Egil Asprem, a Norwegian scholar of esotericism and contemporary Paganism (he has published in The Pomegranate on Norse Paganism and Kabbalah) has a blog post up: “Counterjidhadist Templar Terrorism,” on Anders Behring Breivik’s use of Western esoteric language and symbols. Worth reading.
It is as if an ideological critique of (or revolt against) modernity which seeks to incorporate a religious dimension hardly ever escapes the esoteric – whether the revolt comes from the left or the right.
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I guess that we could stretch alchemy to include assembling fertilizer bombs. But, honestly, when folks like Breivik get counted as esoctericists, then what I believe and practice has got to be considered something apart from the esoteric. Because it is so different.
Political and social violence carried out in the name of the esoteric strikes me as equivalent to cultural movements like Satanic panics. People do cruel and killing things in the names of what’s not really there…