HERMES AND THE SPIDER GOD: INVISIBLE TEXTS AND HIDDEN SUBJECTIVITIES IN THE STUDY OF ESOTERICISM

HERMES AND THE SPIDER GOD: INVISIBLE TEXTS AND HIDDEN SUBJECTIVITIES IN THE STUDY OF ESOTERICISM GEORGIA VAN RAALTE This chapter falls somewhere between an opinion piece and academia proper. It lies in an uncomfortable space between critique and speculation, just as its purpose is to probe the supposed boundary between practitioner and academic. The category-blurring, boundary-crossing, meeting-at-the-margins nature of the Trans- States conference both motivated the content of this piece, and opened the door for such an approach. Haiti, as we know it, was born in 1492, when it was discovered by the Spanish, who quickly set to work on a genocidal project to rid the fertile island of its indigenous population. Spain held the island until 1625, when it was taken by France, by whom it was held until 1711. During this 200-year period slave traders scoured the Atlantic coast of Africa for slaves to export to this new Haiti. The men and women who arrived came from hundreds of different tribes, their languages often mutually incomprehensible and their pantheons distinct. Catholicism was exported to Haiti during this time, with all its occult paraphernalia of intermediary saints, ecstatic contemplation, possession and gilded ritual. Voodou arose through a mingling of this Catholicism with the beliefs and practices of Guinea, Congo and Dahomey. It is neither African nor European, but a fusion, a religion unique to the displaced humans of Haiti who were forced to live like cattle. Voodou has thus always been an explicitly and actively political form of religion. The first Revolutionary Period in Haiti lasted from 1789 until 1804. Tradition marks the beginning of this revolution with a Voodou ceremony, and Voodou houngans are recorded as having gathered support for and lead the anti-colonial uprisings. Haiti won independence in 1804, but this was relatively short-lived, for in 1916 Haiti was occupied by US forces, who exported the image of exotic and grotesque Voodou as the religious and cultural Other par excellence. In 1971, Jean-Claude Duvalier came to power. History remembers him as a cruel dictator, and throughout the 1970s and 80s Duvalier used Voodou to strengthen his political position. He incorporated Houngans into his police force, and propagated stories of his own powers and sorcery. In today’s mainstream culture Voodou has been reduced to a caricature, used particularly by American films and TV shows to represent an exotic, dangerous, and Satanic Other. Voodou has also had an unparalleled influence on contemporary (particularly US) understandings of magic. It acts as a counterpoint to the New Age in its sanitised, middle-class forms, being most popular (both in the cultural imagination and in reality) with people of colour and lower classes. Now, considering the complex colonial history of Haiti, it seems to me particularly significant that Voodou is not studied as part of the Grand Narrative of the so-called Western Esoteric tradition, but has so far largely been the preserve of Anthropologists. Many other American esoteric currents are studied within this Western canon, as are the many esoteric aspects of Indian religion which flourished in Britain in the 20th century. Haiti is in many ways quite unique, and it problematizes our convenient academic circumscription of the Western versus the non-Western. Geographically, Haiti is as far West as one can travel before falling off the edge of the world. It is neither Western, nor strictly non-Western, for it is an artificial environment. The Haitian people, after the 15th century, were not indigenous. They had been brought there, against their will, bought and maintained by Westerners for Western profit. They came from a number of different locales: their indigenous spirits, African spirits, were transplanted, merged and changed at the same time as they encountered the Catholic pantheon of saints. As we look at these historical facts, and begin to question our grand narratives of indigeneity and appropriation, it becomes increasingly difficult to claim that Voodou should not have a place within the canon of Western Esotericism. While we would not want to subsume this unique form of spirituality under its Western counterparts, at the same time, refusing to recognise the Western-led artificiality of the birth of Haiti and of Voodou allows the Western world to continue its blindness to the ongoing legacies of its colonial past. TELL MY HORSE In the 1930s Zora Neale Hurston undertook extensive ethnographic work across Haiti and Jamaica, which she published in the 1939 book Tell My Horse. In this work Hurston does not only carefully document Voodou practices in Haiti, but also explores the complex connections that exists between Voodou and African-American culture and folklore. Hurston also offers an avenue to explore the symbolic, structural and linguistic links between Voodou and European Esotericism. In doing this, she presents a startling discovery: that European Esoteric ideas were imparted on Haitian culture by their Catholic colonisers/slaveholders; that these were integrated alongside multiple forms of African folklore to create a new diaspora religion; and that this new religion has since been exported, and has become hugely culturally influential both in the US and on the world stage. Hurston’s book thus problematises the Western/non-Western divide in the contemporary Study of Esotericism, as well as the Western academy’s continuing colonial blindness. It also reveals the appropriation model of religious transfer