Western Esotericism Family Tree 

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Thanks for the shout-out, Dr. Baker! Would love to work on something together at some point.

Learning that the word “mesmerize” comes from a person is mind-blowing

Many foreigners don't know it, but Brazil is an extremely spiritual country and I'm not talking only about Christianity, but there are many esoteric groups. Spiritism is one of the largest religions in Brazil, even though it started in France, and it's quite amazing

Thank you so much for the mention, Matt. It would be lovely to collaborate with you. 🥰🙏

Makes "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius" by The Fifth Dimension understandable.

Something else to consider: slave religions. here is an incomplete list: - Haiti Vodou/Voudoux - from the Creole French "Vaudoux" - related but different is Louisiana voodoo - another variation is USA hoodoo ("conjure") - Cuban Santeria/Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí - Jamaican Obeah, or Obayi and - related Jamaican Myalism In Brasil there seems to be four distinct movements, -Candomble of Bahia and the northeast -Spiritism of Rio (i am not sure if it is the same mentioned in this video or not) -Umbanda in the urban centers not influenced by Bahia -Quimbanda a form of black magic that is practiced clandestinely everywhere. i think there are more i have not run across

UsefulCharts has uploaded, time to stop everything I'm doing

Wow. Matt, you have outdone yourself! What vast research, succinctly tied together, and well laid-out. I especially like the blue streaming borders that guides our eyes to the box being discussed.

Super interesting to see how all these esoteric orders interrelate. My dad was a Master Mason and a Grand Master so you can imagine how my upbringing went. Yep, lodge rat. I had a real love for ritual of the Masonic style but I didn't want to become Eastern Star or Nile. I instead had the bright idea of converting to Mormonism which I thought was an esoteric religion. Boy was I wrong. I rather realized it when I went for my endowments and found the ritual to be a watered down and rather culty programming version of Freemasonry, complete with some rather familiar looking grips and signs. I left after four years and forgot about any kind of esoteric work, moving instead into various forms of neoPaganism. I did get into solo study of the Hermetic Qabala. Finally I stumbled on a group of ceremonial magicians and realized I had finally found my home. After 25 years I still work the Western Magical path and find it fulfilling.

Not talking about the historical wizard duel that Alister Crowley was involved in is a glaring omission

Heck yeah, Hellenic Reconstruction represented! It's interesting that you contrast Reconstruction with Eclecticism; in many Reconstructionist spaces (at least Norse and Hellenism, not sure about Celtic), there's usually a greater focus on contrasting Recon with Revivalism, which is a spectrum that moves from trying to replicate an ancient religion exactly to making more and more concessions to try to modernize it, which sometimes involves bringing in practices from the traditions you've labelled as eclectic, though not always. A lot of Reconstructionists might push back on being grouped with traditions like Wicca under Neo-Paganism. While some of us call ourselves Pagans (though many prefer just polytheist or reconstructionist), within our communities, we usually use Neo-Paganism specifically to mean those eclectic traditions like Wicca that we think of as an out-group, never for ourselves. Overall, it's just an interesting look at how language is used academically vs by adherents. Also, I'm so sorry for the amount of flak you're going to get for (correctly, imo) including the LDS Church on this chart. Thank you for making this chart! It's awesome, and I love it!

Its great to finally have some structure to these movements. Cheers!

Thanks for this one. I hope we could soon see an Eastern Esotericism chart as well. It'd be weird if you can explain Witchdoctoring practices in Sri Lanka 😶 Also, for folks who like to delve in to these different esoteric groups in an academtic setting, suggest to see courses produced by "The Great Courses" taught by Professor Richard Spence - Secrets of the Occult is one of my absoulte favorites. He is actually an expert on Aliester Crawly.

Good job - there's more to do, numerous Kabbalahist schools, Christian Esoteric and Mystical currents, Esoteric Islam, Christian Hermeticism. We have other inheritors of the Rosicrucian Enlightenment also, such as the Moravian Church. Good job.

