| Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 10, 1961 Amsterdam |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Ethnicity | Caucasian |
| Citizenship | Netherlands |
| Alma mater | University of Utrecht |
| Occupation | Professor |
| Employer | University of Amsterdam |
Wouter Jacobus Hanegraaff (born 1961) is full professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also President of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).
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Hanegraaff originally studied classical guitar at the Municipal Conservatory at Zwolle from 1982 to 1987, and cultural history at the University of Utrecht from 1986 to 1990. From 1992 to 1996 he was a Research Fellow at the department for the Study of Religions at the University of Utrecht.
From 1996 to 1999 Hanegraaff held a postdoctoral fellowship from the Dutch Association for Scientific Research (NWO), during which time he spent a period working in Paris. In 1999 he became professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam. From 2002 to 2006 he has been president of the Dutch Society for the Study of Religion, and, since 2005, president of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. In 2006 he was elected member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie voor Wetenschappen, KNAW).
His dissertation New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought was published by Brill in 1996. Two years later it was taken up by SUNY Press. This work constitutes one of the first non-polemical academic reviews of the New Age movement, presenting an analysis on the basis of its important texts. It covers important authors, themes, aspects of New Age belief, and finally looks at the New Age in the context of traditional Western esotericism. It has helped pave the way for a number of further studies that have appeared in various journals, concerning the New Age phenomenon.
Other works are Lodovico Lazzarelli (1447-1500): The Hermetic Writings and Related Documents (Tempe 2005; with Ruud M. Bouthoorn), Swedenborg, Oetinger, Kant: Three Perspectives on the Secrets of Heaven (West Chester 2007), and numerous articles in academic journals and collective volumes. He is the main editor of the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Brill: Leiden 2005), editor of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism and the “Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism” (both Brill), as well as of four collective volumes on the study of religions and the history Western esotericism. He is member of the editorial board of the journals Religion, Numen, Religion Compass and Esoterica, and on the advisory board of Journal of Contemporary Religion and Nova Religio.
Hanegraaff has written a book on the Renaissance hermetist Lodovico Lazzarelli (with Ruud M. Bouthoorn). Lazzarelli was treated by Frances A. Yates as a secondary figure. The Hanegraaff-Bouthoorn book argues that Yates's "grand narrative" of the Hermetic Tradition needs to be revised. It seeks to restore Lazzarelli's place in the history of Renaissance hermetism and contains critical annotated editions and translations of Lazzarelli's hermetic writings, plus several related documents such as the previously unpublished biography of Lazzarelli by his brother, and texts by his spiritual master Giovanni da Correggio.
Hanegraaff's small book on Swedenborg, Oetinger and Kant is based upon an analysis of Emanuel Swedenborg's magnum opus Secrets of Heaven, and explores the history of its reception by the Swabian Christian theosopher/kabbalist and theologian Friedrich Christoph Oetinger and by Immanuel Kant, the last of whose pre-critical writings was devoted to Swedenborg.