William Redwood
Independent Scholar
Totalising Transgression? Authenticity and Ambivalence in Esoteric Identities
This paper draws on anthropology and sociology to examine why esotericists strive to transgress and
how they maintain and sustain transgressive identities; focus is on transgression by active agents as
social strategy. Why do they do it? How do they do it (correctly and conversely, incorrectly)? Ideas of
transgression (of one kind and another) have been fairly fundamental to social science and so various
key works and theoretical schools will initially be surveyed - and a number of ‘traditional’ case-studies
will be examined - by way of introduction. Subsequently, the data drawn on will be that of the author’s
own PhD research which was based on fieldwork carried out within London’s esoteric community; it is
explained that (for the purpose of this paper) this can be treated as representative of the thinking of
the esoteric (sub)culture in general. The three main inter-related issues then addressed are: the links
between transgression and notions of authenticity; questions of transgression as performative and
transgression as symbolic capital; and finally, the importance of ambiguity within the transgressive act
or within the transgressive individual. The paper will conclude by attempting to outline a typology of
transgressions and answer the question of what social ‘logic’ or ‘grammar’ might lie behind them.
However, the paper finishes with the suggestion that perhaps paradoxically, seeking any absolute
conclusion is possibly to miss the point: all too often, transgression is not just a subjective matter
(although it certainly is subjective); also, transgression is never fixed nor ever finished, but it remains
very much a work-in-progress; moreover, transgression is a necessarily ambiguous business which is
not to be understood or ‘read’ simply or singularly. It is ultimately concluded that the ‘dark side’ of
esotericism is necessarily nebulous: its ambivalence allows it an especial semiotic functionality,
making it the symbolic currency with which esoteric identities are continually (re)negotiated.
Totalising Transgression? Authenticity and Ambivalence in Esoteric Identities
This paper draws on anthropology and sociology to examine why esotericists strive to transgress and how they maintain and sustain transgressive identities; focus is on transgression by active agents as social strategy. Why do they do it? How do they do it (correctly and conversely, incorrectly)? Ideas of transgression (of one kind and another) have been fairly fundamental to social science and so various key works and theoretical schools will initially be surveyed - and a number of ‘traditional’ case-studies will be examined - by way of introduction. Subsequently, the data drawn on will be that of the author’s own PhD research which was based on fieldwork carried out within London’s esoteric community; it is explained that (for the purpose of this paper) this can be treated as representative of the thinking of the esoteric (sub)culture in general. The three main inter-related issues then addressed are: the links between transgression and notions of authenticity; questions of transgression as performative and transgression as symbolic capital; and finally, the importance of ambiguity within the transgressive act or within the transgressive individual. The paper will conclude by attempting to outline a typology of transgressions and answer the question of what social ‘logic’ or ‘grammar’ might lie behind them. However, the paper finishes with the suggestion that perhaps paradoxically, seeking any absolute conclusion is possibly to miss the point: all too often, transgression is not just a subjective matter (although it certainly is subjective); also, transgression is never fixed nor ever finished, but it remains very much a work-in-progress; moreover, transgression is a necessarily ambiguous business which is not to be understood or ‘read’ simply or singularly. It is ultimately concluded that the ‘dark side’ of esotericism is necessarily nebulous: its ambivalence allows it an especial semiotic functionality, making it the symbolic currency with which esoteric identities are continually (re)negotiated.