Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge (Hanegraaff 2025)

Detailed table of contents (headings) extracted by Michael Hoffman

Contents:

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Citation

Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge (Wouter Hanegraaff, May 29, 2025)

Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge
Wouter Hanegraaff, May 29, 2025, purchased June 10, 2025.
https://www.amazon.com/Esotericism-Western-Culture-Counter-Normativity-Knowledge/dp/1350459690/ —

Replaces 2013 book Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. 2nd, expanded & revised version.

Blurb:

“This accessible introduction by the world’s leading expert explains why the study of esotericism is not a marginal pursuit but belongs at the center of modern research in the humanities.

“Reflecting updates in the field since the foundational publication Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2013), Wouter J. Hanegraaff demonstrates that the exclusion of “rejected knowledge” from normative accounts of Western civilization is the reflection of a narrow Eurocentric ideology that became the template for discrediting and ultimately destroying so-called “primitive” cultures associated with “superstition” and “pagan idolatry” during the global colonial age.

“Rejecting this “rejection of rejected knowledge” means restoring the suppressed to its legitimate place in history and cultural analysis.

“Through this approach, Wouter J. Hanegraaff depicts a radically inclusive vision of the Greater West and its forgotten histories, from pagan antiquity through Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures up to secular modernity and beyond.”

Detailed Table of Contents

Michael Hoffman – August 11, 2025, outline extracted July 2025.

Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge

Contents – iv

Missing 2 levels; only chapter-level entries.

Introduction – 1

1 – What Do We Mean by Esotericism? – 7

  • From Definitions to Prototypes – 8
  • Prototype 1: Enchantment Before Modernity – 10
  • Prototype 2: The Modern Occult – 12
  • Prototype 3: Inner Traditions – 15
  • The Discursive Turn – 17
  • This Book’s Perspective: Rejected Knowledge – 21
  • Esotericism and Western Culture – 23

2 – A Short History of Rejected Knowledge – 31

  • Gnosis and Spiritual Practice in Late Hellenistic Culture – 31
  • The Occult Sciences – 35
    • h3: Magic, Astrology, and Alchemy in the Latin West – 35
  • Jewish Esotericism – 39
  • Islamic Esotericism – 43
  • The European Renaissance – 49
  • Naturphilosophie and Christian Theosophy – 56
  • Initiatic Societies – 59
  • The Modernist Occult – 63
  • Esotericism after the Second World War – 71

3 – Internal Eurocentrism – 79

  • Early Christianity and the Church of Rome – 82
    • h3: The Apologetic Fathers – 82
    • h3: Prisca Theologia and Philosophia Perennis – 84
    • h3: The Anti-Heretical Position – 86
  • Protestantism – 87
    • h3: Anti-Apologeticism – 88
    • h3: The Pietist Reaction – 90
  • Modernity – 92
    • h3: The History of Philosophy – 93
    • h3: The Romantic Reaction – 96
  • Conclusion – 98

4 – Worldviews – 101

  • Metaphysical Radicalism – 102
  • Platonic Mediation – 105
  • Alchemical Mediation – 110
  • A Cautious Reminder – 114

5 – Knowledge – 117

  • Reason, Faith, Experience, Gnosis – 118
  • Propositional Knowledge in Esoteric Contexts – 121
  • Altered States of Knowledge – 124
  • Knowing How – 129

6 – Practice – 133

  • Control – 136
  • Knowledge – 137
  • Amplification – 138
  • Healing – 140
  • Progress – 141
  • Contact – 142
  • Unity – 143
  • Pleasure – 145

7 – Modernization – 147

  • The Resistance against History – 148
  • Instrumental Causality – 151
  • Globalization – 155
  • Evolution – 159
  • Psychology – 162
  • The Spiritual Supermarket – 165

8 – Esoteric Transdisciplinarity – 171

  • Religion, Philosophy, Science – 171
  • The Visual Arts – 173
  • Literature – 177
  • Music – 180
  • The Social Sciences – 182
  • Politics – 185

9 – The Global Importance of Esotericism – 191

  • The Externalization of Internal Eurocentrism – 192
  • Extermination – 195
  • Counter-normativity – 198
  • Counter-normality – 200
  • The Greater Relevance of Esotericism – 204

