Association pour la Recherche et l'Information sur l'Esotericisme (ARIES)

The Association pour la Recherche et l'Information sur l'Esotericisme (ARIES) is both an international scholarly association and periodical focused upon defining and researching the Western esoteric tradition, especially as it has manifested since the Renaissance. The leading personality in the emergence and development of ARIES has been Antoine Faivre. Through the 1990s, Faivre, a senior professor of the religious studies faculty at the University of Paris (the Sorbonne) has been holding the only academic chair devoted primarily to the study of esotericism in the world, the chair in the "history of Western Esoteric and Mystical Currents in Modern and Contemporary Europe." Through the 1980s and 1990s, Faivre wrote and edited a series of books that have explored the intellectual currents and tradition formed by the esoteric thinkers from the sixteenth century to the present. These books have attempted to distinguish the various currents of esoteric thought and to define criteria for approaching and studying the form of thought proper to these currents. ARIES was founded in 1985 with Faivre, R. E. Deghaye, and Pierre Deghaye serving as its three co-directors.

ARIES, the professional association, sponsors symposia and colloquies irregularly. ARIES, the journal, is issued biannually. Each issue includes several articles on modern Western esotericism by scholars from around the world. It is explicitly multilingual, contributions being accepted in German, French, or English. A significant portion of each issue is devoted to book reviews and surveys of periodicals concerned with various issues (theosophy, alchemy, hermeticism, Rosicrucianism, Christian kabbalah, etc.).

Study of the esoteric tradition as an important subdiscipline in religious studies was given a significant boost at the end of the 1990s when the University of Amsterdam established a new chair in the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents as part of its Department of Theology/Religious Studies. That chair is now held by Wouter J. Hanegraaff. Beginning in 2000, E. J. Brill of Leiden, The Netherlands, assumed responsibility for publishing ARIES. These two events have led to the development of a second center of primary activity for ARIES. Hanegraaff now serves with Antoine Faivre and Roland Edighoffer as an editor of the journal.

The association ARIES may be contacted at 8 Chemin Scribe, 92190 Meudon, France. The journal ARIES may be contacted at 76, rue Quincampoix, 73003 Paris (for issues 1-22, 1985-99, and the Proceedings), and at E. J. Brill, P.O. Box 9000, 2300 PA Leiden, The Netherlands (for current subscriptions).

Sources:

ARIES. Paris, France, n.d.

Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State University Press of New York, 1994.

——. Theosophy, Imagination, Tradition: Studies in Western Esotericism. Albany: State University Press of New York, 2000.

Faivre, Antoine, and Jacob Needleman, eds. Modern Esoteric Spirituality. New York: Crossroad, 1992.

Hanegraaff, Wouter J. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.