---
title: "Western esotericism and psychology"
chunk: 5/9
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism_and_psychology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:13:08.247145+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Founded by Roberto Assagioli, psychosynthesis articulated a developmental model integrating will, imagination and symbolic techniques (guided imagery, reflective exercises), framed for psychotherapy and education. While drawing selectively on religious and esoteric vocabularies (e.g., stages, higher/unifying self), psychosynthesis presented these as symbolic devices for integration and meaning-making rather than as doctrinal commitments, and established dedicated training and counselling contexts distinct from Jungian institutions.
In workshop and clinical formats, psychosynthesis employed structured sequences (evocation of imagery, reflective processing, value clarification) that align with humanistic and transpersonal milieus in which ritualised settings and symbolic repertoires were redeployed for experiential learning. Reviews at the psychology–religion interface underline the need to separate genealogical description from empirical appraisal and to keep realist–occult claims distinct from interpretive, “as-if real” framings.

=== Somatic and bioenergetic psychology ===

Wilhelm Reich’s somatic psychotherapy, developed as vegetotherapy and later orgonomy, sought to integrate emotional release with muscular and respiratory dynamics. Although Reich presented his model as biophysics rather than spirituality, his concept of orgone—a universal life energy said to permeate both psyche and cosmos—echoed older vitalist and mesmerist cosmologies.  Scholars such as Christopher Partridge and Egil Asprem interpret Reich’s system as part of the modern afterlife of esoteric vitalism, where notions of subtle energy were reformulated within psychological and quasi-scientific vocabularies. In historiographical perspective, Wouter J. Hanegraaff classifies this type of “biophysical occultism” under the rubric of “rejected knowledge”: claims framed as science but conceptually aligned with esoteric models of energy and self-transformation.
In the postwar period, “neo-Reichian” movements extended these ideas into expressive and group-based psychotherapies that combined breathing, grounding, and cathartic movement. Among them, Alexander Lowen’s bioenergetic analysis, and related body-oriented approaches within the human potential movement integrated performative and affective techniques while recasting them in psychodynamic and secular terms.  These modalities demonstrate how vitalist and paraphysical conceptions of body–mind energy migrated from Western esotericism into somatic and transpersonal psychology, bridging the genealogies of dynamic psychiatry and the modern culture of self-regulation.

=== Transpersonal psychology ===

Transpersonal psychology systematised mid-twentieth-century developments by theorising non-ordinary states and integrating selected esoteric vocabularies—subtle-body maps, archetypal narratives and ritualised techniques—into psychological models of development, crisis and integration. In practice and training milieus influenced by the Human Potential Movement and venues such as the Esalen Institute, experiential formats (e.g., guided imagery, breathwork, ritualised settings) supplied containers within which symbolic repertoires could be framed for self-exploration and clinical reflection.
Within the field’s literature, commentators emphasise both genealogical debts to Western esotericism (e.g., Jungian hermeneutics, occultist codifications of subtle bodies) and the need for source-critical distinctions between symbolic/interpretive framings and realist–occult claims. Reviews at the psychology–religion interface also recommend keeping genealogical description analytically separate from empirical appraisal of outcomes in clinical or para-clinical contexts. In boundary zones adjacent to transpersonal studies, parapsychology continued the nineteenth-century psychical-research agenda in laboratory and survey settings (e.g., studies of telepathy or clairvoyance); in this article such intersections are treated as historical interfaces with psychology rather than as evidential endorsements.
In this milieu, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and adjacent “psychonautics”—most prominently in the early work of Stanislav Grof (e.g., LSD psychotherapy and later holotropic breathwork)—were framed as laboratories for mapping non-ordinary states with archetypal and symbolic vocabularies. Such programmes illustrate the field’s dual emphasis on experiential method and interpretive framing, while reviews at the psychology–religion interface caution to separate genealogical links to esoteric repertoires from evidential claims and to distinguish clinical protocols from neoshamanic or ritual translations.

=== Anthroposophic clinical and pedagogical therapies ===

In Anthroposophy, esoteric doctrines were extended into pedagogy and para-clinical practice, associating imagination and development with disciplined movement, colour and form. Under banners such as Eurythmy and arts-based therapeutic work, anthroposophic centres and clinics—organised around hubs like the Goetheanum—framed symbolic movement and creative exercises as instruments for well-being, rehabilitation or education, sometimes alongside subtle-body explanations and sometimes within secular pedagogical vocabularies.
These programmes illustrate a pathway by which modern occultist repertoires entered educational and therapeutic niches: ritualised movement, diagrammatic grammars and guided imagination were re-coded as techniques for development and regulation in schoolrooms, clinics and workshops. Historians treat the linkage between doctrine, pedagogy and para-clinical arts as a key channel of diffusion from esoteric milieus to psychological language, while maintaining a clear analytic separation between provenance and empirical claims about efficacy or safety.

=== Hypnosis and brief therapies ===

From nineteenth-century mesmerism and guided somnambulism to medical hypnosis and later brief, strategic or indirect approaches, trance work provides a through-line connecting esoteric repertoires and psychological technique. What began as claims about invisible “fluids” and mediumistic channels was re-coded in medical and psychological vocabularies as suggestion, attentional focusing and communicative framing; staged demonstrations and clinical case series helped normalise descriptive languages for trance phenomena and dissociation. In contemporary practice, indirect and narrative methods (often associated with Ericksonian influence) treat images, metaphors and ritualised sequences as devices for re-patterning experience without realist–occult commitments.

=== Neoshamanisms and related practices ===
Late twentieth-century neoshamanic currents adapted drumming, “journeying” and small-scale ritual dramaturgy into workshop formats oriented toward self-knowledge, counselling or group learning. In many cases—e.g., the approach popularised by Michael Harner—realist–occult claims were downplayed in favour of symbolic or psychagogic framings, yet the borrowing of esoteric vocabularies and techniques remained evident. These translations illustrate how ritual devices (rhythm, guided imagination, role-work, structured closure) can migrate into psychological idioms while cosmological truth-claims are bracketed.

=== Communication-based approaches (NLP and related packages) ===
Communication-centred trainings—often grouped under NLP and allied packages—combined elements from humanistic psychotherapy, Ericksonian communication and popular linguistics to offer pragmatic toolkits for persuasion, reframing and self-change. While not esoteric in doctrine, these programmes circulated in the same workshop economies as symbolic counselling and energy-themed practices, and at times repackaged esoteric maps in personal optimisation language (archetypes, “energy”, transformation). Scholarly treatments emphasise the distinction between genealogical proximity to esoteric repertoires and empirical evaluation of outcomes, urging clear separation between provenance and evidential claims.