Notes

  • Introduction – 209
  • Chapter 1 – 209
  • Chapter 2 – 217
  • Chapter 3 – 230
  • Chapter 4 – 231
  • Chapter 5 – 233
  • Chapter 6 – 236
  • Chapter 7 – 238
  • Chapter 8 – 243
  • Chapter 9 – 250

Appendix 1: Glossary of Technical Terms – 260

4-1/2 pages

Appendix 2: Sources and Resources – 265

  • Organizations – 265
  • Libraries
  • University Programs
  • Dictionary Project – Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, & https://brill.com/display/serial/BERL – Brill Esotericism Ref’c Library
  • Academic Journals
  • Academic Monograph Series
  • Podcasts and YouTube channels – 269

Bibliography

Index of names

Index of subjects

/ end of outline of all headings

Critique per the Theory of Psychedelic Eternalism

ENDNOTES SUCK!! Footnotes or inline is good.

Endnotes – the way they are implemented – is for the purpose of trying to make it AS DIFFICULT AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY MAKE IT, literally trying to make it as hard as possible.

The formatting of books to implement endnotes OMITs CHAPTER INDICATORS, THEN RELY ON CHAPTER NUMBERS: FKKING PERVERSE!

The “podcasts” section p. 269 lists:

The Unity section (and the book, and every writer except me – and Ann Taves and Breau) buys into the “positive unity nondual” model of mystical experience.

The Egodeath theory must reject all external conceptual lexicon eg “perennialism” or “sacred mushrooms”, or “the divine”, or “surrender”.

Egodeath theory Core Concepts catalog
https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/11/17/glossary-for-the-egodeath-theory/

I do not control those unstable, wildcard terms.

Moshe Idel (video at YouTube) says the word ‘perennialism’ is unusable, because everyone uses it with a different meaning.

Terms from outside the Egodeath theory do not apply to the Egodeath theory.

Terms from outside the Egodeath theory (eg “determinism” & “free will”) do not apply to the Egodeath theory, and they fail to represent the Egodeath theory.

Corollary:

Critiques of theories other than the Egodeath theory do not apply to the Egodeath theory.

the Egodeath theory is not historical scholarship; it is theory.

I’m not a historical scholar; I am a theorist, working in mind science, including analogies per Douglas Hofstadter.

I am not a religionist and I do not assert the position that religionists assert.

In the “Moving Past Mysticism in Psychedelic Science” debate:

  • I reject ‘naturalism’ as they define it (Matthew Johnson; Chris Letheby).
  • I reject ‘mysticism’ as they define it (Wm Richards; Roland Griffiths; Thomas Roberts).

eg Hanegraaff’s critiques of “religionism”, “the spirit realm”, “the divine”, have something to do w/ the Egodeath theory, but apply in an extremely roundabout, distant way, that is of little use.

The focus and framework is too different to apply.

Religionism (or “perennialism” or “essentialism”) is too different from the Egodeath theory, for Hanegraaff’s critiques of religionism to be useful to the Egodeath theory.

Hanegraaff rejects claim X, but the Egodeath theory does not make claim X.

Hanegraaff p. 15 section “Prototype 3: Inner Traditions [Religionism]” rejects the claim that a historian – to do an adequate job – must be an initiate.

I (the Egodeath theory) do not assert that a historian (to do an adeq treatmt) must be an initiate.

One of my driving goals is to free and separate understanding Transcendent Knowledge, vs. experiencing the altered state.

Transcendent Knowledge must be expressed per STEM, and modeled and clearly explained just like any other technical topic.

I assert that a historian, to do adeq job, must have an adequate explanatory model of Psilocybin transformation, including how myth (esotericism) describes Psilocybin transformation via analogies.

p. 16 is not a critique of the Egodeath theory, as an explanatory model of:

1) how mental model transformation happens in the loose cognition altered state, and of

2) how analogy (myth, esotericism) describes that Psilocybin transformation re: the mental model of control.

p. 16 bottom is about something else: (quoted terms Hanegraaff uses):

  • scholarship
  • study
  • school
  • studies
  • the academy
  • scholarly methods
  • adademic research
  • scholarly investigation
  • scholarly methods

/ end quoted terms

The persepective from within STEM dept rather than Humanites dept. is different: in STEM, the job is to construct an explanatory model (of mental model transformation), including analogies.

