A Web of Relations: Interpreting Indian Yoga and Tantra as Forms of Esotericism

Abstract

Permeable boundaries generate anxiety.¹ Academic disciplines and scholarly categories tend to aspire toward clear marks of delineation and mutual distinction. This is particularly the case with newly established areas of research. It is thus not surprising that Antoine Faivre, one of the founders of the academic study of Western esotericism, in several instances argued against the inclination to make a claim for a “universal esotericism.”² According to this view, which is not isolated, esotericism should be seen as a specifically Western cultural phenomenon. The reasons for this position appear sound: there is a historic continuity among Western esoteric currents, and in the West there exists a specific esoteric universe of discourse that is closely related to its own exoteric wing, represented by the normative Abrahamic religions, in particular Christianity. Closer analysis, however, will demonstrate that the above conceptualization of esotericism lies principally in its heuristic expediency: it does make sense, and it is appropriate to study esotericism as a Western phenomenon for the reasons mentioned above, but there is no inherent rationale to adopt this orientation as the only valid approach. Like any other cultural notion, the category of esotericism is a theoretical construct³—a discursive formation—and as such it may be used as a tool with which to approach what appear to be reasonably similar manifestations of human thought and behavior in other cultures.