Esoteric Traditions Research Articles

«Возродившийся в наши дни современник Моисея»: Оскар Гольдберг и каббалистическая метафизика

The biography and views of Oscar Goldberg (1885–1952), a Jewish-German philosopher, psychologist and religious thinker, have in recent years attracted increasing attention from specialists in the history of philosophy, religious and cultural studies. The interpre­tation of metaphysical problems, the nature of myth and ritual, and the concepts of the sa­cred and profane that he proposed had a significant influence on a number of thinkers and writers of the first half of the twentieth century. The article discusses one of the most important sources of Goldberg’s views – the Jewish esoteric tradition (Kabbalah), with which he had a difficult relationship, while simultaneously criticizing its concepts and adapting some of them for his own system. It was in dialogue with the ideas of Kabbalah that Goldberg developed an original approach to the interpretation of the biblical text – the idea of the existence of a universal pre-biological force that manifests itself in both world and human history.

The Non-Jew in Kabbalistic Literature by the Circle of Sefer Ha-Temunah and Its Influence in Eastern Europe

Abstract: Over the centuries, the religious images and discourse that shaped the image of the Other affected the intricate web of relations between Jews and non-­ Jews, generating a range of attitudes toward non-­ Jews in various periods and locations. Interestingly, several eastern European kabbalistic homilies reveal a moderate approach toward non-­ Jews, arguing for an essential spiritual partnership. Their authors adopted esoteric traditions that diverge from the radically polemical, negative attitude of the Zohar and the kabbalists of sixteenth-­ century Safed, according to which the non-­ Jew is the ultimate Other: evil, impure, and even demonic. Despite the important role of the Safed traditions in molding kabbalistic thought, these kabbalists propounded ideas found in works by the circle of Sefer Ha-­ temunah. These texts served as the basis on which some eastern European kabbalists justified a new attitude toward the surrounding non-­ Jews, making them spiritual partners in the messianic process.

Conspirituality and meme culture: transgressive dynamics in right-wing esoteric social media discourse

ABSTRACT The article delves into the processes shaping religion on the Internet, aiming to comprehend how content is created and disseminated online. Focusing on contemporary esotericism, especially conspirituality and right-wing esotericism, the study investigates two key mechanisms: transgressive behavior and the remixing and reframing of media in virtual spaces, especially in the form of memes. The analysis explores how these social and technological factors blur the boundaries between sincere adherence and ironic engagement with specific esoteric traditions. By examining these multifaceted dynamics, we can deepen our understanding of how religious actors operate online and Social Media’s impact on the field. The chosen perspective is part of a trend to expand the field of modern esoteric research beyond the consideration of elite discourses.

Тarot Arcana in the collection of the State Museum of the History of Religion: Attribution issues

The article deals with the attribution of two items from the collection of the Museum of the History of Religion, the history and purpose of which have long remained unknown. These are the Tarot arcana, which came into the museum’s collection in 1940. A comparison of items from the museum’s library, the scientific and historical archives, a study of records, and the use of contemporary publications made it possible to attribute these items as belonging to the history of the Order of the Martinists in Petrograd/Leningrad, led by Grigory Otonovich Mebes. Related to his name is the Course of the Encyclopaedia of the Occult — lectures in which Mebes referred to the hermetic sciences, magic, the Kabbalah, drawing on the symbolism of the major arcana of the Tarot for explanations. This explains the abundance of drawings done in pencil, ink and ink, as well as the “gift” copy of the large-format major arcana in the museum’s collections. The arcana, drawn after Papius’s Tarot models, revealed the continuity between the Petrograd Martinists and the Western esoteric tradition. Numerous contemporary publications and mentions of Mebes’ name in the literature on the history of esotericism, and the discussions that have developed on the iconography of the Tarot arcana illustrating Mebes’ lectures, are clear evidence of the fact that the museum has unique materials that should be introduced into academic discourse as one of the valuable historical sources.