to be woefully insufficient and simplistic, propagating the myth of the noble savage and their static native tradition. Haiti’s Voodou tradition, as it is recorded in Hurston’s work, is animistic, ecstatic and non-textual, a blend of African magical religion, Catholicism, and 17th century Hermetic magic, and Hurston notes countless parallels, correspondences and currents of influence. She explains that although the Voodou Loa are often represented by icons of Catholic saints, they should not be confused with or reduced to such, for the Loa’s relationship with the western pantheon is complex. When we begin to examine the Haitian Rada Loa we are first met with Damballah, the creator god, the sky-father and great serpent. Already in the image of a snake-god we can find links to both the Jewish creation myth and occult cosmology, as well as to traditional African religions (particularly Dahomey). Damballah’s day is Wednesday, which offers a linguistic link with Odin. Of Damballah, Hurston states the following: All over Haiti it is well established that Damballah is identified as Moses, whose symbol was the serpent. This worship of Moses recalls the hard-to-explain fact that wherever the Negro is found, there are traditional tales of Moses and his supernatural powers that are not in the Bible, nor can they be found in any written life of Moses. […] All over the Southern United States, the British West Indies and Haiti there are reverent tales of Moses and his magic. Zora Neale Hurston, Tell My Horse (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 116. It is worth noting that this idea of Moses as the first magician is found in many places in the Western occult tradition; in particular, images of Moses often have him in the same pose as the magician of the tarot, with one arm raised and one dropped (a pose which is also a physical representation of the swastika). The truth of the transmission history of the Moses/magician figure will probably never be uncovered in its complete complexity; but this in itself emphasises an important facet in the transmission of religious ideas. It is becoming increasingly accepted that an appropriation model is no longer appropriate for today’s global community; the figure of Moses suggests that this model has never been appropriate. Freya Erzulie, Haitian Loa of love and sex, shares a linguistic link with the Norse pantheon through her name; however, she also offers a fascinating correspondence with the Western phenomenon of Sexual Magic. “What is the truth?” Dr. Holly asked me, and knowing that I could not answer him he answered himself through a Voodoo ceremony in which the Mambo, that is the priestess, richly dressed is asked this question ritualistically. She replies by throwing back her veil and revealing her sex organs. […] The ceremony continues on another phase after this. It is a dance analogous to the nuptial flight of the queen bee. The Mambo discards six veils in this dance and falls at last naked, and spiritually intoxicated, to the ground. It is considered the highest honor for all males participating to kiss her organ of creation, for Damballa, the god of gods, has permitted them to come face to face with truth. Hurston, Tell My Horse, 113-114. The Mambo is a Voodou priestess; within Voodou mambos are often considered more powerful than Houngans, the epitome of Haitian womanhood; however, on the world stage a black woman who practices folk magic that includes animal sacrifice and sexual ritual is about as liminal as it is possible to be—and indeed it is precisely thus, through her liminality, that she gains her power. Thus, her power is both dependent upon her liminality, and cements her liminal status. It is also fascinating to consider the structural similarities between Haitian Voodou and the Western esoteric traditions. Hurston states: Voodoo has more enemies in public and more friends in private than anything else in Haiti. None of the sons of Voodoo who sit in high places have yet had the courage to defend it publicly, though they know quite well and acknowledge privately that Voodoo is a harmless pagan cult that sacrifices domestic animals at its worst. […] So since Voodoo is openly acknowledged by the humble only, it is safe to blame all the ill of Haiti on Voodoo. Hurston,Tell My Horse, 252. This same status quo could describe the relationship between various occult or magical practices and the religio-cultural mainstream, from the time of the witch trials to the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the 1970s. In fact, as we begin to look structurally at the picture of world esotericism, we can see that Voodou lies in a similar structural position to the Western Esoteric canon as the Western Esotericism does to western culture more generally. ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM AND INVISIBLE TEXTS When it was released in 1939 Hurston’s groundbreaking work was met with mixed reviews. Hurston’s was one of the first academic, anthropological texts written by a black woman, and was certainly the first work on Voodou to be written by such. It was Hurston’s blackness which had given her such free access to her Haitian sources; however, it also left her an outsider within the academy. In the 1993 essay “The Problem of Invisibility: Voodoo and Zora Hurston” Wendy Dutton, “The Problem of Invisibility: Voodoo and Zora Neale Hurston,”; Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. Vol. 13, No. 2 (1993): 131-152. Wendy Dutton explores the text’s reception in detail. She notes that Hurston’s detractors were without exception male, while the majority of her supporters were