In case you're wondering why the equinox zodiac is going to change, it's because the earth's axis is actually in precession, completing one revolution every 26,000 years. When the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza, the North Star wasn't our current North Star, Polaris, but rather it was Thuban. Because the earth is rotating, there's a g force at the equator which causes its circumference to enlarge there, effectively shaping the earth into a spheroid. Because it's not a perfect sphere, the gravitational force of the sun is not perfectly balanced. One side of the earth gets tugged just a little bit more, and this causes the earth's axis to spin. This means that we will enter the age of Aquarius at the turn of the 27th century.

Yes yes yes, been waiting for this one, thank you!

My paternal grandparents were Kardecian Spiritists, and my grandfather was a Medium in charge of a congregation. My aunt was also a Medium and she continued the congregation for some time after my grandfather died. Back home in Puerto Rico, there are still many Spiritst communities, although there is a huge diversity of groups. My maternal family was very “traditional” in that they were pure Kardecian. But there were other syncretic expressions that incorporate either Afro-Caribbean or Roman Catholic rituals and beliefs. I grew up Protestant because my dad’s side of the family converted from Islam to Christianity through the Protestant efforts to help with the US colonization in Puerto Rico. When I try to explain this religious family history to USAmericans who think that all Latinos are Roman Catholic and if not, we are converts, their heads explode. 😂🤣😂🤣 Never a Roman Catholic in this Latino family! Thank you for sharing this chart and shedding light on less known, but still very relevant, religious movements.

Ethnic religions of Europe are more numerous than only Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Roman and eclectic. There's big family of Slavic Ethnic Faith (Rodnovery / Rodnoverie), i'm one of believers but I estimate that in all Slavic countries and among Slavic diaspora there is around 10 thousands of us minimum. Of course there are many people including ethnic motives into their spirituality but not caring for consistency or not being commited really. That's why I count our numbers rather humbly than including all clowns like ynglists and other great lechina empire supporters. Chwała przodkom! Sława bogom! There's also a few similar faiths, with Baltic, Ugric, Finnish, Turkish and other roots. Respect for all of them!

'Hellenism' as a term for the modern Hellenic Paganism movemnet has been pushed back by Greeks since the term Hellenism just means 'Greekness' and is already used in Greek to refer to the ethnic/national identity.

Perfect channel reccomendations for this topic. Two excellent and scholarly creators making content on this field

This is a really fantasic overview. The only thing that i would add as a neo-pagan is that some non-reconstructionist neo-pagans still do work with a specific pantheo, but aren't trying to practice in a way that attempts to recreate historical practices. One example of this would be hellenic wiccans.

Note on Eastern Religions: they really don't come into play until the 1700s, and weren't much an influence on early Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Swedenborg, or Mesmer. That said, Mesmer's students quickly started making claims that their ideas had eastern precedents and a few later Rosicrucian authors claim that when Rosenkreutz travelled "east," "east" meant India and Tibet instead of Jerusalem or maybe Baghdad. Still, Levi make the occasional vague mention of eastern religions where it suited him but Papus and Blavatsky try to work whole eastern ideas into their systems (or at least relabel Neoplatonic concepts with Sanskrit terms). Levi needs lines going to Papus and Crowley: both regularly cite Levi and make sure to never contradict Levi without some sort of explanation for why Levi wasn't *really* wrong there ("he said that to stop the uninitiated from seeing a deeper truth"). Papus saw himself as putting into organized practice what Levi wrote largely as theory. Crowley believed he was the reincarnation of Levi. More on Martinism: Neo-Templar ideas (admittedly Masonic but not all Masons) feeds into the Elus Cohens, and the Elus Cohens claimed Rosicrucian pedigree. A number of Neo-Gnostic movements fed into the Papus's Martinist Order. The Martinist Order split into a few different factions, which were coalescing back together into two federations of esoteric orders in the 20th century (FUDOSI and FUDOFSI). Crowley got involved on one side of the fighting, which exacerbated things (not his fault, one side wanted the OTO's numbers and the other took that opportunity to paint them as all being like Crowley). This infighting lead to court battles that basically destroyed two of the largest esoteric organizations (outside of regular Freemasonry) in the mid-20th century. AMORC, the FRC, and probably any Gnostic church that predates the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library are what remains. Crowley and Hubbard: Not really something that can be shown on the chart but interesting, Hubbard was a member of the California branch of the O.T.O., which Crowley was not happy about. Crowley's student who initiated Hubbard, Jack Parsons, was the rocket scientist who invented the fuel used by the Apollo program. Neo-Druidry was influenced by Freemasonry: The oldest neo-Druid movements got started as Freemasonry variants by both Anglo-Israelists and even early secularists (with *both* groups often having Christian ministers among their numbers!). Theosophy influenced UFO religions: Theosophy isn't a UFO religion but it teaches that races from other planets (understood in an astrological sense) help guide humanity, which planted the seed for all UFO religions' idea that the aliens are going to teach us how to be better people. A lot of the older UFO stuff kind of takes Blavatskian ideas for granted (which is why "Nordic" was a classification for alien and Atlantis is regularly assumed to exist by the UFO crowd). The UFO craze of the mid-to-late 20th century could be seen as a secularization of these religious beliefs, rather than the other way around.