Casket of Light, Padlocked with Light: Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī, Ahl al-Bayt, and Shiʿi Philosophical Esotericism

Abstract This article examines the views of the Twelver philosopher Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. ca. 787/1385) regarding the prophetic family (ahl al-bayt), their connection with the initiatory robe (khirqa), and their status as “those firmly rooted in knowledge” (al-rāsikhūn fī l-ʿilm). Āmulī’s conception blends early esoteric traditions within Shiʿi literature with the Sufi and mystical ideas prevalent during his time, resulting in a fresh understanding of Shiʿi spirituality. Moreover, he surpasses sectarian divisions by theorizing an inclusive monotheistic doctrine, enabling individuals who embrace monotheism both within the Shiʿi community and among Sunni Sufis to be acknowledged as followers of the prophetic family and to attain redemption. This article contributes to a deeper understanding of the portrayal of the prophetic family in medieval Sufi and mystical literature, the intricate relationship between Shiʿism and Sufism, and the inclusive nature of Āmulī’s theoretical framework.

Study of Spiritual Tourism Areas - Healing in Cirebon

Today, spiritual tourism, an alternative form of travel, is becoming increasingly common. Spirituality is now seen as a lifestyle, particularly when it comes to attaining a balance between the mind, body, and soul, which is often referred to as spiritual healing. People seek new meaning and fulfilment through spiritual healing, fulfilling their need for security in the process. Cirebon’s tourism locations embrace the esoteric tradition and offer spiritual healing practices. This study aims to describe spiritual healing in Cirebon’s tourism activities. The research adopts an exploratory method, and data are collected through surveys and field observations. The survey data is then processed and analysed by categorising the responses. The information is grouped according to similarities, and then examined and interpreted in the context of Cirebon’s spiritual tourism sector. The selected participants for this study are individuals who have engaged in spiritual tourism in Cirebon on multiple occasions. The study’s findings provide valuable insights for the development of spiritual healing in Cirebon. The results can be utilised to further explore the potential of spiritual healing tourism in Cirebon, benefiting its overall tourism industry. Keywords: area, Cirebon-esoteric-tradition, explorative, spiritual-healingToday, spiritual tourism, an alternative form of travel, is becoming increasingly common. Spirituality is now seen as a lifestyle, particularly when it comes to attaining a balance between the mind, body, and soul, which is often referred to as spiritual healing. People seek new meaning and fulfilment through spiritual healing, fulfilling their need for security in the process. Cirebon’s tourism locations embrace the esoteric tradition and offer spiritual healing practices. This study aims to describe spiritual healing in Cirebon’s tourism activities. The research adopts an exploratory method, and data are collected through surveys and field observations. The survey data is then processed and analysed by categorising the responses. The information is grouped according to similarities, and then examined and interpreted in the context of Cirebon’s spiritual tourism sector. The selected participants for this study are individuals who have engaged in spiritual tourism in Cirebon on multiple occasions. The study’s findings provide valuable insights for the development of spiritual healing in Cirebon. The results can be utilised to further explore the potential of spiritual healing tourism in Cirebon, benefiting its overall tourism industry.
 Keywords: area, Cirebon-esoteric-tradition, explorative, spiritual-healing

Knotting the Note to the Tone

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsWhit Frazier PetersonWhit Frazier Peterson is a lecturer and research associate at the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany, with interests in African American literature, modernism, Black Speculative Fiction, and the Black esoteric tradition. He has published scholarly articles in Callaloo, The Polish Journal of American Studies, Black Perspectives, and Siècles; he has also published two novels: one set during the Harlem Renaissance and another during the 2008 election cycle.

Understanding the Religious-Mystical Experience within the Framework of Analytical Psychology: Refraction of the Universalist Paradigm