Not “scholarship”. Scholarship helps confirm that model.

That Cognitive model from the STEM dept is required, to inform historical scholarship in the Humanities dept.

Historical scholarship lacking the explanatory model (of mental model transformation in loose cognition) cannot possibly be adequate for understanding and recognizing the themes.

I disagree with the ppl who Hanegraaff argues against.

Religionists say that words cannot “convey” Transcendent Knowledge. I disagree.

Also I approach “secret” differently than religionists.

The underlying, veiled workings of personal control, are made perceptible in the altered state, ie the loose cognition / the eternalism state of consciousness.

The position that Hanegraaff is against re: Prototype 3, marries terms like “secret”, “initiate” — but instead, I emphasize the can-do ability of STEM type communication, per Models in Science.

p. 18: religionism = secretive.

The Egodeath theory is the OPPOSITE of secretive, and destroys and brings to an end, the secrecy mentality/ premise/ foundation.

The Egodeath theory is the opposite of religionism, and rejects common-core mysticism and perennialism.

common-core mysticism and perennialism bakes-in the dominant, wrong theory – the old theory.

The old theory: Transcendent Knowledge = positive unity nondual.

The new theory: Transcendent Knowledge = Psilocybin transformation / control transformation / psychedelic eternalism.

the Explicit Psilocybin paradigm

the Secret Amanita paradigm

Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science
by Lorenzo Magnani (Editor), Tommaso Bertolotti (Editor), 2017
“Reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of model-based reasoning.”
https://www.amazon.com/Springer-Handbook-Model-Based-Science-Handbooks/dp/3319305255/ —

Words can adeq’ly explain Transcendent Knowledge.

The Egodeath theory (the theory of psychedelic eternalism ) explains Transcendent Knowledge.

Hanegraaff’s argument against Religionism is not an argument against the Egodeath theory.

Religionism, as a position and set of assertions, is not the Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory does not assert that understanding Transcendent Knowledge requires being an initiate and having the experiences.

the Egodeath theory asserts that understanding Psilocybin transformation, as an explanatory model, is required, for historians to discuss and comprehend esotericism.

Esotericism is a garbled, poor, failed expression of Psilocybin transformation

Esotericism is a dim reflection of Transcendent Knowledge / Psilocybin transformation.

Esotericism & myth indirectly indicates Psilocybin transformation / Transcendent Knowledge. the Egodeath theory is based in STEM-type views: that we can communicate technical knowledge via direct explanatory model, in the ordinary state.

Nondual Advaita Vedanta Monistic

p. 102.

quantum mysticism of Capra & Bohm

What’s wrong with “unity”/ nondual:

The unity experience / cessation of self-other boundary is indeed a Psilocybin experience (eg Psilocybin beginner experience), but the true focus of Psilocybin transformation (advanced Psilocybin experience) is about personal control system , control transformation, not positive unity / nonduality.

Video: Top Secret Psychedelic Study: Why Priests are Being Drugged by Scientists | Matthew Johnson (Danny Jones, Aug. 11, 2025)

Video title:
Top Secret Psychedelic Study: Why Priests are Being Drugged by Scientists | Matthew Johnson
Aug. 11, 2025
ch: Danny Jones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v76xgCpW5LM&t=3882s —

Desc:

“Matthew Johnson, PhD, is one of the world’s most accomplished scientists on the human effects of psychedelics and has conducted seminal research in the behavioral economics of drug use, addiction, and risk behavior.

“Dr. Johnson, an expert in behavioral pharmacology research, has decades of experience.

“In his most recent role, he served as a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine.”

/ end of desc

1:04:40 — Moshe Idel (in a different video) says the word ‘perennialism’ is not usable, b/c everyone redefines it constantly.

The explicit definition of ‘perennialism’ is innocuous: religious experience has something (unspecified) in common.

The pernicious, bait-and-switch, covert definition of common-core mysticism and perennialism is that mystical experience is specifically nondual positive unity (covert modern Advaita Vedanta), and a ton of dubious political philosophy is also snuck in.

I could only accept the word ‘perennialism’ if I strictly define it, every time; so, it’s not a usable word; it’s a shell game; a trojan horse.

“Psychedelics Cause Neuroplasticity” = Meaningless per Matt Johnson

around 1:10:00, Johnson explains that many types of drugs cause neuroplasticity and the concept is overblown in psychedelic science.

