Esoteric Transfers and Constructions

Mark Sedgwick is Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Convenor of the European Network for the Study of Islam and Esotericism (ENSIE). Francesco Piraino is a postdoctoral scholar at the Institut d'ethnologie méditerranéenne, européenne et comparative (IDEMEC - CNRS) and the director of Centre of Comparative Studies on Spiritualities and Civilizations at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy.

"This book explores with remarkable empirical depth. ... This is exemplified by Leo Strauss’s thesis on esotericism, particularly his exploration of the art of esoteric writing, where he claimed to have discovered Plato’s esoteric ideas within Al-Farabi’s writings. This book proves invaluable to readers and students of esotericism, offering both innovative insights and a remarkable breadth of thematic versatility. " (Muhammad Adiz Wasisto, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 51 (1), March, 2025)

• 1. Introduction: The Esoteric and the Mystical, Transfers and Constructions.- 2. Seekers of Love: The Phenomenology of Emotion in Jewish, Christian, and Sufi Mystical Sources.- 3. Rabbi Salim Shabazi and Sufism: Synthesis or Juxtaposition?.- 4. “And you should also adjure in Arabic:” Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Formulas in the Solomonic Corpus.- 5. Compelling the Other: Esoteric Exorcism as a Reflection of Jewish–Christian Social Tensions in Premodern German Demonic Ritual Magic.- 6. Tlemcen, Algeria: A Would-Be Esoteric Colonial Settlement of the fin de siècle.- 7. Alfarabi as Leo Strauss’s Teacher of Platonic Esoteric Writing: Leo Strauss’s Rediscovery of Esotericism and its Islamic Origin.- 8. Aleister Crowley and Islam.- 9. The Sufi Shaykh and his Patients: Merging Islam, Psychoanalysis, and Western Esotericism.- 10. Sufism and the Enneagram.- 11. “A Remarkable Resemblance”: Comparative Mysticism and the Study of Sufism and Kabbalah.- 12. Heretical Orthodoxy: Eastern and Western Esotericism in Thomas Moore Johnson’s “Platonism”.- 13. Astrology, Letters and Cosmos: Ferid Vokopola’s Syncretism.