“Summarize the history of esotericism in two pages? You don’t think of that!” Asked to shed light on the evolution of these beliefs, the few French specialists on the subject widen their eyes. Too complex, too dense, they warn. So we had to argue. Although little known, even marginal because little taught, their discipline should still have an interest for the public, beyond the sole pleasure of accumulating knowledge? “Obviously !” concedes Jean-Pierre Brach, holder of the chair of History of esoteric currents in modern and contemporary Europe at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. “These themes represent an important part of our cultural universe, with contemporary extensions even in the media, video games, comics, television series. It is important to understand where all this comes from”, underlines the historian .
The New Age, which remains the backdrop for current esoteric beliefs, was not born with The Children of Aquarius, the famous book by American journalist Marylin Ferguson, published in 1980, which marks the advent of this protean movement. Discovering its roots allows us to better understand its influence. Let us first note that it may seem anachronistic to use the word “esotericism” before the end of the 18th century. This term appears for the first time in a German text of 1792, “in the context of debates relating to the secret teachings of the Pythagoreans”, noted the historian Antoine Faivre, now deceased, in his What do I know? on Esotericism. Nevertheless, the heterogeneous set of currents of thought that it designates is much older than it. “In all cultures, there are people who develop a discourse aimed at achieving absolute knowledge of the world, notes Damien Karbovnik, sociologist and historian of religions. This ‘truth’ is built against the dominant culture: religion for a long time, science today.”
Astrology, spiritualism and initiatory societies
Specialists usually leave aside the Middle Ages, where the occult sciences, such as magic, astrology or alchemy, developed above all. “It is customary to date the formation of Western esotericism from the Renaissance. But it is constituted from the rediscovery of older sources”, develops Damien Karbovnik in his doctoral thesis. Texts from the 3rd century then hold our attention: the Corpus Hermeticum, a set of reflections likely to lead man to salvation, understood as an inner experience of the divine, breaking with the materiality of the body. It was also at this time that Pic de la Mirandola drew inspiration from Jewish Kabbalah to develop a Christian Kabbalah, supposed to reveal the hidden meaning of sacred texts. Giordano Bruno is another key figure, whose work ranges from philosophy to the occult sciences. It is not limited to areas authorized by the Christian Church, which will be worth to end up on the stake of the Inquisition. Germany is not to be outdone, with Paracelsus then Jakob Böhme, who develop a magical conception of the world.
The Corpus Hermeticum, a 3rd century text.
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“However, we must not think that the entire scholarly culture of the Renaissance is made up of enthusiastic followers of magic and the Kabbalah. There are criticisms and reluctance, of course”, notes Jean-Pierre Brach. However, these bodies of knowledge are accepted, they are part of the surrounding culture. “There is a vision of the world which is common to the scholars of the time”, assures the historian. And to remember that the astronomer Johannes Kepler, at the origin of the laws describing the properties of the movements of the planets around the sun, also made horoscopes. The gap between science and esotericism only widened at the end of the 16th century. “The esoteric currents are based a lot on the study of analogies and correspondences. Scholars then reject this knowledge. They want to study nature for what it is, to understand its functioning, without theological a priori”, says Jean-Pierre Brach . However, changes are taking place at different rates depending on the discipline and the country. When the Paris Observatory opened in 1672, astronomers were thus prohibited from making horoscopes. On the other hand, there are treatises on physiognomy, which claims to determine the character of individuals from their physical appearance, until the 19th century.