female. Hurston was criticised for being both ‘too close’ to her material, and not scientific enough; but also for not being Haitian, and, therefore, not having an authentic voice which had legitimacy to speak about Haitian tradition. This resulted in the text quickly becoming obscure, and Dutton considers how this invisibility has lasted in the years since its publication. Interestingly, and despite this article, the relative invisibility of Hurston’s text within academia has continued to this day. Exploring the contemporary opposition to her work, opposition which was emotional and personal, one cannot help but read something more into these objections. Beneath this discourse lurks an ongoing desire to keep Other traditions unexpressed; a belief that Western language and Western rationalism are unsuited to speak about these irrational, non-Western things. Hurston’s critics claim that she cannot speak about Voodou as an outsider, nor can her work be academically legitimate if she is an insider. These voices present a catch-22 that demand this Other tradition remain unconsidered, unexplored and unexpressed—a demand which has largely been met. In addition, the direct ad hominem attacks on Hurston suggest that she faced a further problem: that of her non-white, non-male subjectivity, which threatened the monumental academic norm. The word monumental is used to portray the way that this seemingly objective voice is in fact predicated on a male body; the male body is the norm, and is thus sexless, as opposed to the female body, which is in contrast explicitly sexed and complicating in its overflowing. This monumental voice appears sexless, but is male; appears raceless but is always the colonising force; appears classless but is strictly of the upper and the educated classes. Hurston wrote as a black woman; her most interesting insights come from her reflexivity, from her own sense of herself as an outsider. This is what makes her viewpoint so unique and valuable; yet, from the point of view of the academy, this kind of subjectivity was unacademic, and thus illegitimate. Thus, there are two intertwined issues at stake in the reception of Hurston’s text. The first is the explication of a tradition which runs counter to the grand narratives of Western Esotericism, reception history and colonial history. The second is the academic who crosses the subjective line, who rejects, or is unable to fit, the demand for the objective, monumental academic voice. When looked at together, these things offer a fascinating insight into the structure of our field and of our tradition. Hurston’s work is far from being unique in its reception; there are a host of texts where accusations of appropriation are combined with ad hominem arguments in order to silence the text or author, allowing a grand narrative to be constructed which conveniently rejects those outliers which do not fit. This homogenising project has been going on from the birth of the field: Eric Dingwall (1890-1986), an anthropologist and psychical researcher who was arguably one of the first to study sexual magic in an academic setting, was dismissed with the nickname ‘Dirty Ding’; John Allegro (1923-1988), a linguist, archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, published his study of the relationship between language, religion and mycology in 1970. Allegro’s book was hugely controversial; here was a highly respected scholar openly discussing the knowledge he had gained through his personal use of entheogens, and problematising the globally-accepted grand narrative of human culture. The book was so controversial, in fact, that Allegro was entirely discredited; his career was destroyed, and he was even humiliated by the BBC. Allegro’s case was so extreme, it appears to have served as a warning light for the academics who followed him. In a contemporary example of this pattern, Tanya Luhrman’s Persuasions of the Witches’ Craft (1989) was problematised because of the way it delved into the complexities of maintaining so-called academic objectivity when dealing with contemporary occult practice. These texts and authors are all very different, however they share three key similarities: they all problematised the established grand narratives; they all broke the unspoken academic rule of objectivity-posturing; and they were all met with ad hominem arguments, far more so than academic refutation. Finding this tripartite structure of rejection across this disparate collection of texts, we can begin to see the pattern of force at play in the repression of explicit subjectivity within the study of Esotericism. To quote George P. Hansen, who I will discuss further below, it is clear that “going native, especially regarding the paranormal, has severe consequences for a professional career;” thus, we find ourselves in the current paradigm, in which scholars must distance themselves from the very phenomena which they study in order to maintain their status within the academy. George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal (Philadelphia: Xlibris Corp., 2001), 188. And indeed, while many members of the older school of academic esotericism would claim that it is precisely for these reasons that we must continue to distance ourselves from practice and subjectivity if we are to be respectable, I would argue the opposite. If engagement with the issue of subjective experience became the norm within the study of esotericism, and if this was explicitly linked to critical theoretical approaches, the study of esotericism could become revolutionary. The study of esotericism is at a crucial juncture. We have gained acceptance for our field as a legitimate area of academic enquiry. Now, if we wish to remain relevant, we must embrace the lessons of critical theory, particularly those of privilege and subjectivity. As we begin to see that the appropriation model is woefully inadequate for discussions of contemporary religion, so too perhaps we will also begin to question this institutional, scholarly insistence on objectivity. ANTI-STRUCTURE AND THE ACADEMY In another, more contemporary, example of an invisible text, The Trickster and the Paranormal, George P. Hansen argues that liminality and mysticism are inseparable; that humankind’s tendency to associate Others, whether gendered, racial or religious, as being in some sense closer to the spiritual world (which often manifests as the belief that these Others are in league with the devil or demons) is in fact a structural law. The figure of the trickster pervades the world of occultism; their constellation Hansen argues that, when it comes to the trickster and other such archetypes, “it is helpful to think in terms of constellations of qualities rather than presuming linear cause-and-effect relationships. When some aspects of a constellation are found in a situation, on should be alert for others.” The key qualities of the trickster archetype are (socio-political) liminality, sexual deviance, deception, play and mystical experience. is found in Pan, the Fool, the Fisher King, Lucifer/Satan, Mercury/Mercurius and Hermes. Little academic work has so far been done, however, on the way the trickster archetype problematises the academic study of esotericism. The relationship between the trickster archetype and the socio-economic and cultural structures upon which it plays is highly complex. The trickster is dependent on these structures, for they must exist in order to be tested and broken. At the same time these socio-symbolic structures depend on the trickster to offer a tolerated margin of mess and avenue for exuberant outpouring, activities necessary to flourishing humanity which come about through boundary crossing and the refutation of categories. Thus, the trickster is both a structural law, and that which refutes such. Magic, Esotericism and the Occult, along with the paranormal, the supernatural, ‘psi’ and the mystical, are all intimately tied to issues of boundary, distinction and foundation. Magical phenomena violate boundaries, blur distinctions and overturn foundations; conversely, when boundaries are violated, distinctions blurred or foundations overturned, the magical erupts into the world. This is precisely why magical phenomena are so difficult to understand within a rationalistic worldview, and its offspring, the world of modern academia. For these institutions depend upon structure, categorisation and the circumscription of intellectual spaces. If academics in the field of Western Esotericism are to make any sense of our own position in the knowledge economy, we must recognise that what we are studying is explicitly and purposefully anti-structural and opposed to classification. As Hansen states, “psi does not merely violate categories; rather subversion of categories is its essence. As such, there are limits as to what can be said about it within our typical logical frameworks.” Hanson, Trickster and Paranormal, 32. The phenomena which are the focus of the study of Esotericism both appear in liminal conditions, and are the cause of them. The relationship between these phenomena and the structures upon which they play is so difficult to describe precisely because it breaks with the strict sense of causality inherent in our grammatical structures. Recognition of this complex relationship should be built into the very structure of research within our field, like a qlipothic equivalent to each of our classifications, chaotic and utterly alien to our communication structures; that which was left behind upon the creation of this ordered world. It is precisely the crossing of boundaries, the in-betweens and transformations of religion, the liminal spaces, which are the objects of the study of esotericism. We must recognise, and express, the limitations of the categories we impose upon these phenomena, and the way that these phenomena are inherently transboundary. Thus, for example, that which we call ‘Western’ in the esoteric context is what has happened in the West as non-Western and non-rational modes of thought have emerged or migrated. Locating our field at such interstices emphasises the complex inter-relationality of modes of thought, symbols, archetypes and thought-forms as humanity spreads geographically and temporally. “THAT HABIT OF LYING!” Hansen argues that “the trickster is not to be limited to the psychology of individuals. Trickster characteristics can manifest with small groups and even entire cultures.” Ibid., 33. When trickster values manifest in cultural currents, this is often accompanied by a reflexive turn. The Haitian peasants desire to emulate Ti Malice (a variant of the more well-known figure Anansi) because they know themselves to be liminal, to be edge-people on the world stage, and believe the trickster offers power at the edge. Indeed, embodying the trickster is a potent avenue to power for a disenfranchised people; occultists also cleave to trickster gods who they feel represent their own liminal status. However, identification with the trickster prevents Haitian religion from being able to enter into white/rational discourse (so too with occultism and mainstream discourse). It is interesting to consider the ways in which the relationship Haitian religion has to Western Esotericism mirrors the