Arthur Versluis What Is Esoteric? Methods in the Study of Western Esotericism Arthur Versluis - Chair of the Department of Religious Studies and Professor, College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University (USA), versluis@msu.edu In this article the author analyzes contemporary approaches to the study of esotericism. The article includes an overview of the influential methodologies of A. Faivre and W. Hanegraaff, complemented by the author's original approach that he calls "sympathetic empiricism". The author focuses on extreme cases: pro-esotericism and anti-esotericism, reductionism and traditionalism. From the author's point of view, a truly academic approach would find a median position between these extremes, combining the benefits ofemic and etic approaches. The author also deals with the problem of definition of esotericism, developing his original concept, where "gnosis" is used as a definitive quality common to all esoteric currents. Keywords: esotericism, sympathetic empiricism, reductionism in the study of religion, perennialism, traditionalism, gnosis. For the original, see: Versluis, A. (2002) " What is esoteric? Methods in the Study of Western Esotericism", Esoterica IV: 1 - 15. Translation and publication rights are granted by the author. page 11UNTIL RECENTLY, there were very few scientific papers devoted to Western esotericism in general. Of course, there were various articles and books devoted to aspects of Western esotericism such as alchemy or Rosicrucianism, but there was no sense that these particular fields formed the broader field of Western esotericism itself. The work of mid-twentieth-century authors such as Francis Yates can be considered a turning point in this regard, but even at that time there is no one who clearly defines "Western esotericism" as a field for interdisciplinary research. This situation has changed thanks to the work of Antoine Faivre (born 1934), who in the last quarter of the 20th century defined this field of ... Read more