Initiatory societies, Rose Croix and Masonic lodges, appeared from the end of the 17th century, around the idea of an ancient knowledge of the secrets of nature, transmitted through the ages. “But thereafter, a good part of the evolution of esoteric currents will consist in trying to find compromises with science”, recalls Jean-Pierre Brach. Franz Mesmer, for example, seeks to demonstrate the existence of animal magnetism, according to which a fluid fills the universe, and whose poor distribution would cause disease. Challenged by the Academy of Medicine in 1784, his theories will continue to fuel scientific controversy. The same goes for spiritualism, which spread like wildfire after 1850. If the Lyon teacher Hippolyte Léon Rivail Denizard, better known as Allan Kardec, was not at the origin, he contributes to its immense success with its Book of Spirits (1857). “He does not define himself as an occultist. On the contrary: he wants to found a kind of science of the soul and its posthumous manifestations on an experimental basis”, underlines Jean-Pierre Brach. Communication with the dead and turntables were then widely appealing, especially in intellectual circles. Victor Hugo, Camille Flammarion or Théophile Gautier are fervent followers.
From Rudolf Steiner to the Order of the Eastern Temple
In this atmosphere, emerges an essential character for the sequel: Helena Blavatsky. “With other spiritualists, she created the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875,” says Léo Bernard, president of the French-speaking Association for the University Study of Esoteric Currents. According to her, mankind is descended from spiritual beings from other planets, and all religions possess an aspect of a more universal truth. She wants to bring about a new world spirituality, by incorporating oriental wisdom, Hinduism and Buddhism, discovered during her travels in Asia. “The turntables give way to karmas, mantras, yoga, reincarnation and invisible masters living in the Himalayas”, notes Pascale Duval, spokesperson for the National Union of Associations for the Defense of Individuals and Families Victims of Sects, and author of a thesis on the New Age.
From theosophy and its many divisions will arise movements that are still influential today. Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy, for example. First theosophist before distancing himself, this polygraph created his own current of philosophical-religious thought, mixing reincarnation, karma and demonic entities. He will give his doctrine practical variations in education with the Steiner-Waldrof schools, health with anthroposophical medicine, or even agriculture with biodynamics. Far from being a simple mystical philosophy, anthroposophical movements are today closely monitored by the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Aberrations (Miviludes).
Among the descendants of theosophy, we also find Alice Bailey, among the first to speak of the “New Age”, or Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, whose theories on the superiority of the German Aryan race may have inspired Hitler, according to some historians. Or Aleister Crowley and his Order of the Temple of the Orient, to which a certain… Lafayette Ron Hubbard, who would later found Scientology, would be initiated. Finally, it is impossible not to mention the mysterious George Gurdjieff. “Indispensable but little known, it takes up the precepts of theosophy by adding practice and techniques of mental manipulation”, indicates Hugues Gascan, president of the Study Group of the sectarian phenomenon (GéPS). He disseminates his ideas via small secret groups, some of which “still remain very active today”, assures Hugues Gascan. It is to one of its famous followers, the journalist Louis Pauwels, that we owe the diffusion in France in the 1960s of a certain taste for science fiction and the paranormal, thanks to the success of his book The Morning of the Magiciansthen review Planet.
The birth of the New Age
All these seeds sown, the New Age can blossom. Its cradle is on the west coast of the United States, within the Esalen Institute. The writer Aldous Huxley, another famous follower of Gurdjieff, helps to make it “a center for the development of human potential”. Against the background of hashish, LSD and sexual freedom, the objective is “to encourage the deep development of the individual”. With economic upheavals, the rise of individualism and the hippie counter-culture, the movement found favorable ground. “The desired goal is, according to Marylin Ferguson, the establishment of an ideal planetary civilization”, recalls Pascale Duval in her thesis.
“Mystical-esoteric nebula”, according to sociologist Françoise Champion, difficult to grasp, the New Age has long been seen as naive and harmless. It is far from it. Its pillars: communication with higher entities (channeling), astrology, holism (no separation between body and mind, between humans and the Earth seen as a single entity called Gaia…), modified states of consciousness, or the concept of the collective unconscious of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. A protean and encompassing ideology, which opposes religions and science, and proves conducive to sectarian excesses: “If the change of the world only passes through individual transformation, commitment to society and democratic debate become useless”, warns Pascale Duval. In fact, many sects have been inspired by it. Starting with the Order of the Solar Temple. The collective suicides of its followers will lead to a general awareness, and a brake on the expansion of the New Age. But recent developments show that this was only temporary.