The subject of the research is the approach of analytical psychology to understanding the content and meaning of mystical experience represented by religious and esoteric traditions. The purpose of the presented article is to reveal the content, directions and results of the conceptualization of religious-mystical experience within the framework of the psychological theory of religion characteristic of analytical psychology, as well as the justification of the universalist paradigm as the basis of this conceptualization. The authors consider in detail the mystical aspects of both analytical psychology itself and the psychological theory of religion formulated within its framework. Special attention is paid to the role of individual mystical and religious experiences of C.G. Jung himself as the empirical basis of this theory. The main conclusions are the theoretical provisions that, unlike religious studies, analytical psychology, involving theology and new religious movements in dialogue, aims to solve the practical problem of resolving the spiritual crisis of modernity on the basis of a new interpretation of mental health achieved with the help of appropriate psychoanalytic practices leading a person to revive his mystical experience, which has a syncretic and trans-confessional nature. A special contribution of the research is the substantiation of the position that the approach of analytical psychology to the phenomenon of religious-mystical experience correlates with the universalist paradigm in religious studies, according to which all mystical traditions, both religious and non-religious, contain certain invariants. A generalization is formulated according to which the result of the implementation of this kind of universalism on the part of analytical psychology was the erosion of the classical Christian mystical tradition, at least its Western Christian version, which led to the replacement of the latter with new mystical practices in line with new religious movements.

High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis

Reviewed by: High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis Matt Southey erik davis. High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2019, Pp. 544. Erik Davis's most recent book, High Weirdness is a journey through the works of three authors: Terrence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick. Davis effectively situates all three of these prolific authors within the weird religious milieu of 1970s America by analyzing three of their mystical experiences: McKenna's psychedelically motivated trip to the Amazon, Wilson's Cosmic Trigger experiences, and Dick's revelations in February and March 1974. Davis draws on philosophers such as Bruno Latour and William James to demonstrate that "the reality" his subjects explored was not a single thing, but an ontological plurality. Importantly, Davis argues that his authors were writing at the beginning of what he calls "network society," presaged by the techno-mystical swirl of 1970s America and then technically realized by the internet. In High Weirdness Davis's methodology is "weird naturalism," the tracking of anomalous events and experiences "not as signs of a 'separate reality' but as manifestations or mutations of this one" (11). Davis sees these authors as concerned with the immanent world rather than a transcendent one. In brief, all three authors experienced and wrote about religious encounters with strange entities which the authors tended to perceive as extraterrestrial intelligences. These authors also participated in religious practices which were often technologically revised versions of older esoteric traditions. Ultimately what ties these authors together is a sort of science-fiction aesthetic that makes religion and technology deeply relevant to each other. McKenna, for instance, saw psychedelics as a "psycho-technology" that allows humans to have a guaranteed mystical experience; no more meditating for years in a cave, just up the dosage until something happens. The authors were all deeply [End Page 475] American in their combination of a global religious awareness combined with knowledge of modern science. After experiencing several anomalous/mystical events around February and March 1974 ("2-3-74"), Dick began writing an enormous journal that has been called his "exegesis", due to his spiritual reflections. Davis's work with Dick's exegesis is particularly interesting since he clarifies many misunderstandings surrounding it. Davis was one of the editors who worked on The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick with Jonathan Lethem and Pamela Jackson, and so he is able to shed light on some of the particular twists and turns of the massive corpus. A compelling case is made that Dick took part in the burgeoning hacker culture when he urged a Vancouver audience to "build improved electronic gadgets in your garage that'll outwit the gadgets used by the authorities" (286). Davis emphasizes the networked, or "netweird," world of the 1970s that drew from a huge smorgasbord of religious traditions and remixed them under the DIY ethos of "whatever works." Modernity made the spatial and temporal barriers to knowledge moot: Americans could now listen to a Tibetan teacher in the afternoon, and pick up an English translation of the I Ching at a bookshop right after. Miles of ocean and thousands of years of history were no obstacle to the accelerating availability of knowledge. Davis is right to note that the effects of this information overload were not always beneficial, as each of the authors toed the edge of psychosis, or in the case of Dick, went right over. Davis does not shy away from this point: the superabundance of information and reality-altering technologies have epistemically damaged the body politic. High Weirdness therefore often reads as an autopsy report on our contemporary condition. For example, Davis notes that "these days, it is Wilson's earlier portraits of warring conspiracies, memetic mind control, and chaotic reality breakdown that are proving … prophetic" (403). Nevertheless, the book still carries a conviction that it is important to wrestle with these strange currents and that it might even be good for one's mental health to do so. Davis calls his three writers futurists who "did not reflect the timeless 'Be Here Now' grok sought by many psychedelic mystics and spiritual seekers of...

