id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
en-wikipedia-org-6201		Western esotericism - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	11278	1367	59	Various academics have emphasised the idea that esotericism is a phenomenon unique to the Western world; as Faivre stated, an "empirical perspective" would hold that "esotericism is a Western notion".[19] As scholars such as Faivre and Hanegraaff have pointed out, there is no comparable category of "Eastern" or "Oriental" esotericism.[20] The emphasis on Western esotericism was nevertheless primarily devised[by whom?] to distinguish the field from a universal esotericism.[21] Hanegraaff has characterised these as "recognisable world views and approaches to knowledge that have played an important although always controversial role in the history of Western culture".[22] 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.[23] Scholars nevertheless recognise that various non-Western traditions have exerted "a profound influence" over Western esotericism, citing the prominent example of the Theosophical Society's incorporation of Hindu and Buddhist concepts like reincarnation into its doctrines.[24] 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.[25] Egil Asprem has endorsed this approach.[26]	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-6201.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-6201.txt