esotericism

English

Etymology

From esoteric +‎ -ism.

Noun

esotericism (countable and uncountable, plural esotericisms)

1. The tendency to promote or desire the esoteric.
   • 2002, Dave Hill, Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory, page 257:

     Derridean "messianicity without messianism" that marks so much of post-modernist educational theorizing today, and that makes use of esotericism, sigetics, acroamatics, proleptics, and illocutionary and perlocutionary acts in the disguise of a new pedagogy of the unknowable, wasn't the answer ten years ago.

2. Doctrines or practices of esoteric knowledge.

Translations

tendency

• Dutch: esoterie (nl) f, esoterisme (nl) n
• Finnish: esoteerisuus
• German: Esoterik (de) f

doctrines or practices

• Dutch: esoterie (nl) f, esoterisme (nl) n
• Finnish: esoterismi
• German: Esoterik (de) f
• Hebrew: אזוטריקה

See also

• esoterism

References

• OED2