KHMW van der Aa Oeuvre Prize Humanities 2025​

It was a great honor for me to receive this prize for my entire scholarly oeuvre, from the oldest academic organization in the Netherlands. This year, 2025, the prize was awarded in the category Philosophy & Study of Religion (incl. Theology). Official jury report here. For an interview on the KHMW's site (in Dutch) see here. See 2nd video on the linked page; award speech by Prof. James McAllister at 1:17.05; my speech at 1:23:50.

Esotericism and the Forgotten History of the West

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Another long conversation (Dutch with edited English subtitles) with my cousin Marco Hanegraaff at his Youtube channel Marco Today. This time we speak about my new book Esotericism in Western Culture: Counter-Normativity and Rejected Knowledge.​

Hermetic Spirituality

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A long conversation (Dutch with edited English subtitles) about my book Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination, hosted by my cousin Marco Hanegraaff at his Youtube channel Marco Today.​

Metaphysical Foundations of Radical Empiricism 

in the Study of Esotericism

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In this keynote lecture for the international conference Esotericism and Philosophy at the University of Helsinki on 12 June 2025, I explain how I evolved from "methodological" agnosticism and empiricism towards a philosophy of radical agnosticism and empiricism.

Ist Esoterik gefährlich? (Is esotericism dangerous?)

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A German/French TV documentary (no English subtitles) about esotericism and its role in contemporary society, with some special attention to conspiracy theories. Bertolt Meyer interviews Nora Pösl and myself.

Esotericism: Counter-Normativity & Historical Imagination

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An interview with Jason Anderson on his Youtube channel We Are Being Transformed. We talked about my new book, touching upon Internal Eurocentrism & the Greater West, the Discursive Turn, Counter-Normativity & Counter-Normality, and of course about all things Hermetic. 

Arcanum: Interview 

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In this conversation with Ike Baker, I discuss such topics as the study of esotericism, noetic perception and the hallucinating soul in the Hermetica, and my concept of Altered States of Knowledge. 

Trisduction : Interview about the Hermetica​

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In this conversation with Faridul Islam I discuss a whole series topics related to Hermetic spirituality, from the origins of the Hermetica in Roman Egypt to the "Hermetic Renaissance" of the 15th century, with special attention to Lodovico Lazzarelli. 

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The Turkish Connection

A very nice conversation with Ugur Ozdemir of the Ekopolitik channel, at the occasion of the Turkish translation of my book Esotericism and the Academy. We talked about all kinds of topics that you can imagine, from Internal Eurocentrism and Terminological Imperialism to Counternormativity and Counternormality, and last but not least the need for a bit of intellectual humility (ca. 33.30 and after).

The Chinese Connection

Two Chinese students visited Amsterdam last year, to participate in the annual Summer School on esotericism. Apparently there's a lot of interest in China for the study of esotericism, and this was a great opportunity for Marco Pasi and me to explain a bit what we're doing and why we find it important. Many thanks to Zeng Shen for the excellent transcriptions and translations into Chinese!

Counter-Normativity and Radical Empiricism in the Study of Esotericism.

My lecture on this topic can be found here between 0:30 and 1:05. I gave it at the conference "Philosophy & Study of Esotericism" organized by Olli Pitkänen at the University of Amsterdam, on 5 June 2024. Spoiler: Everything is Empirical! [please ignore 2 annoying small mistakes in the powerpoint; and see the longer and updated "Metaphysical Foundations..." version above.

Hermetica in Amsterdam, the City of Dissent

This is a short promotional video made at the occasion of the 15th anniversary (2014) of the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. Guest appearances by Sybolt Noorda (former President of the University of Amsterdam), Tessel Bauduin (former PhD student at HHP) and myself.  

Hermetic Spirituality & Altered States of Knowledge

On 20 October 2022, I gave this lecture at the Embassy of the Free Mind (Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica) in Amsterdam, about my new book Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination. With thanks to the EFM for the invitation, Dr. Lucinda Martin for her introduction and moderation, and her staff for the high quality of this video. 

Esotericism and Democracy

I was invited by the German Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education) to give the opening lecture on 5 September 2022 for their conference "Esotericism and Democracy: A Tense Relation." It found it worrying to see how strongly German public perceptions of our field are still dominated by stereotypes and prejudice rather than reliable critical scholarship.

Interview about Hermetic Spirituality

Angela Puca invited me to talk about my book Hermetic Spirituality at her very popular Youtube channel "Angela's Symposium." I am very happy with the result, as I think we managed to cover almost all the important topics. Many thanks to Angela for asking all the right questions and making the right comments at the right moments.

Reasonably Irrational: Theurgy and the Pathologization of Entheogenic Experience

In this online lecture at the Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, I argue that if we deny or marginalise the clear evidence for entheogenic practice in late antique theurgy, it is hard to avoid traditional pathologizing interpretations of experiential practices that can in fact be rationally accounted for.

