Occult Roots of Religious Studies: On the Influence of Non-Hegemonic Currents on Academia around 1900

How this book fits

Traditions: Theosophy and its descendants Twentieth-century magic
Role in the tradition: Secondary source A study of the tradition from outside it: history, scholarship, anthropology or reference.
Public attention: Unmeasured No Wikidata entry could be matched to this book with confidence, so no attention label was assigned.

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Library of Congress open-access PDF ↗ tile.loc.gov checked October 20, 2026

In this study

Studies of the exchanges between occult and esoteric currents and the emerging academic study of religion around 1900.

The editors' introduction (pp. 1–5) argues that early religious studies did not develop separately from occult and esoteric currents. It identifies Theosophy as an important setting for comparative work and for translations of non-European religious texts, while tracing the later academic boundaries that obscured those exchanges.