A couple things I’d like to add about the neo-pagan section: the influence of different neo-pagan groups on each other is huge. These communities are often small, so there’s a lot of overlap. There are also many people who fit into more than one category - eclectic paganism is a huge thing. My experience with is mostly with Druidry, but there’s a decent amount of overlap in practices and beliefs between us and Wicca, Celtic reconstructionism, and other neo-pagan groups. Druids these days are often Celtic pagans specifically, though not everyone fits into this. The main exception to this is the Völkish movement and its descendants. In my experience, these groups are typically actively shunned and weeded out of many broadly pagan spaces (like, people will ask you to denounce them or ask you questions to try to determine if you’re racist). Many Heathens who are not affiliated with them tend to say early on that they denounce Völkish groups and white supremacy. Non-Völkish pagan spaces tend to be pretty liberal and very LGBTQ friendly. There are always exceptions to that because paganism is such a vast term and doesn’t tell you very much about beliefs or practices, but that’s been my experience.

Great video once again! Just wanted to point out that the symbol you call Star of David has also been used for millennia by dharmic faiths (just like the svastika). We call it ṣaṭkoṇa. Sometimes there is a dot in the center and modernly this is even more common so people don't mix up the two. Edit: I also wanted to point out that the N*z* symbol has German names such as Hakenkreuz (hooked cross) which I wish modern people would use instead of continuing the N**i appropriation of our symbol and our word for it. Uphill battle though... Their version was depicted with point downward whereas we typically have it flat side down. Again, sometimes dots are between the lines mostly in South Asia, especially post-WW2. In Japan the dots are rare. I had to self-censor for YT to allow this message. Imagine having speech regulated when trying to set the record straight about your own culture being appropriated...

Argh, you should've gotten Dr. Justin Sledge to make a cameo!

Blavatsky was the best con artist to ever live. So many modern evils trace back to her.

As a Roman polytheist, it’s really cool to see some modern reconstructionist movements listed.

Holy moley those Rosicrucians sure made some insane charts. Great video, thanks!

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="22">0:22</a> Yo what? You used my map? Awesome!

I was disappointed that the character Cagliostro was not mentioned. He is credited with inventing a lot of the ancient Egyptian themed rites in Freemasonry and the subsequent infatuation with everything ancient Egyptian. If one wanders through any monumental cemetery in any western city one is certain to come across Egyptian themed tombs as at Highgate in London and even in the Poggioreale cemetery in Naples in the middle of all the Catholic themed crypts there is one totally Egyptian!

This is a great mind map in Western esotericism. I didn't see Heinrich Cornelius Agripa on here on his three books of occult philosophy?

Eye opening. The best and most fruitful RU-vid channel I swear.

I'd love to see a similar breakdown of 1st century mysteries/early Christian cults.

