This page groups religions by the person credited with founding them, when a single founder can be named. Wikipedia records that the Latter-day Saint movement was "founded by Joseph Smith in the late 1820s," while the BaháΚΌí Faith names Bahá'u'lláh as its founder. Browsing by founder lets a visitor trace a religion back to the individual whose teaching set it in motion, distinct from traditions with no single named founder.
Facts
Origins
Whose Classification This IsThe working academic definition is Antoine Faivre's - four intrinsic and two secondary characteristics, set out in Access to Western Esotericism - and it is the reason the field has the shape, and the European boundary, that it does. 3 Overview
What Defines This GroupingCurrents holding that a hidden knowledge lies behind the visible world, reachable through study, initiation and disciplined practice rather than through public revelation. They are organised as schools and initiatory orders rather than as congregations. 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryContested: esotericism and the occult are categories built by scholarship and by polemic, not self-descriptions. What they collect is held together by a shared history of rejection as much as by any shared content. 4 Learn More
Esoteric and Occult Traditions
This group holds esoteric and occult traditions: currents of Western spirituality concerned with hidden knowledge, correspondence and the inner transformation of the practitioner, often organised into orders and drawing on Hermeticism, Kabbalah, astrology and alchemy.
The browser will find the traditions the atlas classes here, from Hermeticism and Theosophy to the modern magical currents. The entries describe each as a body of teaching and practice, tracing its sources and history without adjudicating its claims.
Founded By
Filter Results3 entries
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction
3. Access to Western Esotericism
Antoine Faivre, State University of New York Press, 1994
4. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Cambridge University Press, 2012
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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