Esotericism

Prof. Dr. Monika Neugebauer-Wölk (History)

Prof. em. Dr. Manfred Beetz (German Studies),
Prof. Dr. Michael Bergunder (Theology),
Prof. Dr. Werner Nell (Comparative Literature),
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Stolzenberg (Philosophy)

The Rational – the willingness to account for every possible opinion and every action with the 'most sufficient' reasons possible – appears in the eighteenth century above all in a public sphere undergoing structural transformations. The diffusion processes through which more and more content from early-modern esotericism in scholarly milieus and pansophistic or Masonic circles becomes widely discussed and subject to historical criticism is an important topic in the development of a civil public sphere and its discursive internal rationality at the turn of the eighteenth century. A contradictory understanding of knowledge and rationality is subject to diverse transformations and convergences such as the rationalization of esoteric models of thought, commonly identified today as 'enlightened esotericism'. A paradigm of such diffusion processes and constellations of tensions is the result of efforts to increase the public tolerance and social acceptability not only of Christian but also of non-Christian religious forms from the hermetic, mystic, cosmosophic and theosophical scholarly discourses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, through public discussion and new social forms in the eighteenth century. Esotericism is inseparably connected with religious Enlightenment as dogmatic, orthodox Christian belief systems become confronted with religious alternatives. These alternatives not only claim to be accessible via individual thought through their content, but by simply existing as alternatives they insist on rational consideration and, furthermore, appeal directly to the rationality of educated public discourse. At the same time, the political and social conditions of the eighteenth century in Europe make it inevitable that such religious alternatives can only be cultivated with great rhetoric, organizational and theatrical skill, in a precarious balance between publicity and secrecy. This thematic orientation of the research group of the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of the European Enlightenment ('Enlightenment within the field of modern esotericism') mobilizes the disciplines of history, German studies, philosophy and religious studies. It relates thematically to the project fields of Pietism, hermeneutics, behavioural discourses and contributes to the development of a inter-religious history of European religion which is not solely fixated on Christianity.