Welcome to the website of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism

The ESSWE is a learned society, established in 2005 to advance the academic study of the various manifestations of Western esotericism from late antiquity to the present, and to secure the future development of the field.

1. Organising conferences and other academic meetings;
2. Generally promoting contacts and programmes of exchange among scholars;
3. Promoting publications and rendering services in that connection;
4. Stimulating research and education;
5. Promoting academic debate, interdisciplinary and critical approaches, and the application of a variety of scholarly methods;
6. Co-operating with other scholarly associations in and beyond Europe;
7. Encouraging the appreciation of the historical, cultural and intellectual significance of Western esotericism by research institutions, scholarly policy makers, and the general public.

1. Members can make use of an online e-mail system that allows them to easily communicate with other scholars in the field of Western esotericism generally and/or their specific field of expertise;
2. Members can use the ESSWE website to make free publicity for their books;
3. Members receive a 15% discount on the journal Aries and a 25% discount on volumes published in the Aries Book Series;
4. Members receive a discount on ESSWE conference fees.

1. President: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
2. Vice President: Jean-Pierre Brach (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris, France)
3. Treasurer: Demetrius Waarsenburg (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
4. Secretary: Mark Sedgwick (University of Aarhus, Denmark)
5. Membership Secretary: Egil Asprem (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
6. Webmaster: Peter J. Forshaw (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
7. Antoine Faivre (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne, Paris, France)
8. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (University of Exeter, UK)
9. Boaz Huss (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel)
10. Andreas Kilcher (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Switzerland)
11. Marco Pasi (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
12. Gyorgy E. Szonyi (University of Szeged, Hungary)
13. Helmut Zander (Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany)

Nominations are invited for the second biennial ESSWE PhD Thesis prize, awarded by the board of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. The prize will be given for an outstanding European PhD thesis completed between 1 January 2009 and 1 March 2011 on any aspect of Western Esotericism (broadly conceived). The thesis may be European in the sense of having been submitted at a university in Europe, or in the sense of having been submitted by a European citizen at a university anywhere in the world. The thesis must have been approved formally by the nominee's thesis committee, but the degree need not have been formally awarded.

The prizewinner will be notified in May 2011 and will receive an award of €500 and a certificate, to be presented at the ESSWE conference in Szeged, 6-10 July 2011. The thesis will also be recommended for publication in the ARIES Book Series, though the final decision on publication will be taken by the ARIES Book Series editorial board, not the Prize Committee. If it deems that no thesis reaches an appropriate standard, the Prize Committee will not award a prize.

Nominations must be made by electronic mail to the Chair of the Prize Committee, Andreas Kilcher (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, akilcher@ethz.ch) by 1 March 2011. The nominator must be a faculty member at the institution that awards the nominee’s PhD degree, or a member of the nominee’s thesis committee. Each nominator may make only one nomination. The applications should consist of pdf files of the following material:

1. A letter of nomination
2. The nominee's thesis
3. A separate summary of the thesis, written by the nominee, of no more than ten pages (double spaced)
4. A brief biographical sketch of the nominee
5. Documentation to show that the thesis has been approved

Items 1, 3 and 4 must be in English. Item 2 may be in any one of the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. Item 5 may be in any language, so long as a translation into English is provided if it is not in English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

The Prize Committee consists of:
• Andreas Kilcher, Zurich (Chair)
• Boaz Huss, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
• Helmut Zander, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum