tradition were largely preserved in the Arab and Near Eastern world and reintroduced into Western Europe by Jews and by the cultural contact between Christians and Muslims in Sicily and southern Italy. The 12th century saw the development of the Kabbalah in southern Italy and medieval Spain.

The medieval period also saw the publication of grimoires, which offered often elaborate formulas for theurgy and thaumaturgy. Many of the grimoires seem to have kabbalistic influence. Figures in alchemy from this period seem to also have authored or used grimoires. Medieval sects deemed heretical such as the Waldensians were thought to have utilized esoteric concepts.

Renaissance and Early Modern period
During the Renaissance, a number of European thinkers began to synthesize "pagan" (that is, not Christian) philosophies, which were then being made available through Arabic translations, with Christian thought and the Jewish kabbalah. The earliest of these individuals was the Byzantine philosopher Plethon (1355/60–1452?), who argued that the Chaldean Oracles represented an example of a superior religion of ancient humanity that had been passed down by the Platonists.

Plethon's ideas interested the ruler of Florence, Cosimo de' Medici, who employed Florentine thinker Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) to translate Plato's works into Latin. Ficino went on to translate and publish the works of various Platonic figures, arguing that their philosophies were compatible with Christianity, and allowing for the emergence of a wider movement in Renaissance Platonism, or Platonic Orientalism. Ficino also translated part of the Corpus Hermeticum, though the rest was translated by his contemporary, Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447–1500).

Another core figure in this intellectual milieu was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), who achieved notability in 1486 by inviting scholars from across Europe to come and debate with him 900 theses that he had written. Pico della Mirandola argued that all of these philosophies reflected a grand universal wisdom. Pope Innocent VIII condemned these ideas, criticising him for attempting to mix pagan and Jewish ideas with Christianity.

Pico della Mirandola's increased interest in Jewish kabbalah led to his development of a distinct form of Christian Kabbalah. His work was built on by the German Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) who authored an influential text on the subject, De Arte Cabbalistica. Christian Kabbalah was expanded in the work of the German Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535/36), who used it as a framework to explore the philosophical and scientific traditions of Antiquity in his work De occulta philosophia libri tres. The work of Agrippa and other esoteric philosophers had been based in a pre-Copernican worldview, but following the arguments of Copernicus, a more accurate understanding of the cosmos was established. Copernicus' theories were adopted into esoteric strains of thought by Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), whose ideas were deemed heresy by the Roman Catholic Church, which eventually publicly executed him.

A distinct strain of esoteric thought developed in Germany, where it became known as Naturphilosophie. Though influenced by traditions from Late Antiquity and medieval Kabbalah, it only acknowledged two main sources of authority: Biblical scripture and the natural world. The primary exponent of this approach was Paracelsus (1493/94–1541), who took inspiration from alchemy and folk magic to argue against the mainstream medical establishment of his time—which, as in Antiquity, still based its approach on the ideas of the second-century physician and philosopher, Galen, a Greek in the Roman Empire. Instead, Paracelsus urged doctors to learn medicine through an observation of the natural world, though in later work he also began to focus on overtly religious questions. His work gained significant support in both areas over the following centuries.

One of those influenced by Paracelsus was the German cobbler Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), who sparked the Christian theosophy movement through his attempts to solve the problem of evil. Böhme argued that God had been created out of an unfathomable mystery, the Ungrund, and that God himself was composed of a wrathful core, surrounded by the forces of light and love. Though condemned by Germany's Lutheran authorities, Böhme's ideas spread and formed the basis for a number of small religious communities, such as Johann Georg Gichtel's Angelic Brethren in Amsterdam, and John Pordage and Jane Leade's Philadelphian Society in England.

From 1614 to 1616, the three Rosicrucian Manifestos were published in Germany. These texts purported to represent a secret, initiatory brotherhood founded centuries before by a German adept named Christian Rosenkreutz. There is no evidence that Rosenkreutz was a genuine historical figure, nor that a Rosicrucian Order had ever existed before then. Instead, the manifestos are likely literary creations of Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654). They interested the public, so several people described themselves as "Rosicrucian", claiming access to secret esoteric knowledge.

A real initiatory brotherhood was established in late 16th-century Scotland through the transformation of Medieval stonemason guilds to include non-craftsmen: Freemasonry. Soon spreading into other parts of Europe, in England it largely rejected its esoteric character and embraced humanism and rationalism, while in France it embraced new esoteric concepts, particularly those from Christian theosophy.

