Religion and the Historical Imagination: Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention

In this contribution, it is argued that the concept of ‘imagination’ should be restored to the status of a crucial key term in the study of religion. More specifically, attention is focused here on the importance of the historical imagination as an object of research (as distinct from its importance as a factor in research) and its relation to strict historicity. The dynamics of the historical imagination can be analyzed in terms of a double polarity: factuality versus non-factuality and poeticity versus non-poeticity. Historical narratives with a high degree of poeticity tend to be remembered and have an impact on readers even if they are factually in accurate, while narratives with a low degree of poeticity tend to be disregarded or forgotten even if they are factually accurate. Against this background, four influential historical ‘grand narratives’ are analyzed: (1) the Renaissance and predominantly Catholic story of ‘ancient wisdom’ through the ages; (2)its negative counterpart inspired by Protestant polemics, referred to as the story of ‘pagan error’ through the ages; (3) the Enlightenment story of progress through rational ‘Enlightenment’; and (4) its counterpart more congenial to Romantic sentiments, the story of a progressive ‘education of Humanity.’ Such imaginative narratives have a strong impact because they are able to engage the emotions, and hence we need to analyze how specific narratives afford specific economies of emotionality. Because religious grand narratives are the reflection of highly eclectic types of historiography, they need to be countered by an anti-eclectic historiography that does not sacrifice factuality to poeticity. And yet, it is at least as important for historians to accept the task of telling new ‘true stories’ about religion too: narratives that engage the imagination of their readers without sacrificing nuance, complexity, and factual accuracy.