Interpreting the Intentional Inaccessibility of the Early Modern Roman Catholic Church

Many may wonder why, in the modern day, the Roman Catholic Church continues to incorporate Latin, a now barely extant language, into its canonic religious rituals and public services. However, to understand whether there is a latently malicious intent lurking beneath this esoteric tradition, we must look back to the 1545 Council of Trent, in which these traditions were first canonized. This choice on the part of the Catholic Church helped incense the Protestant Reformation’s criticisms against the Church for exclusivizing the very religion its followers were practicing. This paper investigates the origins of the Catholic Church’s suppressive practices against the religious knowledge of the masses and how this tactic backfired on their intentions.

Quo vadis, Homo spiritualis?

Introduction. Where are you going, spiritual man? – humanity has been facing this question since antiquity, when Christian culture was an alternative to sacred teachings. Modern society in recent “pandemic” years, against the background of a stable state of traditional religiosity, has shown an explosive interest in esotericism. Theoretical analysis. The ontological approach to the phenomenon of the esoteric tradition made it possible to show its dialectical nature: sacred teachings contained values that could serve as the basis for the spirituality of society or one of the reasons for its cultural decadence. The syncretism of mythological and mass consciousness allows esoteric culture to remain the constant of society. The socio-philosophical analysis of the functional features of myth-thinking made it possible to discover a platform for stable positions of existence in the universal culture of the esoteric tradition. Conclusion. Today, the existence of esotericism in human practice is at a bifurcation point, where some values are actively filling the intellectually elitist trend in the development of culture, while others are being redirected into the ordinary form of presence in society. Aspects of myth-thinking are systematized, thanks to which the esoteric tradition ensures its functional stability in society.

Contributors

Lara Ayad is an independent researcher and art historian. She is the author of “The ‘Negress’ of Alexandria: African Womanhood in Modern Egyptian Art” (African Arts, Winter 2020). She currently hosts the television show AHA! A House for Arts on WMHT public media.Kaira Marie Cabañas is the 2021–22 William S. Seitz Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the National Gallery of Art and Professor of Art History and affiliate faculty in the Center for Latin American Studies and Center for Gender, Sexualities and Women's Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville. She is author of Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art (2021) and Learning from Madness: Brazilian Modernism and Global Contemporary Art (2018), among other volumes. She also served as editor of the Portuguese-language book O silêncio que as palavras guardam (2021), by artist and therapist Lula Wanderley.Elizabeth Harney is an art historian and curator at the University of Toronto, where she teaches art theory, histories of African modernism, and anticolonialism and global postwar visual cultures. As the inaugural curator of modern and contemporary arts at the National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution, she designed the museum's collection policy and a suite of exhibitions. Harney is the author of Ethiopian Passages: Dialogues in the Diaspora (2003) and In Senghor's Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde (2004), as well as coeditor of Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Arts (2007) and Mapping Modernisms: Art, Indigeneity, Colonialism (2018).Matthew J. Mason is a doctoral candidate at St. John's College and the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. His research explores the relationship between art, exhibition, and politics in the modern and contemporary periods, with a particular emphasis on non-Western art, specifically that of Latin America and Australia.Dorota Jagoda Michalska is a PhD candidate at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Her texts have been published in Afterall Online, L'Internationale, and Kajet Journal. She has also written for the Venice Biennale (2017), the Prague Biennale Matter of Art (2022), and Zachęta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland. Her research currently focuses on questions of race and decoloniality within the context of Eastern and Southern Europe, as well as on global decolonial histories of surrealism(s).Slavs and Tatars is an art collective devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. Since its inception in 2006, the collective has shown a keen grasp of polemical issues in society, clearing new paths for contemporary discourse via a wholly idiosyncratic form of knowledge production: including popular culture, spiritual and esoteric traditions, oral histories, modern myths, as well as scholarly research. Their work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions across the globe, including the Vienna Secession; MoMA, New York; Salt, Istanbul; and Albertinum Dresden, amongst others. The collective's practice is based on three activities: exhibitions, publications, and lecture-performances. The collective has published more than twelve books to date, including most recently The Contest of the Fruits (2021).Alberto Toscano teaches in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, and the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea (2017, 2nd ed.) and coeditor of The SAGE Handbook of Marxism (2022). He edits The Italian List series for Seagull Books.