18th, 19th and early 20th centuries

The Age of Enlightenment witnessed a process of increasing secularisation of European governments and an embrace of modern science and rationality within intellectual circles. In turn, a "modernist occult" emerged that reflected varied ways esoteric thinkers came to terms with these developments. One of the esotericists of this period was the Swedish naturalist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), who attempted to reconcile science and religion after experiencing a vision of Jesus Christ. His writings focused on his visionary travels to heaven and hell and his communications with angels, claiming that the visible, materialist world parallels an invisible spiritual world, with correspondences between the two that do not reflect causal relations. Following his death, followers founded the Swedenborgian New Church—though his writings influenced a wider array of esoteric philosophies. Another major figure within the esoteric movement of this period was the German physician Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1814), who developed the theory of Animal Magnetism, which later became known more commonly as Mesmerism. Mesmer claimed that a universal life force permeated everything, including the human body, and that illnesses were caused by a disturbance or block in this force's flow; he developed techniques he claimed cleansed such blockages and restored the patient to full health. One of Mesmer's followers, the Marquis de Puységur, discovered that mesmeric treatment could induce a state of somnumbulic trance in which they claimed to enter visionary states and communicate with spirit beings.

These somnambulic trance-states heavily influenced the esoteric religion of Spiritualism, which emerged in the United States in the 1840s and spread throughout North America and Europe. Spiritualism was based on the concept that individuals could communicate with spirits of the deceased during séances. Most forms of Spiritualism had little theoretical depth, being largely practical affairs—but full theological worldviews based on the movement were articulated by Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–1910) and Allan Kardec (1804–1869). Scientific interest in the claims of Spiritualism resulted in the development of the field of psychical research. Somnambulism also exerted a strong influence on the early disciplines of psychology and psychiatry; esoteric ideas pervade the work of many early figures in this field, most notably Carl Gustav Jung—though with the rise of psychoanalysis and behaviourism in the 20th century, these disciplines distanced themselves from esotericism. Also influenced by artificial somnambulism was the religion of New Thought, founded by the American mesmerist Phineas P. Quimby (1802–1866). It revolved around the concept of "mind over matter"—believing that illness and other negative conditions could be cured through the power of belief.

In Europe, a movement usually termed occultism emerged as various figures attempted to find a "third way" between Christianity and positivist science while building on the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance traditions of esoteric thought. In France, following the social upheaval of the 1789 Revolution, various figures emerged in this occultist milieu who were heavily influenced by traditional Catholicism, the most notable of whom were Éliphas Lévi (1810–1875) and Papus (1865–1916). Also significant was René Guénon (1886–1951), whose concern with tradition led him to develop an occult viewpoint termed Traditionalism; it espoused the idea of an original, universal tradition, and thus a rejection of modernity. His Traditionalist ideas strongly influenced later esotericists like Julius Evola (1898–1974), founder of the UR Group, and Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998).

In the Anglophone world, the burgeoning occult movement owed more to Enlightenment libertines, and thus was more often of an anti-Christian bent that saw wisdom as emanating from the pre-Christian pagan religions of Europe. Various Spiritualist mediums came to be disillusioned with the esoteric thought available, and sought inspiration in pre-Swedenborgian currents, including Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–1899) and Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891), the latter of whom called for the revival of the "occult science" of the ancients, which could be found in both the East and West. Authoring the influential Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), she co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. Subsequent leaders of the Society, namely Annie Besant (1847–1933) and Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) interpreted modern theosophy as a form of ecumenical esoteric Christianity, resulting in their proclamation of Indian Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) as world messiah. In rejection of this was the breakaway Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). Another form of esoteric Christianity is the spiritual science of the Danish mystic Martinus (1890-1981) who is popular in Scandinavia.

New esoteric understandings of magic also developed in the latter part of the 19th century. One of the pioneers of this was American Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), who argued that sexual energy and psychoactive drugs could be used for magical purposes. In England, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn—an initiatory order devoted to magic based on kabbalah—was founded in the latter years of the century. One of the members of that order was Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), who went on to proclaim the religion of Thelema and become a member of Ordo Templi Orientis. Some of their contemporaries developed esoteric schools of thought that did not entail magic, namely the Greco-Armenian teacher George Gurdjieff (1866–1949) and his Russian pupil P.D. Ouspensky (1878–1947).

