cult would fortify tradition and enhance the prestige of the
ruling house. If Pentheus disregarded his elders’ advice with
disastrous consequences to himself and his city, established
traditions in the history of religion have usually heeded it.
Traditions may also strengthen their links with popular cul-
ture by patronizing mystics. In spite of the elitism involved
in a formal mystical discipline, many mystics have been rath-
er sociable individuals, and they have almost always found
favor with the popular strata. Among other things, this has
made mystics and ascetics effective agents of mission in reli-
gious traditions with missionary ambitions.
Conflicts between mystics and host traditions are com-
mon and may be severe. In the sixth century certain Palestin-
ian monks, seekers of union with Christ through mental
prayer, claimed that they would achieve “equality with
Christ” in the restoration of all things at the end of time, for
which reason they were called Isochrists or “Equal-to-Christ-
ers.” They were expelled from their monastery, and the doc-
trines supporting their position were condemned by the
Council of Constantinople (553 CE). The great Muslim mys-
tic al-H:alla ̄j was executed in Baghdad in 922 CE for claiming
“I am the Truth” (i.e., God). In both cases, however, the
conflict was precipitated more by the doctrinal implications
of verbalized claims than by the practices or experiences that
prompted the claims. The suppression of the Isochrists did
not stop the spread of the mysticism of mental prayer in East-
ern Orthodox monasteries; it simply showed that certain
claims could not be expressed in public and probably should
not be entertained in private, even if inspired by mystical ex-
periences. Similarly many a S:u ̄f ̄ı after al-H:alla ̄j has doubtless
thought “I am the Truth” but has not said it or has said it
in figurative language, with an appropriate gloss, or in the
secrecy of the heart.
As a general rule, mystics and traditionists tend to recog-
nize their mutual interest in avoiding direct conflict, or at
least in finding ways to routinize it. Moreover, the way is al-
ways open for creative individuals to experiment with means
of uniting mysticism and tradition. Individuals who succeed
in this enjoy great popularity in their tradition. One may
point to al-Ghaza ̄l ̄ı, who achieved fame in eleventh-century
Islam as a doctor of law and a S:u ̄f ̄ı adept; to Gregory Pala-
mas, the fourteenth-century bishop of Thessalonica, who
employed the refined intellectual traditions of Greek Ortho-
dox theology to defend the radical experientialism of rustic
monks; and to the Indian philosopher Ra ̄ma ̄nuja (eleventh
to twelfth century), who, using the texts and methods of
Veda ̄nta, attempted to reconcile monism with the experien-
tially based claims of devotionalists in a “qualified nondual-
ism.” In most cases the theoretical differences between mysti-
cism and the doctrines of its host tradition are great enough
to put an absolute synthesis beyond reach. But tradition does
not require synthesis; mediation is enough.
Esotericism is concerned with teachings rather than ex-
perience, although mystical and esoteric currents mingle in
the history of religion. The basis of esotericism in religion
is the claim to possess secret or otherwise special traditions
from an authoritative source—traditions that support specu-
lation, occult practices including magic, or both. The posses-
sion of secret traditions may provide the basis for indepen-
dence from other religious groups or for the existence of an
elite group within a larger host tradition. Among the reasons
given to justify secrecy are that most people are too simple
or too perverse to understand true teachings or that the with-
holding of secrets is part of a providential plan to be revealed
in the future. Also at work is the natural desire to avoid en-
raging the guardians of normative tradition by undercutting
their authority in public. The threat of conflicts is real be-
cause esotericists always claim access to authoritative sources
beyond those of normative tradition. So, for example, certain
masters of Jewish Qabbalah claimed access through secret
tradition to a primordial revelation from Adam or to texts
composed by biblical patriarchs and other ancient worthies.
Such claims compromised the singularity of the Torah re-
ceived from Moses, and therefore also the authority of the
Orthodox rabbis. Similarly, the teaching authority of Catho-
lic Christian bishops was threatened by the belief of Gnostics
that the inner meaning of the gospel was handed down by
the apostles to an elite of spiritual and intellectual Christians,
not to the church as a whole.
Like mystics, esotericists generally steer away from di-
rect conflicts with traditional authorities and aim instead at
accommodation. Rarely a religion in its own right, esoteri-
cism needs an exoteric tradition in order to define itself. The
common tradition is enriched by the multiformity. One of
the most important contributions of modern research on
Qabbalah, for example, has been to show that many forms
of esotericism were deeply embedded in the soil of Palestin-
ian Judaism from early times and developed within the
framework of the Talmudic tradition. This is not to deny
that influences from other religions and from popular culture
helped shape Qabbalah. But influences have consequences
in the history of religion because they resonate with the needs
and themes of established traditions. Esotericists, for the
most part, are less interested in reshaping traditional piety
than in heightening its intensity by focusing on specific val-
ues and goals within it. The “paradoxical emphasis on the
congruence of intuition and tradition” that Gershom
Scholem observed in Qabbalah is typical of the approach of
most esotericists to their host traditions (Scholem, 1978,
p. 3).
TRADITION AND CHANGE. Religious traditions are not hos-
tile to change, provided the new can be integrated with the
old through reform or renewal. Integration is difficult to ac-
complish in practice, and religious traditions rarely make the
effort except when compelled to do so by a crisis of some
sort. In critical situations, however, when the outward au-
thority or inner coherence of tradition is at stake, religious
traditions can demonstrate a vitality that contrasts sharply
with their apparent inertia at other times. There is no para-
dox here. One of the primary functions of religious traditions
is to provide direction in times of change. A sense of tradi-9278 TRADITION