a few definitions of esoteric
by Clarence Anderson
Mackey, Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry:
ESOTERIC MASONRY That secret portion of
Freemasonry which is known only to the initiates as distinguished from Exoteric
Freemasonry, or monitorial, which is accessible to all who choose to read the
manuals and published works of the Order.
The words are from the Greek, esoterikos, internal, and exoterikos, external,
and were first used by Pythagoras, whose philosophy was divided into the
exoteric, or that taught to all, and the esoteric, or that taught to a select
few; and thus his disciples were divided into two classes, according to the
Degree of initiation to which they had attained, as being either fully admitted
into the society, and invested with all the knowledge that the Master could
communicate, or as merely postulants, enjoying only the public instructions of
the school, and awaiting the gradual reception of further knowledge. This double
mode of instruction was borrowed by Pythagoras from the Egyptian priests, whose
theology was of two kinds—the one exoteric, and addressed to the people in
general; the other esoteric, and confined to a select number of the priests and
to those who possessed, or were to possess, the regal power.
And the mystical nature of this concealed doctrine was expressed in their
symbolic language by the images of sphinxes placed at the entrance of their
temples. Two centuries later, Aristotle adopted the system of Pythagoras, and,
in the Lyceum at Athens, delivered in the morning to his select disciples his
subtle and concealed doctrines concerning God, Nature, and Life, and in the
evening lectures on more elementary subjects to a promiscuous audience. These
different lectures he called his Morning and his Evening Walk."
Waite, A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry:
"Esoteric Freemasonry
It has been said that there is a hidden side of Masonry which is known to none
but initiates and is therefore esoteric, in contradistinction to Monitorial
Masonry, which is exoteric and accessible to all. In the sense and the manner
put forward there is no such part or aspect, and no one has attempted to carry
the statement further, furnishing exlanation or evidence. By those who are on
the circumference of the Masonic circle - by the tyros and young craftsment
-- the suggestion will be understood as an allusion to hidden Grades: but no
such Grades exist. By anti-Masonic Leagues and Latin Christianity generally it
will be collected eagerly as an unguarded admission of their own contention
-- that the Order has a concealed purpose, a secret plan of the political and
religious kind. There is no such purpose in Masonry. On the other hand, in a
sense which is not intended, there is that assuredly which may be called
Esoteric Masonry, if we like to adopt an arbitrary and undesirable label; for
there is that which can be imparted to no one by the study of monitorial
text-books, or even the books in extenso containing the Rituals of the Rites: it
is the essential life of the Order which can be found and shared only by
integration therein. . . .There is another Esoteric Masonry, and this is the
meaning which lies beneath the surface of the Grades and can be drawn forth only
by those who have a living familiarity with the history of universal initiation,
who have become qualified by its comparative study to look beyond mere records
and disern in part the true end of initiation. Out of this there is evolved a
third Esoteric and indeed Transcendental Masonry, which those in fine attain who
have entered into union with the end. . . . It is individual to each who
attains, though it is one at the root for all, being the figurative process of
the progress of the soul in God." Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma,
p. 249- 250:
"Christ himself spoke in parables and allegories, John borrowed
the enigmatical language of the Platonists, and Paul often indulged in
incomprehensible rhapsodies, the meaning of which could have been clear to the
Initiates alone. .
. . Pythagoras and Plato, the most mystical of the Grecian Philosophers (the
latter heir to the doctrines of the former), and who had travelled, the latter
in Egypt, and the former in Phoenicia, India, and Persia, also taught the
esoteric dotrine and the distinction between the initiated and the profane. . .
.
The distinction between the esoteric and exoteric doctrines (a distinction
purely Masonic), was always and from the very earliest times, preserved among
the Greeks." W.L.Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry, p.21-23:
"It is well to emphasize then, at the outset, that Masonry is a
sacramntal system, possessing, like all sacraments, an outward and visible side
consisting of its ceremonial, its doctrine and its symbols which we can see and
hear, and an inward, intellectual and spiritual side, which is concealed behind
the ceremonial, the doctrine and the symbols, and which is available only to the
Mason who has learnd to use his spiritual imagination and who can appreciate the
reality that lies behind the veil of outward symbol. . . .The Craft whose work
we are taught to honour with the name of a "science," a "royal art," has surely
some larger end in view than merely inculcating the practice of social virtues
common to all the world and by no means the monopoly of Freemasons.
Surely, then, it behoves us to acquaint ourselves with what that larger end
consists, to enquire why the fulfilment of that purpose is worthy to be called a
science, and to ascertain what are those "mysteries" to which our doctrine
promises we may ultimately attain if we apply ourselves assiduously enough to
understanding what Masonry is capable of teaching us. . . . In all periods of
the world's history, and in every part of the globe, secret orders and societies
have existed outside the limits of the official churches for the purpose of
teaching what are called "the Mysteries": for imparting to suitable and prepared
minds certain truths of human life, certain instructions about divine things,
about the things that belong to our peace, about human nature and human destiny,
which it was undesirable to publish to the multitude who would but profane those
teachings and apply the esoteric knowledge that was communicated to perverse and
perhaps to disastrous ends." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's
Dictionary:
"ESOTERIC, adj.
Very particularly abstruse and consummately occult. The ancient philosophies
were of two kinds, -- exoteric, those that the philosophers themselves could
partly understand, and esoteric, those that nobody could understand. It is the
latter that have most profoundly affected modern thought and found greatest
acceptance in our time."
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