There are important differences between a philosophy, religion, or organization that presents itself as “esoteric” and one that simply offers a pedagogical order in the appropriation of what it teaches and offers. Likewise, in the case of the individual, there are life situations that require certain protection, but without being something stricto sensu “hidden.” However, in most institutions, a healthy tradition provides its riches through the educational process of an organized curriculum, requiring humility from the disciple to begin — as in any serious endeavor — with “small steps.” Even so, the content gained from these initial steps aligns with everything that comes afterward. The transmission, in such cases, requires protection only for practical and social reasons, not due to clandestine mysteries intended solely for an elite.
An esoteric tradition, on the other hand, provides its “riches” through an explicitly initiatory process, promising knowledge and powers reserved programmatically for an elite. In non-esoteric traditions — and also in everyday life — truths tend to unfold from a seed or as an embryo within the maternal womb, step by step, organically, toward maturity. In esotericism, the tendency is, in many cases, to present the initial knowledge as merely a pragmatic necessity, without authentic cognitive content. These may include “myths” or even explicit lies, but “useful” lies in the process of approaching hidden truths. Consequently, in esoteric organizations, there is often a disconnect between the initial teachings and practices and everything to which the initiate will ultimately be led.
Faced with this phenomenon, which is quite present in today’s world, it is important to distinguish four legitimate senses of “reserved knowledge”:
- Pedagogical: There is “reserved knowledge” in the pedagogical order of learning any subject, where the reservation simply recognizes the need to postpone more complex elaborations for advanced stages of teaching (for example, a beginner in arithmetic or algebra cannot yet understand infinitesimal calculus, which remains “reserved” for later courses).
- Professional: Another form of reserved knowledge exists, not because of the sophistication of the subject, but due to a special vocation. A doctor, for example, will know things about the human body that only their medical practice requires and that laypeople might even find disturbing. Similar knowledge is reserved for psychiatrists, lawyers, clergy, and even bankers. This is simply “professional confidentiality.”
- Progressive (spiritual): In any seriously conducted spiritual life, there is knowledge that only comes when the person in question reaches an appropriate level of maturity. We speak of a purgative way, an illuminative way, and a unitive way in the inner life. During a stage marked by purification, full illumination will not yet manifest, by definition. Even after entering the second way, the experience of union will remain far ahead, reserved for deeper advances in virtue. However, none of this is reserved for a spiritual or sapiential elite; everyone is invited to reach the summit.
- Private: There are also personally private forms of knowledge, beyond the professionally reserved type mentioned above. These are simply forms of knowledge that are part of a person’s intimacy, such as a couple’s private life, family “secrets” (problems, illnesses, genealogy, etc.), and seemingly banal but important matters, like the right to use a bathroom alone or to employ passwords and codes to protect personal information.
Thus, in these four modalities, there can exist appropriately reserved knowledge due to progressive stages in pedagogy, special vocations in societal roles, ascending dimensions in spiritual life, or simply the areas of our personal lives that are intimate, associated with human rights, an internal forum, or a sphere of privacy.
Unfortunately, these distinctions do not always admit of clear terminology. Words, as always, are flexible, and our use of them is not always precise. Thus, in vernacular terms, any of these reserved forms of knowledge can be called “esoteric,” at least from a certain point of view. Nuclear physics and quantum mechanics may seem “esoteric” to someone with little training in physics, a doctor’s knowledge of oncology may seem “esoteric” to a patient facing cancer for the first time, and the mystical insights of souls in the illuminative or even unitive ways may appear somewhat “esoteric” to those still dealing with more rudimentary virtues.
However, in rigorous and historically documented use, the term “esoteric” is itself also “reserved,” meaning its use is typically limited to knowledge of a highly restricted nature, not merely due to pedagogy, vocation, the knower’s spiritual stage, or simple privacy. Such knowledge is reserved because it is seen as an instrument of power (“knowledge is power,” as Francis Bacon said). It is considered dangerous and therefore destined only for an elite defined by particular rites and initiations. Moreover, such knowledge often stems from dubious, even ominous origins. Knowing this origin also falls within the domain of reserved cognition.