Hermetic Spirituality

On August 31 I gave the opening lecture for the new Master program "Spirituality and Religion" at the University of Amsterdam. I talk about why "spirituality" should be taken seriously as a scholarly topic next to "religion," and illustrate this by going into a specific phenomenon: the Hermetic spiritual movement of Roman Anquity. 

On 13 september 2019 I gave the opening keynote lecture at the 2nd Trans-States conference organised by Cavan McLaughlin at the University of Northampton.

Revisiting my first love, music, I spoke about the great German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, trying to explain his unique musical language and the spiritual worldview that inspired him. Many thanks to my friend Jeff Kripal for the wonderful introduction.  

The best interview I ever gave about what the study of Western esotericism is all about can be found here at the Swedish channel Axess TV. Much of the credits must go to the truly excellent interviewer Thomas Gür, who asked exactly the right questions at the right moments. The interview was done in 2013, during a conference about Hilma af Klint organized by the Ax:son Johnson Foundation.

A few days before the big ESSWE7 conference in Amsterdam, July 2019, Franck Agier of the French channel Baglis TV interviewed me about the study of Western esotericism. I was quite exhausted at the time, and that's visible enough, but thanks to some smart editing by Baglis TV I think the final result is good enough.

This is the first out of three "Infinite Fire" webinars that were made possible by the renowned Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam.

In this first one, I speak about the meaning and history of Platonic Orientalism (not to be confused with Edward Said), and why it is central to the history of Western esotericism.

Second in the series of three "Infinite Fire" webinars that were made possible by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam.

In this one I explain why new research about previously ignored figures such as Lodovico Lazzarelli leads to a completely new perspective on Frances Yates' famous concept of The Hermetic Tradition of the Renaissance.

My third and final webinar in the "Infinite Fire" series facilitated by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam.

Here I try to give a general introduction to the worldview of Jacob Böhme, the German visionary whose work stands at the origin of the Christian Theosophical tradition.

Earl Fontainelle's continually expanding series "The Secret History of Western Esotericism" (SHWEP) is easily the best podcast introduction to the study of Western esotericism. Having just launched this new initiative, Earl did a long interview with me (including background music provided by local builders plus a guest appearance of my cat Pillows).

In this short interview I speak about how I first got interested in the study of Western esotericism, about the center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, and most of all our collaboration with the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. Having gone through a difficult period, the BPH has now moved to a new location, the "House with the Heads" and is known as the Embassy of the Free Mind.

Alternatives to Monotheism. 

A lecture I gave in 2009 at the Instituto Cervantes, Utrecht, as part of a program on Post-Secularism. I have always been fascinated by the history of the battle of exclusive monotheism against "idolatry." Here are some of my thoughts on that topic as I saw it at the time. Eventually this line of argument became important to my Esotericism and the Academy. 

Entheogenic Esotericism

This lecture got published in Egil Asprem & Kennet Granholm, Contemporary Esotericism (2012), who organised this excellent conference in Stockholm.

I argue that the role of psychoactive "entheogenic" substances in the history of esotericism has been seriously neglected and needs to be recovered. 

Contemporary Esotericism

Round table discussion at the Stockholm conference organized by Egil Asprem and Kennet Granholm (2012), with Christopher Partridge, Jay Johnston, Kocku von Stuckrad, and myself. An excellent collective volume came out of this event.  

Carl Gustav Jung and the Eranos Circle

In this lecture at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel, I talked about the central role that Carl Gustav Jung played in the Eranos circle, and the enormous impact that the latter had (and still has) over common perceptions of "Western esotericism" in and outside the academy.

Astral Daguerrotyping: Photography and the Theosophical Imagination. This lecture got published as "The Theosophical Imagination". I gave it twice: once at a conference about Theosophy at Columbia University (2015), en then under a different title here at the 8th international conference of the ASEM in St. Petersburg (2016). It is really all about the forgotten "science" of psychometry (photo: pioneer William Denton).

Magic, Trance & Agnosticism

The Dutch scholar Jan Platvoet has been a decisive influence on my thinking about religion, including my insistence on methodological agnosticism. I gave this lecture at a conference about Platvoet at the University of Leiden (9 june 2015), in Jan's honour at the occasion of his 80th birthday. In attempt to latinize his name, I pronounced myself a Planopedian scholar of religion.

The Role of Gnosis in Western Esotericism

I gave this opening keynote lecture at the International Symposium Ways of Gnosis: Mystical and Esoteric Traditions from Antiquity to the Present Time (co-organized by the ASEM) at the Rudomino-All Russian State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow, 10 April 2013.

Thanks are due to Ekaterina Genevieva and the Ritman family.