Special Issue of Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 37 (2025)
Guest editor Bernd-Christian Otto
Table of Contents:
- “Introduction: Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective”, Bernd-Christian Otto
- “Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective”, Michael Lackner, Dominik Müller, Andreas Nehring, Bernd-Christian Otto
- “Esotericism and Religious Studies: Historical Relationships and Contemporary Challenges”, Carole Cusack
- “What’s Alternative about Alternative Rationality in CAS-E’s Definition of ‘Esotericism’?”, Mark Q. Gardiner and Steven Engler
- “Here, There & Everywhere: Esoteric Practices and the Global Agenda”, Wouter J. Hanegraaff
- “Esoteric Practices: Of Secrecy, Resilience and Politics”, Elizabeth A. McAlister
- “Sex, Magic, & Rockets or the Implications of the Babalon Working for Theories of Belief and Rationality”, Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm
- “Esoteric Practices in a Reflexive and Critical Perspective: Comments on the Project Description for ‘Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective'”, Hugh Urban
- “Afterword”, Michael Lackner, Giovanni Maltese, Dominik Müller, Andreas Nehring
An excerpt from the “Afterword” (p.147) to the special issue illustrates the increasing role that the awareness of matters around power has been playing in CAS-E’s latest analytical developments:
[W]e need to be aware that resemblances are not merely ‘there’, waiting to be ‘discovered’ by researchers but, rather, that they also depend on the situatedness of those who “look and see”, and assess these said resemblances. Thus, the task of the researchers includes critically investigating the sedimented practices of looking and comparing as well as the epistemic interests and presuppositions that inform our intuitions. In other words, if adapting the concept of “family resemblances” is not to become theoretically and methodologically evasive, it is necessary to interrogate “why specific features are taken into account and on what grounds similarities are declared” (Maltese et al 2019: 11)
