Western esotericism
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Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united in t
A colored version of the 1888 Flammarion engraving
The Magician, a tarot card displaying the Hermetic concept of "as above, so below". Faivre connected this concept to 'correspondences', his first defining characteristic of esotericism.
A later illustration of Hermes Trismegistus
Pentagram of Éliphas Lévi
Gnosticism
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Gnosticism is a collection of different religious and philosophical ideas and systems that fully developed by the mid-second century among sects of early Christianity and other faiths. It is not a sin
Western esotericism
…religious authorities. The earliest traditions of Western esotericism emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, where Hermeticism, Gnosticism and Neoplatonism developed as schools of thought distinct from what became mainstream Christianity. Renaissance Europe saw increasing interest in many…
Page from the Gospel of Judas
A lion-faced, serpentine deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, a depiction of Yaldabaoth
Mandaeans in prayer during baptism
Mandaean Beth Manda (Mashkhanna) in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, in 2016, a contemporary-style mandi