The lexicon of the Egodeath theory is happily missing pseudo-explanatory constructs:

  • neuroplasticity
  • default-mode network
  • ego dissolution
  • nondual unity –
  • surrender

The terms that I don’t employ are borderline direct terms, semi-usable.

The shared, public terms are subject to re-definition by other people from outside the Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory explains and critiques, but does not leverage such terms.

My own lexicon is rooted in the Egodeath theory framework of meanings.

Egodeath theory Core Concepts catalog:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/11/17/glossary-for-the-egodeath-theory/

Matt Johnson on psychedelic ego inflation

1:11:58 “They have big egos not just despite having used psychedelics but they have big egos because of the psychedelics, the whole ego inflation, the messiah complex.”

71*60+58 = 4318s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v76xgCpW5LM&t=4318s

Shallow Refusal of Transcendent Knowledge Content in Favor of Surface Historical Developments

Hanegraaff rejects essentialism, in a certain network of meaning.

the Egodeath theory can be called essentialism, ie, the mind in the altered state that matters, the eternalism state of consciousness, undergoes a particular mental model transformation. I would assign “essentialism” to that particular model of how the mind works/transforms, and to the referent of analogies.

Esotericism analogies describe, above all, Psilocybin transformation.

Hanegraaff does a complicated move where he starts by caring about historical development of surface style details, saying that the work at hand is to trance that surface development, and he rejects “perennialism” and “essentialism” in a zero-sum game.

Hanegraaff says either we trace surface history details, OR we assert a common core.

I have different objections to ‘perennialism’ and common-core mysticism and perennialism.

They (every scholar) wrongly say the core of mystical experience (or esotericism) is positive unity nondual/ suspension of experiencing & mentally constructing the self-other boundary.

That is NOT what Transcendent Knowledge or gnosis is focused on.

The essence of Transcendent Knowledge or gnosis is control transformation; Psilocybin transformation. Not nondual positive unity, like everyone says.

Hanegraaff Bad Definition of Transcendent Knowledge = Fact of Rejection

As posted at this site before: bad idea:

Hanegraaff doesn’t write about Transcendent Knowledge; he writes about “the rejection of knowledge”.

Hanegraaff defines Transcendent Knowledge in terms of “rejected knowledge”. Gives no insight, no direct insight.

That’s too indirect of an attribute: anything in garbage can, = the definition of Transcendent Knowledge.

Partridge’s Bad Definition of Transcendent Knowledge = Fact of Counter-Culture

Christopher Partridge doesn’t write about Transcendent Knowledge; he writes about “the counterculture”.

Christopher Partridge does same move, re: occulture.

When Christopher Partridge goes to describe Transcendent Knowledge, he doesn’t at all do that, but gives us reductionism to social dynamics.

He doesn’t say anything about Transcendent Knowledge; he only talks about social dynamics.

Christopher Partridge REDUCES Transcendent Knowledge to merely social dynamics, where any sawdust placeholder content can serve just as well.

Original Post about the Book

My initial announcement of the book:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/05/07/idea-development-page-29/#esotericism-in-western-culture-counter-normativity-and-rejected-knowledge-wouter-hanegraaff-may-29-2025

Hanegraaff Shares the Same, Entirely Wrong Model of Mystical experience as if Positive Unity instead of Dependent Control

Hanegraaff is interested in history, but I am interested in how the mind works, on Psilocybin. His dismissal of “perennialism” and “essentialism” applies to academic conduct of historical scholarship – not to the theory of how the mental model transforms; Psilocybin transformation; control transformation.

Ultimately, no matter how excellently scholars do the Hanegraaff type scholarship, they are severely limited by lacking my model of mental model transformation; my explanatory model of how the mind works, on Psilocybin. Hanegraaff’s criticisms of how common-core mysticism and perennialism harm historiography, cannot even touch at all, my scientific explanatory model of how the mind works, a model that is REQUIRED for scholarship on history of Western Esotericism to at all be successful.

The academic history of Western Esotericism is SUPERFICIAL GARBAGE, as long as it lacks my explanatory model of how the mind works on Psilocybin — despite all of Hanegraaff’s learned, sophisticated explanations of how “perennialism” and “religionism” and “common-core mysticism and perennialism” and “essentialism” prevent valid historiography.