Мистические видения и их оценка в русском масонстве конца XVIII – начала XIX века

In the richest manuscript heritage of Russian freemasons, who lived two centuries ago, there are numerous descriptions of various mystical experiences. These are visions and mystical dreams in which beings from the other world appeared, as well as deliberately evoked mystical states by which an adept attempts to penetrate into the other world. For censorship reasons, this aspect of the activities of Russian brothers practically did not go beyond the narrow circle of initiates. The article will attempt to present the main types of mystical experience reflected in the manuscripts of Russian freemasons – mostly diaries and correspondence. The most valuable information of this kind is contained in so-called “Masonic dreams”. These stories constitute a special genre of Masonic literature and preserved in a significant number of manuscripts. They were based on the idea of a special inner, spiritual vision, which has an adept and which allows him to achieve clairvoyance. Masonic dreams contain a significant amount of details related both to the Masonic ritual and symbolic decoration of the premises of Masonic lodges, and to those practices of moral self-improvement that are important for the Masonic path. Russian freemasons paid considerable attention to the problem of evaluating such experience – is it a gift from the divine essences or a temptation sent by demonic forces? The question of the significance of such an experience was also important: is it an accidental consequence of Masonic work, a hindrance on the way, or, on the contrary, a kind of confirmation of progress in following the Masonic path? The Orthodox Church, to which the Russian freemasons belonged, is extremely negative about such forms of mysticism. Therefore, they were forced to seek explanations for such phenomena in Catholic and Protestant mysticism, as well as in the European esoteric tradition. The article attempts to answer these questions, based on the analysis of a wide range of Masonic manuscripts of the 18th - early 19th centuries, preserved in the families of Russian Masons and today located in the Moscow archives.

Antoine Faivre (1934–2021)

Abstract This article provides a biographical overview and analysis of the life and career of Antoine Faivre (1934–2021), the French scholar who first conceptualized esotericism as an academic field of study and also stood at the cradle of the journal Aries. After his early years as a scholar of literature, Faivre’s mature career can be divided into four main periods: (1) from 1961 to 1969, he established his reputation as a leading historian of eighteenth-century Christian Theosophy and Illuminism; (2) then from 1969 to 1979, the year in which he was appointed to the first academic chair for ‘Western esotericism’ at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, he embarked on a parallel career of religionist activism marked by a strong Christian-spiritual engagement; (3) from 1979 to 1992, his experiences as a visiting professor at the University of Berkeley and in various other international contexts led to a broadening of his scholarly vision and a gradual retreat from religionism back to more standard historical perspectives; (4) from 1992 to his retirement in 2002, his prodigious scholarly output in several languages established his lasting international reputation as the foundational scholar of ‘Western esotericism’. Faivre remained active as a scholar until just a few years before his death. This article explores the complex interaction, in his personal development, between a strictly academic ‘outsider’ perspective and a simultaneous ‘insider’ involvement in several contemporary esoteric traditions, from Sophianic Theosophy and (neo)Martinism to the Christian-Masonic Rite Écossais Rectifié.

Buddhism and Martial Arts in Premodern Japan: New Observations from a Religious Historical Perspective

This article investigates two issues regarding the Buddhism of premodern Japanese martial arts. The first issue concerns the historical channels through which Buddhist elements were adopted into martial lineages, and the second pertains to the general character of the Buddhism that can be found in the various martial art initiation documents (densho). As for the first issue, while previous scholarship underscored Shugendō (mountain asceticism) as an important factor in the earliest phases of the integration process of Buddhist elements in martial schools, this study focuses on textual evidence that points to what is referred to as “medieval Shinto”—a Shinto tradition that heavily relied on Esoteric Buddhist (Mikkyō) teachings—in scholarship. Regarding the second issue, although numerous studies have already shown the indebtedness of premodern martial schools to Buddhist teachings drawn mainly from the Esoteric Buddhist or Zen traditions, this article sheds more light on the nature of these teachings by drawing attention to the fact that they often emphasize the Buddhist thought of isshin or “One Mind”. The article illustrates how this thought was adopted in premodern martial art texts and in doing so clarifies the reasons why Buddhism was valued in those arts.

