Definition

The word "esoterism" is easy enough to define. It's that which deals with the esoteric, right? But, what is the esoteric? Basically, "esoteric" means, "that which is internal." Does this refer to emotions, thoughts, spirituality, or some other concept too large for us to even fathom, something some might call "God?" Though some groups of people have come to agree upon certain meanings for the word, what to do with such meaning is quite varied- as you may have noticed. Are religion and esoterism one in the same? And, where does science fit into all these Online Games?

From the seventeenth century on, it has become more and more commonplace for people to use quantification as a basis for prediction. In fact, statistical means are at the very heart of modern-day science. Since we know some experiments have inherent flaws, we commonly accept scientific theories to be akin to that which we can satisfactorily predict to occur 99. blah blah% of the time. Would 97% of the time be sufficient? It depends on the statistical model. Because it has not been documented in a controlled study that a brick fell up rather than down, gravity has earned itself “law” status. Does smoking cause cancer? Does prayer influence health? Is there, or is there not, a God? These investigations are trickier to conduct. Not every person who smokes gets cancer, though we have come to consider it to pose a significant health risk. We've allowed reason to enter the picture.

One option people have in their day-today lives is to deny a causal link between smoking and illness. "My grandmother lived to be 99 years old, and she smoked a pack a day for 80 years." It happens. But, most smokers are not so lucky. When we admit we do not know everything or (gasp) might even be wrong about a thing or two, we oftentimes attribute such unknowns to the realm of that which is “yet to be discovered.” Not too many people think an intricate system of "gods" control the weather anymore, but what makes atoms behave so strangely and what will happen to your consciousness or soul after you die in the physical realm? We don't have all the answers, and though we will no doubt continue to know more and more, it may well be that there will always be more and more that will remain "yet to be discovered."

Not only people have difficulties, a common understanding on the concepts that are behind the New Age is not even, and only one definition of what it as such. There is a definition about horoscopes. A Definition zu Horoskope und Astrologie finden Sie bei http://www.astro-press.de and Internet encyclopaedias. Now back to the esoteric. One of the most widely accepted articulations of what constitutes esoterism is that of French scholar Antoine Fairve. Fairve broke esoterism down into four essential elements: "a theory of correspondences, the conviction that nature is a living entity, the need for mediating elements (such as symbols or visions) in order to access spiritual knowledge, and a sense of personal transmutation when arriving at this knowledge." (1)

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoterism