ABSTRACT
Beginning with the creation of Rosicrucianism in the seventeenth century, Western Esotericism, the third major religious tradition in the West, has taken its place beside Christianity and Judaism and steadily challenged their dominance of the spiritual community. 1 Most notably, Western Esotericism has offered a complete alternative to Christian theology in its advocacy of a worldview centred on an impersonal deity rather than God the Father, the creation of the world by spiritual emanation rather than divine fiat, the practice of spiritual disciplines rather than piety and worship and a life built around education towards enlightenment rather than the search for a heavenly salvation. While the basic teachings of the Esoteric tradition have only rarely been reduced to anything resembling a Christian creed, they can rather easily be abstracted from the many tomes written over the centuries which, as one would discover in a selection of Christian theological texts, manifest a core of reappearing affirmations amid a wide variety of variant theologies.
