About us

The East Asian Network for the Academic Study of Esotericism (EANASE) is a group of scholarly researchers founded in 2020.

It is an expansion of the Japanese Network for the Academic Study of Esotericism (JNASE) which was active from 2016 to 2020. This development reflects the growing number of research that has recently been conducted in the fields of occultism and esotericism in China, Taiwan and South Korea.

As for the previous network, there are no restrictions as to the nationality or the discipline of the members. We welcome researchers from other countries of the world. “Academic” in the title does not necessarily presuppose an affiliation to an academic institution or the possession of an academic title, but it refers to the unbiased and non-sectarian stance of this network.

We are open not only to so-called academicians but also to independent researchers or practitioners, who respect various approaches other than theirs and follow a fact-based methodology. “Esotericism” is concerned with different areas, reflecting the broad scope of this word.

First, it includes the research of pre-modern esotericism in the West like hermeticism, alchemy or astrology.

Second, modern esotericism in the West and its influences on contemporary spirituality.

Third, modern Western Esotericism and its related spiritual movements in Japan and Asia, which would cover everything, from pre-WWII techniques like Reiki to the New Religious Movements.

Fourth, pre-modern esoteric religious thoughts in Asia, such as Shintoism, Buddhism or Daoism. The main object of our group is to clarify how far the term “esotericism” could be applied to the Asian history of religions.

Coordinators:

Avery Morrow (PhD Student, Brown University, US)

Chang Pang-Yen (PhD student, University of Oxford, UK)

Ioannis Gaitanidis (Assistant Professor, Chiba University, Japan)

Han Sang-yun (M.A student, Tohoku University, Japan)

Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueira 林友樂 (PhD student, University College London / Wellcome Trust, UK)

Orion Klautau (Associate Professor, Tohoku University, Japan)

Patricia Sophie Mayer (M.A. student, University of Vienna, Austria)

Wu Yu-chuan 巫毓荃 (Assistant Research Fellow, Institue of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)