Emergent occult and esoteric systems found increasing popularity in the early 20th century, especially in Western Europe. Occult lodges and secret societies flowered among European intellectuals of this era who had largely abandoned traditional forms of Christianity. The spreading of secret teachings and magical practices found enthusiastic adherents in the chaos of Germany during the interwar years. Notable writers such as Guido von List spread neo-pagan, nationalist ideas, based on Wotanism and the Kabbalah. Many influential and wealthy Germans were drawn to secret societies such as the Thule Society. Thule Society activist Karl Harrer was one of the founders of the German Workers' Party, which later became the Nazi Party; some Nazi Party members like Alfred Rosenberg and Rudolf Hess were listed as "guests" of the Thule Society, as was Adolf Hitler's mentor Dietrich Eckart. After their rise to power, the Nazis persecuted occultists. While many Nazi Party leaders like Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were hostile to occultism, Heinrich Himmler used Karl Maria Wiligut as a clairvoyant "and was regularly consulting for help in setting up the symbolic and ceremonial aspects of the SS" but not for important political decisions. By 1939, Wiligut was "forcibly retired from the SS" due to being institutionalised for insanity. On the other hand, the German hermetic magic order Fraternitas Saturni was founded on Easter 1928 and it is one of the oldest continuously running magical groups in Germany. In 1936, the Fraternitas Saturni was prohibited by the Nazi regime. The leaders of the lodge emigrated to avoid imprisonment, but in the course of the war Eugen Grosche, one of their main leaders, was arrested for a year by the Nazi government. After World War II they reformed the Fraternitas Saturni.

Later 20th century
In the 1960s and 1970s, esotericism came to be increasingly associated with the growing counter-culture in the West, whose adherents understood themselves in participating in a spiritual revolution that marked the Age of Aquarius. By the 1980s, these millenarian currents had come to be widely known as the New Age movement, and it became increasingly commercialised as business entrepreneurs exploited a growth in the spiritual market. Conversely, other forms of esoteric thought retained the anti-commercial and counter-cultural sentiment of the 1960s and 1970s, namely the techno-shamanic movement promoted by figures such as Terence McKenna and Daniel Pinchbeck, which built on the work of anthropologist Carlos Castaneda.

This trend was accompanied by the increased growth of modern paganism, a movement initially dominated by Wicca, the religion propagated by Gerald Gardner. Wicca was adopted by members of the second-wave feminist movement, most notably Starhawk, and developing into the Goddess movement. Wicca also greatly influenced the development of Pagan neo-druidry and other forms of Celtic revivalism. In response to Wicca there has also appeared literature and groups who label themselves followers of traditional witchcraft in opposition to the growing visibility of Wicca and these claim older roots than the system proposed by Gerald Gardner. Other trends that emerged in western occultism in the later 20th century included satanism, as exposed by groups such as the Church of Satan and Temple of Set, as well as chaos magick through the Illuminates of Thanateros group.

Additionally, since the start of the 1990s, countries inside of the former Iron Curtain have undergone a radiative and varied religious revival, with a large number of occult and new religious movements gaining popularity. Gnostic revivalists, New Age organizations, and Scientology splinter groups have found their way into much of the former Soviet bloc since the cultural and political shift resulting from the dissolution of the USSR. In Hungary, a significant number of citizens (relative to the size of the country's population and compared to its neighbors) practice or adhere to new currents of Western Esotericism. In April 1997, the Fifth Esoteric Spiritual Forum was held for two days in the country and was attended at-capacity; In August of the same year, the International Shaman Expo began, being broadcast on live TV and ultimately taking place for 2 months wherein various neo-Shamanist, Millenarian, mystic, neo-Pagan, and even UFO religion congregations and figures were among the attendees.

Academic study

The academic study of Western esotericism was pioneered in the early 20th century by historians of the ancient world and the European Renaissance, who came to recognise that—even though previous scholarship had ignored it—the effect of pre-Christian and non-rational schools of thought on European society and culture was worthy of academic attention. One of the key centres for this was the Warburg Institute in London, where scholars like Frances Yates, Edgar Wind, Ernst Cassirer, and D. P. Walker began arguing that esoteric thought had had a greater effect on Renaissance culture than had been previously accepted. The work of Yates in particular, most notably her 1964 book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, has been cited as "an important starting-point for modern scholarship on esotericism", succeeding "at one fell swoop in bringing scholarship onto a new track" by bringing wider awareness of the effect that esoteric ideas had on modern science.

