21 Jul Bernd-Christian Otto
Bernd-Christian Otto
LECTURE
Practitioner-scholarship and the co-production of knowledge in the study of esotericism
The tides are turning. Over the past two and a half decades, scholarly research into esoteric traditions and practices thrived and became more and more established in modern academia. Milestones in this process have been the foundation of the HHP in Amsterdam in 1998, the establishment of the ESSWE in 2005, as well as the launch of peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Aries, correspondences) and book series (e.g., Brill, Oxford University Press, Palgrave) dedicated to the study of esotericism. Until very recently, this scholarship tended to distance itself from practitioner positions which were often deemed to be grounded in religionist agendas and thus considered methodologically uncritical or historically biased when perceived through the scholarly lense. Whether or not these stereotypes are justified, in recent years we have seen a shift in this unfortunate trajectory, a shift that has largely been inspired by the emerging debate about practitioner-scholarship in the study of esotericism (the elephant in the room). No conceptual groundwork has yet been laid out for how to do practitioner-scholarship in a methodologically sound manner, hence the prospects of enhanced and potentially more fruitful cooperations between scholars and practitioners remain unclear. As a consequence, the bridge between scholars and practitioners is still a fragile one, and it may be blocked by unjustified apprehensions and stereotypes on both sides. The paper discusses these matters by presenting two recent scholarly initiatives – CAS-E (www.cas-e.de) and RENSEP (www.rensep.org) – that strive for bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners, thus building new grounds for a proper co-production of knowledge in the study of esotericism.
Bio
Bernd-Christian Otto is a scholar of religion located at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Germany. His research focuses on magic and esotericism, where he combines different methodologies such as conceptual history, discourse analysis, social theory and ritual studies. He has a broad expertise in the history of Western learned magic, and is, since a few years, particularly interested in its modern and contemporary manifestations (magick). Otto is co-founder and one of the research coordinators of the Center for Advanced Studies ‘Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective’ at FAU (www.cas-e.de); he is a board member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (www.esswe.org); and he is the scientific director of the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices (www.rensep.org). His book publications include Defining Magic: A Reader (Routledge 2013); Magical Manuscripts in Early Modern Europe: The Clandestine Trade in Illegal Book Collections (Palgrave MacMillan 2017); and Fictional Practice: Magic, Narration and the Power of Imagination (Brill 2021). Most recently, Otto edited a special issue on the topic ‘Western learned magic as an entangled tradition’ in the peer-reviewed journal Entangled Religions 14/3 (2023).