relationship between Esotericism and mainstream culture; both represent the dangerous other used as a foundation for the establishment of the norm. In Tell My Horse Hurston describes the Haitians’ flexible approach to the truth: That brings us to the most striking phenomenon in Haiti to a visiting American. That habit of lying! It is safe to say that this art, pastime, expedient or whatever one wishes to call it, is more than any other factor responsible for Haiti’s tragic history. […] The Haitian peasant is a warm and gentle person, really. But he often fancies himself to be Ti Malice, the sharp trickster of Haitian folklore. Hurston, Tell My Horse, 255. Indeed, this habit of lying is perhaps the most strange aspect of Haitian culture to Western minds, for in the West (and particularly in the academy) we value the pursuit of objective truth extremely highly. Within a colonial context this cultural habit of lying is deeply destabilising, increasing access to mystical experiences and magical modes of thought on both an individual and societal level. It utilises liminality but increases it too, cementing the Haitians’ position as ‘Others’, and increasing the distrust with which they are held by their colonisers. It is important to understand, however, that this same liminal-yet-powerful relationship with alternative facts is something exhibited by the West’s own shadow-tradition, where Hermes, god of imagination, promotes creative metaphors and imagined histories. Thus, there are a number of hugely influential occult texts which are purposefully tricky, a tradition stemming from the early alchemists and finding full flourishing in the work of the infamous 20th century occultists Dion Fortune (particularly Avalon of the Heart and The Sea Priestess) and Aleister Crowley (particularly The Book of Lies, and his early erotica); a tradition which has been carried through to postmodernity in the Typhonian, Discordian and Transhumanist currents. The doubling, ambiguity, falsity and play which is explicit in these texts and currents is in fact a uniting quality of our subject matter—that infamous red thread. These irrational communication-structures are attempts to deal with the profoundly incommunicable nature of radical or gnostic experience. This, after all, is the key substance of what we study in ‘esotericism’—gnosis—radical, mystical, experiential knowledge. This is also the key to Voodou. Hurston’s book is named after the phenomenon of ecstatic spirit possession, during which the Loa enters the devotee and ‘rides’ him, speaking, acting and dancing through his chosen ‘horse’. Such possession experiences are constitutive of personhood; they offer an avenue for those who participate to discover or affirm their own divinity and dignity. Hurston emphasises that a foreigner can never be a chwal, or horse, for this radical experience of the gods is an honour reserved exclusively for the Haitians. Although today white Voodou practitioners are far more common in Haiti, in the 1930s the belief—by both Haitians and their ex-colonisers—that the former were more closely in touch with the spirits was potent. This was seized upon as a mode of expression for those with no political voice; suddenly they had the voices of gods. This avenue to power is still important today, when Voodou is perhaps more liminal than ever. Thus, in an article in The Guardian anthropologist Ira Lowenthal states: “Vodou says ‘No, I’m not a cow. Cows cannot dance, cows do not sing. Cows cannot become God. Not only am I a human being―I’m considerably more human than you. Watch me create divinity in this world you have given me that is so ugly and so hard. Watch me become God in front of your eyes.’” Ira Lowenthall, “Voodou is elusive and endangered, but it remains the soul of Haitian people.” Guardian, Kim Wall and Caterina Clerici, accessed 7th Nov, 2015, Ille-a-Vache, Haiti https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/07/vodou-haiti-endangered-faith-soul-of-haitian-people Voodoo is explicitly and always an ecstatic religion, with possession experiences lying the heart of the faith. As has been noted of female mystic Christian saints, ecstasy of this type offers a path to political power, a voice to the voiceless. Here too, there is a strong tie to Western Esoteric currents, which are similarly focused around ecstatic experiences, that which we call gnosis, the knowledge of spiritual mysteries. And yet, the academy is unequipped to talk about gnosis. Gnosis is knowledge that is deeply experiential; that cannot be communicated in an objective paradigm. Gnosis is world-building, person-building, constitutive. As with Catholic contemplation, too often attempts to circumscribe this category end in the realms of negative theology, declaiming that which it is not, which we are not; hence “I am not a cow.” The renewed interest within the academy in the study of occult art can be viewed as an unconscious recognition of the problem; however, eventually our field must confront this problem face-on. For, in order to speak about gnosis authentically, or even meaningfully, we must speak about it in relation to our own, embodied experiences; this is, I would argue, already what we are doing. It is time that we are honest about it. THE MONUMENTAL SUBJECT There has been a perceived split between the study of esotericism and the practice of esoteric currents since the beginning of the former, with the work of Sir James Fraser and Alphonse Louis Constant, better known as Eliphas Levi. This split has been enforced since then by structural positioning on the part of the academy. The fathers of the field positioned