“The Initiates of Sais?: The Emic-Etic Dichotomy, Esotericism, and Academia.”

Since the 1990s, the study of Western Esotericism has become established as a discipline in the Academy. Thus, the study and practice of the occultist has been theoretically re-presented in academic circles as a more rigorous, scientific process. This paper considers some of the chief problematics which have arisen in this regard, notably the concept of an emic-etic dichotomy, and its incumbent ‘scholar-practitioner divide.’ It is in this context that we shall explore the idea of Initiation, and compare and contrast how this applies both in the context of Victorian, hierarchical paramasonic societies, and the academic study of esotericism itself.