In 1965, at the instigation of the scholar Henry Corbin, École pratique des hautes études in the Sorbonne established the world's first academic post in the study of esotericism, with a chair in the History of Christian Esotericism. Its first holder was François Secret, a specialist in the Christian Kabbalah, though he had little interest in developing the wider study of esotericism as a field of research. In 1979 Faivre assumed Secret's chair at the Sorbonne, which was renamed the "History of Esoteric and Mystical Currents in Modern and Contemporary Europe". Faivre has since been cited as being responsible for developing the study of Western esotericism into a formalised field, with his 1992 work L'ésotérisme having been cited as marking "the beginning of the study of Western esotericism as an academic field of research". He remained in the chair until 2002, when he was succeeded by Jean-Pierre Brach.

Faivre noted two significant obstacles to establishing the field. One was an ingrained prejudice toward esotericism within academia, resulting in the widespread perception that the history of esotericism was not worthy of academic research. The other was esotericism's status as a trans-disciplinary field, the study of which did not fit clearly within any particular discipline. As Hanegraaff noted, Western esotericism had to be studied as a separate field to religion, philosophy, science, and the arts, because while it "participates in all these fields" it does not squarely fit into any of them. Elsewhere, he noted that there was "probably no other domain in the humanities that has been so seriously neglected" as Western esotericism.

In 1980, the U.S.-based Hermetic Academy was founded by Robert A. McDermott as an outlet for American scholars interested in Western esotericism. From 1986 to 1990 members of the Hermetic Academy participated in panels at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion under the rubric of the "Esotericism and Perennialism Group". By 1994, Faivre could comment that the academic study of Western esotericism had taken off in France, Italy, England, and the United States, but he lamented that it had not done so in Germany.

In 1999, the University of Amsterdam established a chair in the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, which was occupied by Hanegraaff, while in 2005 the University of Exeter created a chair in Western Esotericism, which was taken by Goodrick-Clarke, who headed the Exeter Center for the Study of Esotericism. Thus, by 2008 there were three dedicated university chairs in the subject, with Amsterdam and Exeter also offering master's degree programs in it. Several conferences on the subject were held at the quintennial meetings of the International Association for the History of Religions, while a peer-reviewed journal, Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism began publication in 2001. 2001 also saw the foundation of the North American Association for the Study of Esotericism (ASE), with the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) being established shortly after. Within a few years, Michael Bergunder expressed the view that it had become an established field within religious studies, with Asprem and Granholm observing that scholars within other sub-disciplines of religious studies had begun to take an interest in the work of scholars of esotericism.

Asprem and Granholm noted that the study of esotericism had been dominated by historians and thus lacked the perspective of social scientists examining contemporary forms of esotericism, a situation that they were attempting to correct through building links with scholars operating in Pagan studies and the study of new religious movements. On the basis that "English culture and literature have been traditional strongholds of Western esotericism", in 2011 Pia Brînzeu and György Szönyi urged that English studies also have a role in this interdisciplinary field.

Emic and etic divisions
Emic and etic refer to two kinds of field research done and viewpoints obtained, emic, from within the social group (from the perspective of the subject) and etic, from outside (from the perspective of the observer). Wouter Hanegraaff follows a distinction between an emic and an etic approach to religious studies.

The emic approach is that of the alchemist or theosopher. The etic approach is that of the scholar as an historian, a researcher, with a critical view. An empirical study of esotericism needs "emic material and etic interpretation":

"Emic denotes the believer’s point of view. On the part of the researcher, the reconstruction of this emic perspective requires an attitude of empathy which excludes personal biases as far as possible. Scholarly discourse about religion, on the other hand, is not emic but etic. Scholars may introduce their own terminology and make theoretical distinctions which are different from those of the believers themselves."

Arthur Versluis proposes approaching esotericism through an "imaginative participation": "Esotericism, given all its varied forms and its inherently multidimensional nature, cannot be conveyed without going beyond purely historical information: at minimum, the study of esotericism, and in particular mysticism, requires some degree of imaginative participation in what one is studying."

Many scholars of esotericism have come to be regarded as respected intellectual authorities by practitioners of various esoteric traditions. Many esotericism scholars have sought to emphasise that esotericism is not a single object, but practitioners who read this scholarship have begun to regard it and think of it as a singular object, with which they affiliate themselves. Thus, Asprem and Granholm noted that the use of the term "esotericism" among scholars "significantly contributes to the reification of the category for the general audience—despite the explicated contrary intentions of most scholars in the field."