themselves as anthropologists and historians, yet their work has had a massive influence on the development of modern esoteric practices. The relationship between practice and study within Esotericism is multi-directional, as it necessarily must be. This is both another example of boundary crossing, and is something which is already the norm with more established religions. The blurring of subject and object is a key part of that which we study; yet this line is necessarily blurred on a personal level by he or she who observes. We must, as scholars, learn to think reflexively—to understand the limits of our scholarly objectivity as the key to our field. This paradox has the potential to be a source of great insight and advancement, rather than of embarrassment. While a degree of distinction may well have been necessary in order for the study of Esotericism to gain acceptance within the established academy, I would argue that this separation of practice and academic study is the key reason that contemporary esoteric and occult practice (or magical religion, as these currents might be collectively called) has continued to be so very liminal, and has failed to gain any kind of established legitimacy. The fact that almost every renowned academic working within the field is unwilling to publicly announce their personal religious affiliation, whatever the individual reasoning, gives the overall impression to those outside of the field that even those involved in the magical world are wary and embarrassed by it (or that they are elitist, and value secrecy for secrecy’s sake). This subjective silence has led to the very odd situation in which the study of Esotericism finds itself today, where the ontological status of our subject matter is rarely, if ever discussed, and practitioner communities are treated with ambivalent detachment. Esotericism still uses a ‘blank slate’ approach, demanding the academic voice be that of the objective, monumental subject. However, I would argue that within the study of Esotericism, a level of Theological, experiential or subjective engagement is necessary for understanding. Without this, we get lost in classifications, word games and grand narratives—which is precisely what has begun to happen in this comparatively young field. We would be wise to learn the lesson offered by the most long-lived of all academic disciplines, Christian Theology. It is essential we recognise that any discussion of interpersonal relations, and of faith (which is another form of interpersonal relation, for it is relation with the divine person/presence) will have been influenced by the writer’s personal experiences. This fact cannot be escaped; however, this does not need to be seen in a negative light. Each participant in a discussion brings with them new experiences and new perspectives. When we become aware that the I is always personal, even when a given writer does not acknowledge this, we unlock a bounty of the philosopher’s own “psychic circumcisions and scarifications;” Helene Cixous and Susan Sellers, White Ink: Interviews on Sex, Text and Politics; from an interview with Jacques Derrida, and Aliette Armel (Routledge, 2008), 173. the great French literary theorist Helene Cixous taught that although we have no choice but to work within the confines of language, we are not ontologically limited by it. So too, although we must work within the confines of traditional academia if our work is to join the knowledge economy, our thought must not be limited to the strictly academic; it is nonsensical to do philosophy, or history, or religious studies, in whichever school of thought, as if we do not all dance and sing and sweat and weep and pray. It increasingly appears to me that it is impossible to study Esotericism strictly in the context of history, anthropology or ethnographic study. We require the lens of poetry, the insight of critical theory, and the honesty of theology. If we are to understand the fool, we must meet on the fool’s own terms, with a magical way of thinking; for these things can only be understood within a magical paradigm. Awareness of this demand, alongside the Foucaultian construction of what we consider a valid form of knowledge, should have been built into the very foundation of our field. Instead, it has become the elephant in the room. We must grow to understand our role, as scholars and as constructors of knowledge, and thus accept that we are key players in and influences upon the occult milieu, rather than simply spectators and commentators. To conclude: those studying esoteric phenomena within the academy face a tripartite problem of subjectivity. First, the role of socio-economic background, religious/occult practice and personal gnosis/mystical experience in academic knowledge formation; second, the adept’s inherent responsibility as teacher and knowledge propagator (in both a direct interpersonal and in a general social sense); third, the trend within this field for the academics’ self-positioning in academic discourse as an objective monumental subject. In turn, practitioners within esoteric currents need to recognise the limits of their own subjectivity, their own responsibility as knowledge makers (again in both an interpersonal and social sense), and the historical necessity of bona fide academic work in the establishment and legitimisation of a religious tradition. Finally, academics and practitioners alike need to keep an eye out for the trickster, and all its constellation implies, and thus to keep an element of play, and sense of humour, at the forefront of their mind as they approach these playful, tricky subjects.