Great Work, thanks for mentioning Dr. Puca and Dr. Sledge ❤ P.S. i like to share this Video with some Folks to give them a short overview about western Esotericism

Can you make a family tree of Jainism Sikhism and African traditional religions.

As a reconstructionist Heathen it is nice to see my religion here.

I just watched the religion for breakfast episode on the new age. I hope yall coordinated this because they work so well together.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="924">15:24</a> ouroborus. It is a symbol for infinity.

So, under Heathenry, I think you mean GermanIC gods and not German gods? Because I often see Heathenry used when talking about Norse mythology, which is Germanic but not German; athough German is also Germanic.

I feel like New Age deserves it's own chart with all of the influences it pulls from.

Mr Crowley is a great song

As a Thelemite, I am happy to see us included. 😊

These charts are indeed so useful. As someone obsessed with charts, planners, etc., this is amazing

I love those esoteric symbols. Since I was a child I was attracted to them and in my mind I tried to create fantasy stories using them. That's one of the reasons I watched the anime series FullMetal Alchemist: because they use similar symbols for alchemy in the series.

The Waldorf schools out there are probably how my mom got into astrology. I learned it from her though she’s kind of ashamed of it, and I’m trying to introduce her to even more kinds… maybe in hopes of finding some semblance of what she used to be like.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1055">17:35</a> Thelema (Θέλημα, pronounced þElima) actually means just will, although divine will is a common use

I love esotericism and definitely count myself here, where it’s all very squishy and doesn’t fit anywhere in particular, except that it’s hard to have a serious discussion with people about it because it’s just so looked down on by atheists and feared by Christians.

Can you do a sequel, picking up from New Age and expanding that tree?

I feel like this channel has gotten big enough for it's own proper theme music rather than the stock pseudo medieval sample I've heard on multiple other channels

As a Western Esoteric practitioner I thank you for your attention to this subject 😊

"New Age" as a term has come to describe the general eclecticism that has emerged in the wake of globalization, where access to information, frequent contact with other spiritual beliefs, a breakdown in group identities, and the rise of individualism have led to a shift toward personalized spiritual belief systems. Even belief in the Age of Aquarius has become a fungible identifier, with many so-called New Age gatherings being an intermingling of those who identify with one, some, or none of the mentioned groups. Thus, at least in common usage, it is not truly a set of beliefs but rather serves to identify a way of approaching spirituality in this… *puts on sun glasses* New Age.

I would love to see what you can come up with about Animism, the underpinning religion of all the pre-western esotericism lines. There are a lot of us out there and it’s growing.

Bit of an inaccurate introduction here. Esoteric ideas are not called that because they had to be hidden from the authorities, but rather because they are not immediately obvious to someone becoming initiated in them, and must be gleaned through careful study and spiritual practice. Mysticism also falls under the banner of esotericism, and it was actively encouraged by the church historically, with many mystics being canonized as saints. Similarly, while Gnosticism was a competitor to Christianity that largely died out due to its suppression by Nicene Christian authorities, Neoplatonism and especially Hermeticism openly thrived in the scholarly, philosophical, and theological landscape of medieval Europe and the Arab world. By the time of the renaissance especially, the study of alchemy, astrology, and other Hermetic proto-scientific concepts were commonplace in universities and among the educated elite. The idea that these schools of thought were some sort of remnants of ancient paganism that was hiding underground due to suppression from Christianity is closer to Margaret Murray’s discredited ideas about witchcraft, just applied to elite esotericism rather than folk magic of the common people. The whole business of secret societies that require initiation rites and have doctrines that are hidden from the outside world on pain of death is much more of a 19th-century invention associated with the so-called occult movement that you discuss later in the video. it’s not really an accurate description of people like Paracelsus, Agrippa, or ibn Umayl.

I find the esocetric movements fascinating and that they can provide a place for people who are spiritual but no religious, thanks for making this video Matt can't wait to see what's next

Shouldn't Dion Fortune(Violet Mary Firth) be on this chart as well? She was influenced by Theosophy, Golden Dawn, and influenced Wicca and the Great Goddess movement. She founded the Fraternity of the Inner Light.