In popular culture
In 2013, Asprem and Granholm highlighted that "contemporary esotericism is intimately, and increasingly, connected with popular culture and new media."

Granholm noted that esoteric ideas and images appear in many aspects of Western popular media, citing such examples as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Avatar, Hellblazer, and His Dark Materials. Granholm has argued that there are problems with the field in that it draws a distinction between esotericism and non-esoteric elements of culture that draw upon esotericism. He cites extreme metal as an example, noting that it is extremely difficult to differentiate between artists who were "properly occult" and those who superficially referenced occult themes and aesthetics.

Writers interested in occult themes have adopted three different strategies for dealing with the subject: those who are knowledgeable on the subject including attractive images of the occult and occultists in their work, those who disguise occultism within "a web of intertextuality", and those who oppose it and seek to deconstruct it.

title: Western esotericism


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Nana (manga)

Nana (stylized as NANA) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa. It was serialized in the monthly shōjo manga magazine Cookie from May 2000 to May 2009 before going on hiatus. The series centers on Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu, two women who move to Tokyo at the age of 20, with the story focused on Nana O.'s pursuit for fame and Nana K.'s pursuit for romance, all while struggling to maintain their friendship.

The manga was adapted into a live-action film in 2005, with a sequel released in 2006. An anime television series adaptation by Madhouse directed by Morio Asaka aired on Nippon TV between April 2006 and March 2007. All Nana media has been licensed for English language release in North America by Viz Media, which serialized the manga in their Shojo Beat magazine until the August 2007 issue, while also publishing it in the tankōbon format. They released both films in 2008, and their English dub of the anime was broadcast on the Funimation Channel beginning in September 2009.

In 2002, Nana won the 48th Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo category. As of September 2019, the manga had over 50 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time.

Plot
On March 5, 2001, Nana Osaki and Nana Komatsu (nicknamed Hachi) cross paths when they both move to Tokyo after turning 20 years old: Nana O. to pursue a professional music career with her band, Black Stones, on her own merit; and Nana K. to join her friends and move in with her boyfriend. Despite having different personalities and ambitions, the two women find commonalities with each other and, by coincidence, move into the same apartment. However, as they follow their dreams, troubles of fame and love begin to test their friendship.

As the two women continue their lives in Tokyo, Nana K. breaks up with her boyfriend after he cheats on her, while Nana O. reunites with her ex-boyfriend Ren, the guitarist of Japan's current top band, Trapnest. Nana O.'s relationship with Ren eventually leads Nana K. into starting an on-and-off relationship with Trapnest's bassist, Takumi, causing her friendship with Nana O. to become awkward, while falling in love with Black Stones' guitarist, Nobu, at the same time. Ultimately, when Nana K. becomes pregnant, she chooses to marry Takumi instead. Nana O. begins to suffer from panic attacks at the thought of losing Nana K., but she later resolves to win her back from Trapnest by using the popularity and success of Black Stones.

When a tabloid magazine exposes Nana O. and Ren's relationship, this causes Black Stones to skyrocket in popularity and formally debut. Nana O. and Ren, however, start facing troubles in their relationship due to Nana O.'s jealousy of Trapnest and Ren's drug addiction, even as they become engaged. As the tabloids continue to target Black Stones and Trapnest, Nana K. begins to learn secrets behind Nana O.'s family history, including her birth mother. Shortly before Black Stones begin their first tour, their bassist, Shin, is arrested, causing Nana O. to embark on a solo career in the meantime. As she begins to make a name for herself, Ren dies in a car accident. While recovering from his death, Nana O. begins to question her dependency on Nana K. as well as the change in their relationship.

Starting with volume 12, scenes that take place years later are interspersed in the series, showing that in the present, Nana O. is rumored to have died, but Nana K. and her friends learn that she fled to England and try to find her.

Manga
Written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa, Nana first appeared as a one-shot in 1999 in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of Shueisha's Cookie, a sister magazine of Ribon. Nana was later serialized in Cookie, starting in the July 2000 issue (published on May 26),  when it was relaunched as a monthly magazine. Nana ran in the magazine for 84 chapters, until the July 2009 issue (published on May 26), and the series was put on hiatus in June of the same year due to Yazawa falling ill. Yazawa returned from the hospital in early April 2010, but it was not specified when or if she would resume the manga. The individual chapters of Nana have been collected by Shueisha into 21 tankōbon volumes, published under the Ribon Mascot Comics Cookie imprint, between May 15, 2000, and March 13, 2009. Its latest four chapters have not been published in a tankōbon volume.