In the interpretation of orthodox traditions — whether Abrahamic or Asian — there has been, from their foundations, the idea of “stolen” knowledge, obtained in an improper or disordered manner. For this reason, such knowledge becomes harmful to the soul, generating decontextualized cognitions that almost always lead to pride and self-delusion. They produce what Carl Jung called “unearned wisdom” (although Jung himself was not innocent of such incursions).
This is the characteristic subterfuge of esotericism. The danger of such knowledge is not exactly that it is false, but paradoxically, precisely because it is true. More accurately, it is true but disordered. Pure falsehood is weak and quickly reveals its duplicity. Mixtures of truth and falsehood, however, possess greater vigor due to their partially truthful nature. This gives them far greater longevity.
But the type of knowledge I am discussing here is one that consists entirely or almost entirely of truths that are, in themselves, relatively pure, even innocent. What is lacking is not so much truth but the order of truth: the appropriate hierarchy, the well-adjusted perspective, the accurate focus, and, around it, the timely context. “Esoteric” truths are out of context, “orphaned,” mentally accessed and absorbed without the environment of the totality of Truth on one side, and — far more dangerously — without the motivation sustained by moral virtues, especially love. These fragmented truths have, so to speak, irregular edges and a somewhat clumsy configuration. To maintain their authority, they require a cloud of artificial mystery. Partly to hide this lack of connectivity with total truth, and also to mask themselves, esotericists often refer to them, and endeavor to maintain them, as “secrets.”
Most esoteric and initiatory knowledge provides insights into the so-called “subtle” or “psychic” world — the intermediate dimension between the sphere of coarse materiality, which is visible and tangible, and the purely immaterial sphere of the spirit. As they turn toward the properly spiritual world (or even spirits, though less holy ones), it is only to gain additional power or knowledge about the subtle world and, through it, also “reserved” knowledge about the physical world in which we all live. In this physical world, the effects of such knowledge — which confer the power to affect matter — can even be observed. Not all magic or occultism is mere fraud.
The disorder stems from this concern with “forces,” “energies,” “auras,” “radiations,” etc., which indeed exist but, in the current order of providence, must be entirely subordinated to the spiritual world in its most mature form. This is the world of virtues in all their breadth: humility, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope, and, above all, love. In the esoteric world, the emphasis on such virtues — especially humility and love — even if mentioned and given some recognition, typically falls under the domain of an overbearing knowledge. These values may even be viewed as signs of weakness and sentimentality. The focus of effort lies in the increase of secret knowledge.
Another aspect of such special cognitions is the tendency to precisely and definitively identify the forces of evil. This could be called a kind of “secular demonology.” In the Christian view, within the current “economy” of salvation, only irredeemably evil forces exist in the world of angels, not in the human world. Even people associated with or consecrated to demonic forces are never permanently bound in a way that they cannot be saved. The esotericist, on the other hand, is certain that the groups identified by their special knowledge are enemies beyond salvation. The human groups thus designated can be Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Black people, White people, Orientals, gays, communists, capitalists, etc. These are just a few of the groups “demonized,” in the past or present, by esoteric attitudes (whether through secret societies or simply by intellectuals under the influence of one or another esotericism). A mature view, nourished by an intelligent (non-ideological) philosophical anthropology and biblical theology, will see human evil as the promiscuous virus that it truly is — a disease that migrates between people and groups with a certain unpredictability.
But is Christianity entirely free from such “esoteric” tendencies? It may appear to follow certain principles of this kind. Only through a deeper analysis does it become evident that this is not the case. Two partial but ultimately misleading parallels must be mentioned.
