Publications


Books and Edited Volumes

—:   forthcoming. "Global Religious History: Perspectives for Religious Comparativism." Special issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society.

—:   2022. Global Tantra: Religion, Science, and Nationalism in Colonial Modernity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—:   and Giovanni Maltese, eds. 2021. "Global Religious History." Special Issue of Method & Theory in the Study of Religion.

—:   and Egil Asprem, eds. 2021. New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism (Supplements to Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 17), Leiden/Boston: Brill.

—:   and Hans Martin Krämer, eds. 2020. Theosophy Across Boundaries. Transcultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives on a Modern Esoteric Movement, Albany: State University of New York Press.

—:   2016. Sozialismus, Katholizismus und Okkultismus im Frankreich des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Genealogie der Schriften von Eliphas Lévi, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

—:   ed. 2016. "Transgressing Boundaries." Special Issue 16/1 of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism. Leiden/Boston: Brill.

—:   2013. Vril. Eine okkulte Urkraft in Theosophie und esoterischem Neonazismus, München/Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink. (Extensive review in Süddeutsche Zeitung, further reviews in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as well as in diverse academic journals.)

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

—:   2024. "Daoism and Kung Fu as Occult Sciences. Historical Comparisons between Chinese Practices and Mesmerism." In: Lukas K. Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds. Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 15–34.

—:   2024. "Esotericism between Europe and East Asia: How the 'Esoteric Distinction' Became a Structure in Cross-Cultural Interpretation." In: NVMEN: International Review for the History of Religions, 71 (1): 9–28.

—:   2023. "The Emergence of 'Esoteric' as a Comparative Category: Towards a Decentered Historiography.” In: Implicit Religion, 24 (3–4): 353–383.

—:    2022. "(Anti-)Colonialism, Religion and Science in Bengal from the Perspective of Global Religious History." Journal of Global History.

—:    2021. "Theosophy, Race, and the Study of Esotericism." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 89 (4): 1180–1189.

—:    and Giovanni Maltese, 2021. "Global Religious History." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (3-4): 229–257.

—:    2021. "Rajnarayan Basu and His 'Science of Religion': The Emergence of Religious Studies through Exchanges between Bengali and Christian Reformers, Orientalists, and Theosophists." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (3-4): 289–320.

—:    2020. "Das sozialistische 'Königreich Gottes auf Erden' als Erfüllung der Heilsgeschichte." Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 37: 140–159.

—:    2017. "Socialism and Esotericism in July Monarchy France." History of Religions 57 (2): 197–221.

—:    2017. "Occultist Identity Formations Between Theosophy and Socialism in fin-de-siècle France." Numen 64 (5-6): 568–595.

—:    2017. "Revolution, Illuminismus und Theosophie. Eine Genealogie der ‚häretischen‘ Historiographie des frühen französischen Sozialismus und Kommunismus." Historische Zeitschrift 304 (1): 50–89.

—:    2017. "The 'Baphomet' of Eliphas Lévi: Its Meaning and Historical Context." Correspondences 4: 37–79.
[Translated into Greek as "Μπαφομέτ – Η Άγνωστη Ιστορία και η Αληθινή Σημασία ενός Συμβόλου." Thessaloniki/Athens: Daidalos, 2020.]

—:    2016. "Socialist Religion and the Emergence of Occultism: A Genealogical Approach to 'Secularization' in 19th-Century France." Religion 46 (3): 359–388.

—:    2016. "Transgressing Boundaries: Social Reform, Theology, and the Demarcations between Science and Religion." Aries 16 (1): 1–11.

—:    2014. "Ein neues Christentum. Frühsozialismus, Neo-Katholizismus und die Einheit von Religion und Wissenschaft." Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 66 (2): 140–162.

—:    2012. "Die Erfindung des esoterischen Nationalsozialismus im Zeichen der Schwarzen Sonne." Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 20 (2): 223–268.

Book Chapters and Anthologies

—:    forthcoming. "Hinduism, Sanātana Dharma, and the Global Struggle about 'True Religion'." In: Frank Peter, Paula Schrode, and Ricarda Stegmann, eds. Conceptualizing Islam, Abingdon: Routledge.

—:    forthcoming. "Daoism and Kung Fu as Occult Sciences: Historical Comparisons between Chinese Practices and Mesmerism." In: Lukas Pokorny and Franz Winter, eds. Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of East Asian Thought, London/New York: Bloomsbury.

—:    forthcoming. "Theosophy and Race." In: Charles Stang and Jason Josephson-Storm, eds. Theosophy and the Study of Religion.