Nana is licensed for English-language release in North America by Viz Media. It was serialized in Viz's manga anthology Shojo Beat, premiering in the July 2005 debut issue and continuing until the August 2007 issue. They published all 21 collected volumes as of July 6, 2010.

Films
Two live-action film adaptations have been made for Nana. The first, Nana, was released on September 3, 2005. The film stars Mika Nakashima as the punk star Nana Oosaki, Aoi Miyazaki as Hachi (Nana Komatsu), Ryuhei Matsuda as Ren Honjou, Tetsuji Tamayama as Takumi Ichinose, Hiroki Narimiya as Nobuo Terashima, and Kenichi Matsuyama as Shinichi Okazaki. The DVD edition was released on March 3, 2006. The film did quite well at the Japanese box office, grossing more than 4 billion yen, and staying in the top 10 for several weeks. A sequel, Nana 2, was announced right after the first film debuted. However, on August 4, 2006, Toho stated that shooting would begin mid-September and that the film was to be released on December 9, 2006. Miyazaki, Matsuda and Matsuyama would not be reprising their respective roles as Hachi, Ren and Shin; as such, their roles were assigned to Yui Ichikawa, Nobuo Kyo and Kanata Hongō, respectively. Some locations from the manga had been changed for the film, and many plot differences were introduced as well.

Anime
An animated adaptation of Nana was produced by Nippon Television, VAP, Shueisha and Madhouse and directed by Morio Asaka, with Tomoko Konparu handling series composition, Kunihiko Hamada designing the characters and Tomoki Hasegawa composing the music. The series aired from April 5, 2006 to March 27, 2007. The first and third openings and third ending songs are sung by Anna Tsuchiya, who provides the singing voice for Nana Osaki, while the second opening and first and second endings were sung by Olivia Lufkin, who provides the singing voice for Reira Serizawa. The series was published and distributed on 17 DVD volumes by VAP from July 7, 2006 to November 21, 2007. The highest average TV ratings for the series was 6.3% in the Kanto region, which was unusually high for a late night anime. In 2007, Viz Media licensed the anime for release in North America and released it on four DVD box sets between September 2009 and April 2010, including an English dub. Funimation acquired the broadcast rights to Viz Media's dub and it premiered on the Funimation Channel on September 19, 2009. After Viz Media lost the rights, Sentai Filmworks re-licensed the series in 2021 and premiered on its Hidive service on April 22 that same year.

The anime was intended to be equal to the manga, and adapted up to the first chapter of volume 12 to avoid filler. In April 2007, when asked about a continuation of the anime, Junko Koseki (editor of Nana in Shueisha) and Masao Maruyama (former managing director of Madhouse) stated that they had decided to wait until the manga ends before producing more material.

Tribute albums
Nana has inspired several image and tribute albums, including Punk Night: From Nana and Nana's Song is My Song in 2003. Love for Nana: Only 1 Tribute, an album released by EMI Music Japan on March 16, 2005. Several famous artists contributed to it, including English musician Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols, Canadian singer-songwriter Skye Sweetnam, and various Japanese artists.

Video games
A Nana video game for the PlayStation 2 platform was produced by Konami and released on March 17, 2005. A PlayStation Portable game, was released on July 6, 2006. A Nintendo DS game, was released by Konami in June 2007. The voice actors for the PS2 game did not return to reprise their roles for the PSP and DS games, which instead feature the anime's cast.

Reception
Along with Kaze Hikaru, Nana won the 48th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōjo category in 2003; and was also nominated for the 10th Osamu Tezuka Cultural Award. The Young Adult Library Services Association in the United States listed the series in its "Great Graphic Novels for Teens" in 2007. Deb Aoki of About.com ranked Nana as the fifth "Must-Read" shōjo manga series in its "Top shojo Manga Must-Reads" list, with Aoki stating the manga is "a beautifully-drawn series that is filled with heartfelt drama, big city glamor, fabulous fashion, rock and roll sass and many unexpected twists." She also ranked the manga in its "50 Essential Manga for Libraries" list, noting its mature themes and "demonstrates the need for an adult collection." In a survey conducted by Goo in 2012 among 1,939 people, Nana was among the top favorite manga for women.

The first twelve volumes of the manga series have cumulatively sold over 22 million copies. As of September 2019, the manga had over 50 million copies in circulation.