Laude, Patrick. Keys to the Beyond: Frithjof Schuon’s Cross-Traditional Language of Transcendence. SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2020. x+394 pp. $95.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsLaude, Patrick. Keys to the Beyond: Frithjof Schuon’s Cross-Traditional Language of Transcendence. SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2020. x+394 pp. $95.00 (cloth); $34.95 (paper).Dave VliegenthartDave VliegenthartMaastricht University. Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 102, Number 2April 2022 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/718407 Views: 9Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Heavenly Passage Known in the West as Reissner’s Fiber

This article explores the hypothesis that Reissner’s fiber, an enigmatic, anomalous, thread-like structure that runs from the center of the brain to the end of the spinal cord, is the neural substrate of suprasensory perceptions of the divine. Justification for this hypothesis derives from a comparative study of descriptions of the “subtle body” from ancient esoteric traditions, testable speculations about altered states of consciousness correlated with the subtle dynamics of the fiber, and the fiber’s evolutionary trajectory in humans from its perinatal involution to its potential regeneration. While adequate testing of the hypothesis will require new technologies, preliminary investigations are underway. The goal of this research is to promote research about Reissner’s fiber with the hope that it could lead to the discovery of a universal religious experience underlying the transcendent unity of religions.

The Cosmological Gnosis of Miguel Serrano

Abstract A close look at a very unusual instance of how gnosis, and specific concepts from early Christian-era Gnosticism, appear directly in the numerous late works of a recent Chilean author, Miguel Serrano (1917–2009), and of how his work and thought exemplifies cosmological gnosis. Many international readers knew Serrano as author of unusual fictional works, and as an ambassador for Chile to several countries. During his time abroad, he met, and in many cases befriended, famous figures of the day, including Carl Jung, Herman Hesse, Ezra Pound and the fourteenth Dalai Lama. But fewer are aware of his works promoting a grand cosmological synthesis of many world religious traditions with esoteric Hitlerism expressed in gnostic terms. His syncretic system includes references to a demiurge and to gnosis, as well as to many other esoteric traditions from Europe, India, Tibet, and elsewhere, largely in a Gnostic context. This article by Arthur Versluis is the first to explore this aspect of Serrano’s work.

Searching for the Forest among the Trees

Searching for the Forest among the Trees

Образы романа «Петербург» сквозь призму эзотерических исканий Андрея Белого

Andrei Bely’s texts blur the boundaries of traditional genres, which raises the problem of genre uncertainty and tex integrity. For that purpose, the article analyses the figurative language of the novel Petersburg, the most significant work that accumulates the stylistic and ideological features of Bely’s entire oeuvre. Using the methods of semantic and figurative analysis, the authors address Bely’s Petersburg to identify the factors of textual integrity. As the analysis has shown, the coherence is achieved through esoteric, namely, Masonic symbolism, which dominates the figurative langauge of the novel. Various esoteric symbols are found on all language levels: from phonetic to the level of text. There are characters in the novel that epitomize individual symbols and realia. The authors emphasize the constitutive role of the duplicated esoteric images and symbols that create multiple inline rhymes. In conclusion, the authors note that, together with traditional (characters and realia), the novel contains esoteric images, various direct and indirect esoteric terms and symbols, which Bely either records in the original form or superimposes on or combines with the former ones in the narrative. The genre blurring of Bely’s texts is compensated by the language coherence aligned with the esoteric tradition. When creating literary texts, Bely does not confine himself to the artistic way of knowing and describing the world, but equally uses scientific, religious, and everyday methods of cognition. He creates a synthetic writing, previously found in the esoteric tradition, where it did not go beyond its cognitive tasks. Bely uses synthetic writing with broader functions. This type of writing may be considered as reflecting Bely’s constant polemic with his father, who was an adherent of a strictly scientific method of world cognition. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.