Esotericism and Yoga

While the scope and content of a bibliographical entry generally depends on the author’s understanding of the subject at hand, the meaning of “esotericism” is particularly unclear and contested. The term is used in highly varied ways across diverse disciplines and fields of study. Systematic scholarship on the meaning of esotericism is limited to a relatively small number of disparate studies. Although there is little scholarship focusing on the relationship between “esotericism and yoga,” a wealth of valuable studies, most of them quite recent, have explored a range of contexts that are relevant to an understanding of it. This article relates these diverse studies, while being mindful of the blurry terminology and the many lacunae that invite further scholarship on this fascinating and important subject. The article’s point of departure are present-day associations of “esotericism” and “yoga,” that is, contexts in which these notions have been linked by scholars and practitioners. The logic behind this bibliography is oriented toward an understanding of how, why, and in which historical contexts people across the world have identified yoga as “esoteric” or “occult,” and often combined it with ideas and practices from various cultures within and beyond Asia. By consequence, this article is organized around the period in which “esotericism” emerged as a term within scholarship and primary sources: the nineteenth until the early twentieth century. If esotericism were regarded as a particular subject that might be traced back centuries in Asian contexts—either based on the identification of diachronic “esoteric” traditions or on a more structural focus on notions such as secrecy, initiation, siddhi, and so forth—the scope could comprise a vast body of sources and scholarship including, for example, sources from the spheres of tantra, hatha yoga, so-called Esoteric Buddhism, or traditions such as Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyā. This would be reasonable because Indological literature, for instance, widely employs notions such as esotericism, esoteric, or occult in research on material predating the “modern” period. However, engagement between disciplines like Indology and Asian regional studies and the dedicated study of esotericism is rare. Hence, this article might assist readers in exploring ways in which collaboration between different fields and disciplines could shine light on the usefulness of the category “esotericism” itself.