Occult

===Etic uses of the term===
[[File:Wouter Hanegraaff 2006 Alchemy Conference.jpg|thumb|right|In the 1990s, the Dutch scholar Wouter Hanegraaff put forward a new definition of ''occultism'' for scholarly uses.]]
{{See also|Emic and etic}}
In the mid-1990s, a new definition of "occultism" was put forth by Wouter Hanegraaff.{{sfn|Pasi|2006|pp=1367–1368}} According to Hanegraaff, the term ''occultism'' can be used not only for the nineteenth-century groups which openly self-described using that term but can also be used in reference to "the ''type'' of esotericism that they represent".{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2006|p=888}}

Seeking to define occultism so that the term would be suitable "as an [[etic]] category" for scholars, Hanegraaff devised the following definition: "a category in the study of religions, which comprises "all attempts by esotericists to come to terms with a disenchanted world or, alternatively, by people in general to make sense of esotericism from the perspective of a disenchanted secular world".{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|p=422}} Hanegraaff noted that this etic usage of the term would be independent of [[emic]] usages of the term employed by occultists and other esotericists themselves.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|p=422}}

In this definition, occultism covers many esoteric currents that have developed from the mid-nineteenth century onward, including Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the New Age.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2006|p=888}} Employing this etic understanding of "occultism", Hanegraaff argued that its development could begin to be seen in the work of the Swedish esotericist [[Emanuel Swedenborg]] and in the [[Mesmerism|Mesmerist]] movement of the eighteenth century, although added that occultism only emerged in "fully-developed form" as Spiritualism, a movement that developed in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|p=423}}

Marco Pasi suggested that the use of Hanegraaff's definition might cause confusion by presenting a group of nineteenth-century esotericists who called themselves "occultists" as just one part of a broader category of esotericists whom scholars would call "occultists".{{sfn|Pasi|2006|p=1368}}

Following these discussions, Julian Strube argued that Lévi and other contemporary authors who would now be regarded as esotericists developed their ideas not against the background of an esoteric tradition in the first place. Rather, Lévi's notion of occultism emerged in the context of highly influential radical socialist movements and widespread progressive, so-called neo-Catholic ideas.{{sfn|Strube|2016a|pp=373–379}} This further complicates Hanegraaff's characteristics of occultism, since, throughout the nineteenth century, they apply to these reformist movements rather than to a supposed group of esotericists.{{sfn|Strube|2017b|pp=218–221}}