Nana was the top favorite shōjo manga for Oricon Style in 2005. Volume 18 was the second highest selling manga series of 2007. During 2008, volume 19 was the third highest-selling manga and volume 20 was the fifth highest-selling manga in Japan, selling 1,645,128 and 1,431,335 copies respectively. By the end of the year, Nana was the sixth best selling manga with 3,122,146 copies sold. As of 2008, the manga series has sold over 43.6 million copies. In the first half of 2009, Volume 21 ranked as the third best selling manga, having sold 1.4 million copies. In the United States, volume twenty-one debuted at number 9 on the New York Times Graphic Books list for the week of July 10.

title: Nana (manga)


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Electrodynamic suspension

Electrodynamic suspension (EDS) is a form of magnetic levitation in which there are conductors which are exposed to time-varying magnetic fields. This induces eddy currents in the conductors that creates a repulsive magnetic field which holds the two objects apart.

These time varying magnetic fields can be caused by relative motion between two objects. In many cases, one magnetic field is a permanent field, such as a permanent magnet or a superconducting magnet, and the other magnetic field is induced from the changes of the field that occur as the magnet moves relative to a conductor in the other object.

Electrodynamic suspension can also occur when an electromagnet driven by an AC electrical source produces the changing magnetic field, in some cases, a linear induction motor generates the field.

EDS is used for maglev trains, such as the Japanese SCMaglev. It is also used for some classes of magnetically levitated bearings.

Types
Many examples of this have been used over the years.

Bedford levitator
In this early configuration by Bedford, Peer, and Tonks from 1939, an aluminum plate is placed on two concentric cylindrical coils, and driven with an AC current. When the parameters are correct, the plate exhibits 6-axis stable levitation.

Levitation melting
In the 1950s, a technique was developed where small quantities of metal were levitated and melted by a magnetic field of a few tens of kHz. The coil was a metal pipe, allowing coolant to be circulated through it. The overall form was generally conical, with a flat top. This permitted an inert atmosphere to be employed, and was commercially successful.

Linear induction motor

Eric Laithwaite and colleagues took the Bedford levitator, and by stages developed and improved it.

First they made the levitator longer along one axis, and were able to make a levitator that was neutrally stable along one axis, and stable along all other axes.

Further development included replacing the single phase energising current with a linear induction motor which combined levitation and thrust.

Later "traverse-flux" systems at his Imperial College laboratory, such as Magnetic river avoided most of the problems of needing to have long, thick iron backing plates when having very long poles, by closing the flux path laterally by arranging the two opposite long poles side by side. They were also able to break the levitator primary into convenient sections which made it easier to build and transport.

Null flux
Null flux systems work by having coils that are exposed to a magnetic field, but are wound in figure of 8 and similar configurations such that when there is relative movement between the magnet and coils, but centered, no current flows since the potential cancels out. When they are displaced off-center, current flows and a strong field is generated by the coil which tends to restore the spacing.

These schemes were proposed by Powell and Danby in the 1960s, and they suggested that superconducting magnets could be used to generate the high magnetic pressure needed.

Inductrack
Inductrack is a passive, fail-safe magnetic levitation system, using only unpowered loops of wire in the track and permanent magnets (arranged into Halbach arrays) on the vehicle to achieve magnetic levitation. The track can be in one of two configurations, a "ladder track" and a "laminated track". The ladder track is made of unpowered Litz wire cables, and the laminated track is made out of stacked copper or aluminium sheets.

There are two designs: the Inductrack I, which is optimized for high speed operation, and the Inductrack II, which is more efficient at lower speeds.

Electrodynamic bearing

Electrodynamic bearings (EDB) are a novel type of bearing that is a passive magnetic technology. EDBs do not require any control electronics to operate. They work by the electrical currents generated by motion causing a restoring force.

Maglev
In EDS maglev trains, both the rail and the train exert a magnetic field, and the train is levitated by the repulsive force between these magnetic fields. The magnetic field in the train is produced by either superconducting magnets (as in SCMaglev) or by an array of permanent magnets (as in Inductrack). The repulsive force in the track is created by an induced magnetic field in wires or other conducting strips in the track. A major advantage of the repulsive maglev systems is that they are naturally stable - minor narrowing in distance between the track and the magnets creates strong forces to repel the magnets back to their original position, while a slight increase in distance greatly reduces the force and again returns the vehicle to the right separation. No feedback control is necessarily needed.

