Virtually all the
main aspects of Western esoteric traditions have their foundations in antiquity
and, in fact, make direct or indirect reference to their origins there.
Nevertheless, many scholars have abandoned earlier concepts which characterized
the esoteric in the sense of the Greek meaning for ‘inner’ or/and ‘secret’,
whereby others see it as a particular worldview.
With the rise of the
Roman Empire, there was a notable change in people's religious needs. Greek
rationalist philosophy had made the gods abstract and remote from human needs.
While public worship of the Olympian gods and agricultural rites were
maintained, the absorption of independent cities and states into the empire had
created a climate of multiculturalism and religious relativism. At the same,
time, urbanization removed people from the settled life, customs, and religious
practices of the countryside. Increased social mobility, the breakdown of
strong family units, and cosmopolitanism all fostered a need for a more direct
and personal relationship with the divine than the official state cults could
offer. New religions, mystery cults, sages, prophets, magicians, and healers
arose in response to these new circumstances. The cosmopolitan nature of
Hellenistic Alexandrian culture chiefly expressed itself in religion through
syncretism. Given colonial contact with the oriental world of Egypt and Chaldea
(Babylonia and Assyria), the rational mind of Greece combined with the
enthusiastic cults and mysterious wisdom traditions of other nations, to create
new religious belief and practice. Alexandrian culture became adept at
"philosophizing" and systematizing the exotic mythology, theosophy,
and gnosis of the East and introducing their oracles, apocalypses, and
initiatory lore to the Western mind.
Ancient Mysticism in Mesopotamia and Israel
Alexandrian Hermetism,
Neoplatonism, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus:
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