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Abstract
This chapter argues for abandoning the “Western” demarcation of the study of esotericism because, first, it was created by nineteenth-century occultists who rejected a supposedly “Eastern,” Theosophical esotericism. This underlines the heavy historical baggage of this polemical demarcation and the fact that debates about the meaning of esotericism unfolded within a global context from the beginning. Second, theoretical and methodological reflection of this baggage remains insufficient and even resulted in a Eurocentric “diffusionist reaction,” which not only refrained from engaging with global and postcolonial perspectives, but polemically misconstrued them. The chapter will hence introduce such perspectives and propose the approach of “global religious history” as a constructive way forward.