Repulsive systems have a major downside as well. At slow speeds, the current induced in these coils by the slow change in magnetic flux with respect to time is not large enough to produce a repulsive electromagnetic force sufficient to support the weight of the train. Moreover, the energy efficiency for EDS at low speed is low. For this reason the train must have wheels or some other form of landing gear to support the train until it reaches a speed that can sustain levitation. Since a train may stop at any location, due to equipment problems for instance, the entire track must be able to support both low-speed and high-speed operation. Another downside is that the repulsive system naturally creates a field in the track in front and to the rear of the lift magnets, which act against the magnets and create a form of drag. This is generally only a concern at low speeds; at higher speeds the effect does not have time to build to its full potential and other forms of drag dominate.

The drag force can be used to the electrodynamic system's advantage, however, as it creates a varying force in the rails that can be used as a reactionary system to drive the train, without the need for a separate reaction plate, as in most linear motor systems.

Alternatively, propulsion coils on the guideway are used to exert a force on the magnets in the train and make the train move forward. The propulsion coils that exert a force on the train are effectively a linear motor: an alternating current flowing through the coils generates a continuously varying magnetic field that moves forward along the track. The frequency of the alternating current is synchronized to match the speed of the train. The offset between the field exerted by magnets on the train and the applied field creates a force moving the train forward.

Principles
When a conductive loop experiences a changing magnetic field, from Lenz's law and Faraday's law, the changing magnetic field generates an Electromotive Force (EMF) around the circuit. For a sinusoidal excitation, this EMF is 90 degrees phased ahead of the field, peaking where the changes are most rapid (rather than when it is strongest):

 * $$ \mathcal{E} = -N {{d\Phi_B} \over dt} $$

where N is the number of turns of wire (for a simple loop this is 1) and ΦB is the magnetic flux in webers through a single loop.

Since the field and potentials are out of phase, both attractive and repulsive forces are produced, and it might be expected that no net lift would be generated. However, although the EMF is at 90 degrees to the applied magnetic field, the loop inevitably has inductance. This inductive impedance tends to delay the peak current, by a phase angle dependent on the frequency (since the inductive impedance of any loop increases with frequency).

 * $$K = R + i \omega L \,$$

where K is impedance of the coil, L is the inductance and R is the resistance, the actual phase lead being derivable as the inverse tangent of the product ωL/R, viz., the standard phase lead evidence in a single-loop RL circuit.

But:

 * $$ \mathcal{E} = I K$$

where I is the current.

Thus at low frequencies, the phases are largely orthogonal and the currents lower, and no significant lift is generated. But at sufficiently high frequency, the inductive impedance dominates and the current and the applied field are virtually in line, and this current generates a magnetic field that is opposed to the applied one, and this permits levitation.

However, since the inductive impedance increases proportionally with frequency, so does the EMF, so the current tends to a limit when the resistance is small relative to the inductive impedance. This also limits the lift force. Power used for levitation is therefore largely constant with frequency. However, there are also eddy currents due to the finite size of conductors used in the coils, and these continue to grow with frequency.

Since the energy stored in the air gap can be calculated from HB/2 (or μ0H2/2) times air-gap volume, the force applied across the air gap in the direction perpendicular to the load (viz., the force that directly counteracts gravity) is given by the spatial derivative (= gradient) of that energy. The air-gap volume equals the cross-sectional area multiplied by the width of the air gap, so the width cancels out and we are left with a suspensive force of μ0H2/2 times air-gap cross-sectional area, which means that maximum bearable load varies as the square of the magnetic field density of the magnet, permanent or otherwise and varies directly as the cross-sectional area.

Static
Unlike configurations of simple permanent magnets, electrodynamic levitation can be made stable. Electrodynamic levitation with metallic conductors exhibits a form of diamagnetism, and relative permeabilities of around 0.7 can be achieved (depending on the frequency and conductor configuration). Given the details of the applicable hysteresis loop, frequency-dependent variability of behavior should be of minimal importance for those magnetic materials that are likely to be deployed.

Dynamic
This form of maglev can cause the levitated object to be subject to a drag induced oscillation, and this oscillation always occurs at a sufficiently high speed. These oscillations can be quite serious and can cause the suspension to fail.

However, inherent system level damping can frequently avoid this from occurring, particularly on large scale systems.

Alternatively, addition of lightweight tuned mass dampers can prevent oscillations from being problematic.

Electronic stabilization can also be employed.

title: Electrodynamic suspension