@UsefulCharts the symbol used by the Martinist Order, the so-called "Hexagram" in the west, is used in MANY different places that has NOTHING to do with Judaism. the earliest places it is found is in India and Egypt. You'll find it all over Eurasia and Africa and have NO connections to Jews or Judaism. Judaism didn't even use it until after the 2nd Temple period, 300 to 400 years after.

I'm a new grad student who plans on doing a lot of research in Western esotericism, and I can already tell this will be a major resource for me. Thank you!

Really interesting thanks. The connection between Freemasons and Joseph Smith's ideas makes so much sense!

That’s the history of organized bullshit. A source of power to each successful prophet. The enterprises cited in the video is the result of an individual undertaking on the human impulse for gullibility, susceptibility to art, rhetoric and symbolism, and lack of critical capabilities of the faithful masses. In addition, the lack of scientific knowledge back then plays a role encouraging one to hastily seek any slightly satisfactory hypotheses for unanswered questions of the time. Those names in the chart are names of companies and their CEOs. Although entertaining, they who sell ‘truth’ without evidence are simply wrong, and therefore in the business of deception. Those who choose to believe their little stories in a leap of faith, abandoning reason, will never doubt their validity. It’s a paradox that ensures ignorance of those who follow, and power to their leaders, who prey on the flock’s need of emotional comfort. It’s time we start seeing these names the same way we see the names of other mythologies: in the category of early humanity epistemic innocence. In history, astronomy came so astrology could die. Science came to free us from superstition. Philosophy came so we can assess the questions to which religions invent answers, in a sensible and honest way.

A book from which i found a lot on esoteric societies was Umberto Eco’s “Focault’s pendulum”.Very good book!!

Awesome video! A brief note about spiritualism: Allan Kardec's ideas found in Brazil several traditions derived from African-based religions, mainly the one that would give rise to Umbanda. As racism is quite strong in the country, Kardecist elements - notably more present in the upper classes - were (often) appropriated as a tool to whiten certain practices.

As a Norse Heathen, I appreciate this very much. Thank you!

The New Church operates a beautiful estate in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania featuring their cathedral and a splendid art museum called Glencairn Museum.

@UsefulCharts you should consider updating the chart to include the influence of folk catholicism on some current new age schools of thought

Im not formally educated as well as you are, obviously, but I was taught that pre-christian Roman religions were also esoteric, in that you had to be initiated into the mysteries to fully understand the religion. And that this is the source for the term Esoteric: movements like Thelema have initiations and grades that reveal more truths, whereas the teachings of Christianity are broadcasted to everyone before you become a member.

you should make a family tree for sports. It would be cool to see how different sports like football and rugby are related, and when and why they became different.

My favorite topic! I'd love to see one on Eastern Esotericism too. There' isn't as much content on Eastern compared to Western Esotericism on the internet.

Oh this such a good video! I am glad you made it.

This is extremely useful; it explain a lot. Can we hope to see a fully detailed video on Neo Paganism?

I was born in a family that's spiritist here in Brazil. Funny thing is that almost similar any Christian sect, but some key differences in belief such as reincarnation and the possibility to communicate with spirits.

Thanks for promoting 80k hours!!

Just a bit a pronunciation correction: it is the angel Mo-ro-nigh not Mo-ro-nee. Awesome video!!

Thank you for posting a map and chart about this. Aharharhar.

I missed the presence of Guenon's and Schuon's Perenialism, which are massively influential. Also, I missed medieval gnostics, Cathars, and Joachimites (and others inspired by Joachim of Fiori) as well as chaos magic.

Great channel recommendations! Very good video!

Love all your religion charts like these. So fascinating.

There is a Spiritualist church in my suburb in Australia. If I’m having my Sunday afternoon walk and go past at around 3pm, there are a few people chatting in the carpark just like any other church.