- In early Christianity, the faithful sometimes practiced what is called the “discipline of the secret” (disciplina arcani), meaning a deliberate silence regarding certain aspects of the mysteries of the faith. Easy misunderstandings arise from any revelation containing novelties or even just new manifestations of old realities. Due to the “historical” and sacramental nature of Christian revelation, this danger assumes even greater proportions. The Trinity, for example, can easily be interpreted as polytheism; belief in a Father and a Son as something that presupposes sexual acts in God; the feasts of brotherhood (agape) among “brothers” and “sisters” — as early Christians referred to themselves — can be understood as incestuous; the Eucharist may resemble a type of cannibalism, etc. Thus, especially during times of persecution, without the possibility of circumstantial explanation of articles of faith, the faithful were advised not to speak explicitly about certain elements of their belief and practice. The reason was not that they were strictly “secrets,” but because they were intelligible only in a more open culture, where catechesis and theology could develop to contextualize the details of revelation and prevent misunderstandings.
- The second parallel concerns the so-called “apophatism.” The Greek word apophasis simply means negation, but it has come to signify the denial of the possibility of adequately formulating certain sublime truths in words. The “apophatic” dimensions of faith refer to things that do not admit proper description or translation into our everyday language. A legitimate reason for this, in certain religions and mystical currents, is to prevent people from thinking they fully understand a mystery simply by possessing words that point to it. It is safer to be content with denying the attributes, for example, that God does not have than to dare articulate the ones He does have. However, in Christianity, there is a particularity in the very notion of revelation that makes all the difference compared to other alleged revelations. Christian, biblical revelation is, from the outset, personal, and what was revealed is something that a deeply personal reality freely unveiled from its inner life.
This happens gradually in the pages of the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, it culminates in a consummated revelation in the Incarnation of a Divine Person in human nature. Therefore, Christian faith emphasizes the well-articulated reality of revelation in Jesus Christ, who explicitly and profoundly manifests the mystery of God. Undoubtedly, God’s infinity continues to unveil new dimensions of itself — God remaining, for us, always the unlimited, immense, and immeasurable God — but the personal doorway, which is Christ the Messiah, opens insights and intimacy denied to those who are unaware of this wholly unprecedented Door.
Although a certain discipline of secrecy and a certain apophatism have a legitimate place in Christianity, they exist only in strict subordination to the final and accessible revelation in Christ. He is the incarnate Word, and words exist to be spoken; this Word desires to be expressed later in confessions of faith and also in theology, not only in exceptional experiences of a “mystical” nature. But this does not mean that words are semantically omnipotent. In the end, there is something “unspeakable” not only about God but about absolutely everything, even in the most banal detail of the created order. All things participate, to some extent, in the divine mystery that created them. In themselves, the unspeakable aspect grows in proportion to the increase in entity (plants have more mystery than stones, animals more than plants, humans more than animals, angels more than humans, and God, incomparably, more than all creatures put together). However, the revelation in Christ constitutes a wholly sui generis exception, as it was God Himself who unveiled it, revealing things known only to God — “things hidden since the creation of the world” (Matthew 13:35).
What distinguishes the stages of spiritual growth mentioned above — with the progressive unfolding of new dimensions of Christian faith — in contrast to the degrees of initiation in properly esoteric groups is the following: in the Christian world, the increase in ordered and organic knowledge is inseparably linked to growth in virtues, particularly in charity. The motto ubi amor, ibi oculus (“where there is love, there is also the eye [knowledge]”) is, for the followers of Christ, the principle of all spiritual evolution. It is love, and only love, that orders knowledge, placing its elements in the right perspective, one in relation to the other; under the appropriate focus, without isolating parts in relation to the whole; and within the integral context that alone can reveal the ultimate meaning of the entire body of knowledge.
In the esoteric world, the principle of “gnosticism” prevails, that is, the supremacy of knowledge, and a knowledge that separates the knower from the non-knowers. An elite of those “in the know” ultimately constitutes a kind of club. However, the Christian church has never been a club. The knowledge that comes from love binds and unites the knower to others, aiming at a communion and one that overflows with the truth, goodness, and beauty that only a God who is love can bring about.