—:    forthcoming. "Awakening India's Shakti: Tantra and (Anti-)Modern Hindu Identity." In: Karl Baier and Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, eds. Occult South Asia.

—:    forthcoming. "Eliphas Lévi: Lucifer as Revolutionary and Redeemer." In: Per Faxneld and Johan Nilson, eds. Satanism: A Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—:    forthcoming. "Global Approaches in the Study of Esotericism"; "Fascism and Nazism (neo)"; "Savitri Devi"; "Tantra (contemporary)"; "Tempelhofgesellschaft"; "The Esoteric in Contemporary Politics." In: Egil Asprem, ed. Brill Dictionary of Contemporary Esotericism, Leiden/Boston: Brill.

—:    2021. "Towards the Study of Esotericism Without the 'Western': Esotericism from the Perspective of a Global Religious History." In: Egil Asprem and Julian Strube, eds. New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism (Supplements to Method & Theory in the Study of Religion), Leiden/Boston: Brill, 45–66.

—:    and Egil Asprem. 2021. "Esotericism's Expanding Horizon: Why This Book Came to Be" & "Afterword: Outlines of a New Roadmap." In: Egil Asprem and Julian Strube, eds. New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism (Supplements to Method & Theory in the Study of Religion), Leiden/Boston: Brill 1–19 & 241–251.

—:    2021. "Tantra as Experimental Science in the Works of John Woodroffe." In: Yves Mühlematter and Helmut Zander, eds. Occult Roots of Religious Studies: On the Influence of Non-Hegemonic Currents on Academia around 1900, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 132–160.

—:    2020. "Yoga and Meditation in Esoteric Traditions." In: Suzanne Newcombe and Karen O’Brien-Kop, eds. Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies, Abingdon: Routledge, 130–145.

—:    2020. "Hinduism, Western Esotericism and New Age Religion." In: Knut Jacobsen and Ferdinando Sardella, eds. Handbook of Hinduism in Europe, 2 vols., Leiden/Boston: Brill, 152–173.

—:    2019. "Tantra und Katholizismus im Kontext einer globalen Religionsgeschichte." In: Olaf Blaschke and Francisco Javiér Ramón Solans, eds. Weltreligion im Umbruch. Transnationale Perspektiven auf das Christentum in der Globalisierung des 19. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 338–362.

—:    2019. "Contested Christianities: Communism and Religion in July Monarchy France." In: Stefan Arvidsson, Jakub Beneš, and Anja Kirsch, eds. Socialist Imaginations: Utopias, Myths, and the Masses, Abingdon: Routledge, 21–40.

—:    2018. "Esoterik und Rechtsextremismus." In: Udo Tworuschka, ed. Handbuch der Religionen, vol. 55. München: Olzog-Verlag, 1–20.

—:    2015. "Nazism and the Occult." In: Christopher Partridge, ed. The Occult World, Abingdon: Routledge, 336–347.

Material for Political Education

—:    2017. "Esoterik und Rechtsextremismus," Broschüre für das Informations- und Dokumentationszentrum
für Antirassismusarbeit, 13 Seiten.

Non-Academic Articles

—:    2018. „Esoterik, Populismus und die neurechte Avantgarde“. Marginalien, April 17. 

—:    2017. „How Socialism Helped to Seed the Landscape of Modern Religion“. Aeon, November 14.

Reviews and Minor Contributions

Milinda Banerjee. 2018. The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India. In: Global Intellectual History, 2020. doi: 10.1080/23801883.2020.1863437.

"The Emergence of 'Marxism' in its Historical Context: A Perspective from Religious Studies." Review Article of Gareth Stedman Jones. 2016. Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion. In: Global Intellectual History, 3 (3), 2018: 275–281.

Eric Kurlander. 2017. Hitler’s Monsters. A Supernatural History of the Third Reich. In: Correspondences, 5, 2018: 130–139.

Monika Black and Eric Kurlander. 2015. Revisiting the Nazi Occult: Histories, Realities, Legacies. In: The German Quarterly, 90 (3), 2017: 396–398.

Peter Staudenmaier. 2014. Between Occultism and Nazism. Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era. In: Aries, 17 (2), 2017: 254–259.

"Tantra im Kontext der globalen Religionsgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts." In: Jahresheft Theologie, 10, 2014/2015: 91–99.

René Gründer. 2010. Blótgemeinschafen. Eine Religionsethnografie des ‚germanischen Neuheidentums'. In: Aries, 13 (2), 2013: 317–321.