„There once was a young man who left home in order to buy lots of books, and even as an old man he hadn‘t got any wiser and still dilligently kept buying them …“ … Volume two of the Octagon series includes outstanding – and in some measure ground-breaking – contributions from renowned English-speaking authors in the fields of esotericism and religious studies. Even though the authors are academically educated, this was not a prerequisite for participation. Nevertheless, one of the main concerns of this collection is intellectual diversity, as well as the courage to engage with potentially conflicting value judgements from other epochs, peoples and individuals. Numerous contributions therefore do not conform to what is commonly described as the mainstream. Some essays are even explicitly oriented against prevailing scholarly opinion. Indeed, difference can very often be creative, and truth may be conceived as a coincidentia oppositorum.
