ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses a critical view of esotericism in the work of Marxist and Jewish scholar Furio Jesi. Jesi is known for his extensive work (mostly in Italian only) on mythology and myths. According to Jesi, there is no normative and ontological essence of myth. Therefore, it is not appropriate to understand what myth is, but how it works. In this perspective, esotericism seems to be one of the ways how the recall of myth functions, as it always involves an intensification of the core of myth. The intensification of myth easily turns into technical use of the myth, in which the myth is treated as if it contained a substantial truth that is not expressible in words. The chapter takes up novelists and poets, some of which, by addressing different currents of esotericism, fall prey to technical use of myths and this way facilitate authoritarian thought without necessarily intending to do so, while some manage to use myths in a productive way.