The critiques of essentialism APPEAR to rebut the Egodeath theory, but that’s an illusion.

Hanegraaff critiques essentialism as it is done in academic historiography – which has nothing to do with the Egodeath theory.

The Egodeath theory is like essentialism and is comparable to essentialism, but the Egodeath theory is not perennialism, is not historiography, and is not essentialism.

I’m against the shared, wrong model held by ALL scholars, and against their notions of perennialism, historiography, and essentialism.

You can’t say the Egodeath theory is any existing defined position. Not even “eternalism”, given that the existing wrong theory of or conception of ‘eternalism’:

  • Fails to consider the control aspects of eternalism.
  • Wrongly pits eternalism vs presentism (as if an Ontology/ Epistemology field of Philosophy), when instead, people ought to pit eternalism vs. possibilism (b/c this is actually an Experiential Phenomenology field of Philosophy).

literalist ordinary-state possibilism with autonomous control
analogical psychedelic eternalism with dependent control

The Egodeath theory is not essentialism, b/c the Egodeath theory is not historiography – the Egodeath theory is a scientific theory of how the mind transforms on Psilocybin.

The Egodeath theory, even where it is comparable to essentialism, is exempt from Hanegraaff’s critiques.

The Egodeath theory is a theory (explanatory model) of mental development, supported by analogies in religious myth.

The Egodeath theory is not concerned with historiography of the development of brands and flavors of esotericism.

When I advocate a kind of essentialism for the Egodeath theory, and the Mytheme theory, I am NOT doing what Hanegraaff is arguing against.

We are not in the same arena or field of endeavor or angle of attack.

Our work is complementary. After Hanegraaff integrates the Egodeath theory & the Mytheme theory, THEN Hanegraaff can write a successful history of Western Esotericism, instead of his cosmic disaster of a star-free “cosmos” in Hermetic Spirituality, which fabricates a tale of mental model transformation as if from eternalism to possibilism.

Mental model development is actually from possibilism-thinking to eternalism-thinking, eventuating in holding two complementary ways of thinking: integrated possibilism/eternalism thinking.

A critique of “essentialism”, to be valid for and relevant to the Egodeath theory, would have to be framed within this concern — modelling mental model transformation on Psilocybin — not framed within the concern of clueless academics doing sound historiography of Western Esotericism.

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity (Wouter Hanegraaff, 2022) https://egodeaththeory.org/2022/07/14/hermetic-spirituality-and-the-historical-imagination-altered-states-of-knowledge-in-late-antiquity-hanegraaff/
https://www.amazon.com/Hermetic-Spirituality-Historical-Imagination-Knowledge/dp/1009123068/

The concepts ‘essentialism’ and ‘perennialism’ are external to the Egodeath theory, not part of its internal custom lexicon, conceptual vocabulary, eg as defined and cataloged at the Egodeath theory Core Concepts catalog:
https://egodeaththeory.org/2020/11/17/glossary-for-the-egodeath-theory/

copied from idea development page 30, then expanded:

Wouter Hanegraaff – Esotericism in Western Culture (2025): the Unity section is pages 143-145.

p. 145, : “unification with divinity or the universe”,

“pleasurable … experiences of cosmic unity”.

p 144: “panentheist”,

“the cosmos or universe as a whole”

“our habitual condition of separation is overcome”

“an experience of “cosmic” unity with all that is”

“unity with the One”

“an awareness of our inseparable connection with the whole of reality”

“Hermetic spirituality [is] radical NONDUALITY”

“no distinction between … human … and … the divine”

“experienced perfect unity … with God’s “cosmic” consciousness of everything that exists in the world of space and time.”

etc.

I could go on quoting all the authors along these lines indefinitely, because all scholars share this wrong model.

I am glad that starting in mid-2025, eg after reading Ann Taves article, I am now able to crack open any spirituality book by any writer, and immediately find this false, “positive unity” model of what Transcendent Knowledge allegedly is about.

Taves wrote same constructions as I had developed in the past couple years:

  • puts quote marks around “mystical”.
  • writes “Stace’s conception of mystical experience”.

— just like I had started to do.

After reading Taves` article, I then could readily spot the problem (the Positive Unity model of mystical experience) in the book Sacred Knowledge by William Richards.