I'm betting that a lot of followers in these groups will be surprised to see their place in the larger historical scheme of things.

I’m a Spiritualist, have been since i was a teenager. Organised Religion, particularly Biblical Christianity never made sense to me in the slightest. I could not understand why God would need to be worshipped, why he would condemn his own creations to Hell for the smallest mistakes. It’s like putting your child in an oven for breaking a glass. How can God be forgiving and vengeful? All loving and condemning? Never sat right when i was 14, still doesn’t now.

Thank you for this chart. Its very interesting! I don't know if its possible but I would love to see a similar chart that talks about Eastern Esotericism

So many links to my favorite podcast: Behind the Bastards

Very good, i just miss the modern occult movements, like austin osman spare and chaos magick, CCRU, IOT and such

About wicca. While it's true that there is no central organization, there's two main structure of wicca. One is traditional wicca which is derived from gardner practice and follow a core material , initiations and precises rituals. The other is eclectic wicca wich don't have any specific structure appart from what the practionner may see fit. Most traditional don't see eclectic wicca as real wicca since it's so different from the source material. So depending on who you talk too and what historical reference you take, the teaching of your video may or may not apply

I feel like Caodaism should have been mentioned as one of the religious organizations that was influenced by spiritism

Correction: Conan Doyle was never a member of the Golden Dawn. The Wikipedia Golden Dawn page incorrectly lists him as a member, although the Talk page correctly says that he wasn't.

The "Völkisch Movement isn't actually a religious movement it was a populist (cross party) far right movement. Most of its members would have been protestants and not really involved with esotericism or paganism. Its main uniting aspect was racism (particularly antisemitism). Pagans made up a fairly small but influential group within the movement.

Granted I'm not an Esotericism practitioner myself (hopefully got the term correct) and this video is very interesting. One thing I did wonder is about the overstating of the Nazi association with Esotericism is whether in some ways its the other way around. And that the effort is also to associate any and all Western Esotericism with the Nazis as a way to discredit Western Esotericism.

My only introduction to the Rosicrucians was a visit to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California about 45 years ago. It's run by the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), which is the largest Rosicrucian order currently. Apparently, they believe that their traditions date back to ancient Egypt. Don't know about that, but it's an interesting museum.

I loved this so much and got some more context especially with my astrological leanings! Also it's funny to me that Aryans are originally a group of Indo-Iranians, yet those particular racist Germans appropriated that name.

Just FYI, the symbol at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="610">10:10</a> isn’t the “star of David”, it’s the star of Remphan/Chiyun as mentioned in Amos <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="326">5:26</a> and Acts <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="463">7:43</a>. ❤ Revelation <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="129">2:9</a> and <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="189">3:9</a> ❤

You ignored Guénon, Schuon, Evola and the traditionalist perennial school.

There's one thread you forgot: gnostic revivalism. There are some gnostic revivalist groups out there. I used to be part of one. I was wary of their closeness to Theosophy organizationally (their LA church meets in the Theosophical Society's HQ and there were always brochures and books about Theosophy present in the sanctuary, and having read Blavatsky I was not impressed to say the least). It's called Ecclesia Gnostica.

What about these contemporaries; Gurdjieff and Rasputin. And how about fictional religions fitting into the new age stuff like Jedi.

Brilliant! Great over and frame of reference for exploring more.

My observations indicate that the common denominator linking all of Western Esotericism is a belief in the immortality of the human soul.

Are you able to do a chart based on calenders? Like i understand the julian calender to gregorian, but no idea before then.

I wish to see UFO religions and Neo-Pagan religions’s family tree more in detail, and other unknown new religious movements. Since, they’re more “traditional covens” in Wiccan and some Neo-Pagan religions or splinter denominational-like movements. Than broad western esoteric umbrella, you given us.

That photo by Alex Crowley showed the magic square of Feng Shui . No mather how you ad up the numbers - horizontal , vertical , diagonal - the outcome is always 15 .

Hellenism mentioned: happy Kemeticism not mentioned: sad