Definition of "esotericism" [es•o•ter•i•cism]

• Esoteric teachings or practices. (noun)
• The quality or condition of being esoteric. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It also contains what might be called "esotericism," or, deeper readings of texts and life."
• "I am not scholar enough to judge the Scandinavian verse, but the Irish poetic speech seems to me at worst an over abundance of the esotericism which is an essential element in all admirable literature, and I think it is a folly to make light of it, as a recent writer has done.91 Even now verse no less full of symbol and myth seems to me as legitimate as, let us say, a religious picture full of symbolic detail, or the symbolic ornament of a cathedral."
• ""esotericism" suffers the risk of collapse when the resources of the "initiates" are not sufficient to "patch the gaps", that is, to solve problems as soon as they occur."