A few years earlier, 2015, I identified Ken Wilber as nothing but merely warmed-over Advaita.

Now I know, from my recent reading of the Nov. 2023 article by Breau, that that brand of Advaita (held by Ken Wilber and everyone) is Positive Unity; the wrong notion (a bunk hypothesis cancerously grown into an illegit, elaborated, wrong theory) that:
gnosis = temporary cessation of mentally constructing the experience of the self/other boundary.

Every writer about myth and symbols claims “the snake is sacred because it sheds skin, like rebirth”, yet no historical mythic art pictures ever depict shedding skin, which is a false, pseudo explanation.

The dominant, false explanation of mystical experience is positive unity (vs. control transformation).

Taves & Breau exempted? p. 98 of Hanegraaff book https://egodeaththeory.org/2025/05/07/idea-development-page-29/#esotericism-in-western-culture-counter-normativity-and-rejected-knowledge-wouter-hanegraaff-may-29-2025 lists:

  • p. 99: the Eranos religionists:
  • H Corbin
  • T Suzuki
  • J Faivre
  • C Jung
  • M Eliade
  • J Campbell
  • G Scholem

I could even interpret, that my formal cursing of academic books in 1994, was a declaration that for all their detailed labor, they are all on a wrong foundation;

All books in mid-1990s held the wrong, “positive unity” model of Transcendent Knowledge, but my Jan 1988 breakthrough provided a real alternative to their shared, reigning error: the “control transformation” model of Transcendent Knowledge; Psilocybin transformation.

I surmise that ALL of the scholars in that Eranos religionism group, held the dominant, false, Advaita model of “mystical experience”.

Hanegraaff should realize:

Religionism = Staceanism = the “positive unity” theory.

I cynically call it a ‘theory’, rather than a bunk and failed ‘hypothesis’.

The “positive unity” theory can be called a ‘theory’ in that it is a developed, sky-castle, elaborated, WRONG hypothesis; a pseudo, false explanatory model like the Ptolemaic model (Earth-centered) cosmos model.

I only grant the Positive Unity model of mystical experience or gnosis as “the old theory” (Kuhn and Thagard).

The theory of psychedelic eternalism (control transformation) is “the new theory”.

The old theory is a false theory, and the new theory has potential to give greater explanatory power.

Advaita = non-dual; temp suspension of mentally constructed experience of self-other boundary.

The latter is meant when say “ego dissolution” per OAV 1994 questionnaire by Dittrich.

By the O (Oceanic) dimension name, Dittrich means that wrong model: “Transcendent Knowledge = suspension of the self-other boundary.”

Adolph Dittrich thinks this group of Psilocybin effects is positive unity experiencing.

Likewise, as Ann Taves explains:

By the A (Angst; Dread – of what? of “ego dissolution”) dimension name, Dittrich means that wrong model: “Transcendent Knowledge = suspension of self-other boundary.”

Dittrich thinks this group of Psilocybin effects is negative unity experiencing.

The dominant, wrong model is: bad trip is caused by your fault because you resisted unity experiencing; ego dissolution; cessation of mentally constructing the experience of the self/other boundary.

All the authors — all mistaken — assume ego dissolution is the opposite of mystical experience, since they equate mystical experience with positive unity experience, and they think that a bad trip is a negative unity experience, which they label as “ego dissolution”, taken to be negative and non-mystical or anti-mystical experience.

All of the writers/ scholars think that the opposite of mystical, pleasant unity experience, is non-mystical, unpleasant, “ego dissolution” experience.

All of that, they frame in an assumed, wrong framing, the “positive unity” model of mystical experience.

But all of that is false, pseudo-explanation – an entire analysis and explanation that all writers assert, all based on a false notion of mystical experience, as if centered on cessation of experiencing the self-other boundary, when in fact mystical experience is centered on experiencing the two levels of control.

1st Ed.: Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2013)

Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed
February 28, 2013; purchased on March 14, 2013.
Wouter Hanegraaff
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Esotericism-Guide-Perplexed-Guides/dp/1441136460/ —

Motivation for this Page

I extracted the outline in a text file, now I need to format and print it so I can use it when reading the book.

See Also

pending

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Author: egodeaththeory

http://egodeath.com

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