Antoine Faivre

Antoine Faivre (born in Reims June 5, 1934) is a prominent French scholar of Western esotericism. Until his retirement, he held a chair in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, University Professor of Germanic studies at the University of Haute-Normandie, director of the Cahiers del Hermétisme and of Bibliothèque de l'hermétisme, and is with Wouter Hanegraaff and Roland Edighoffer, the editor of the journal Aries.

Faivre was the first to define Western esotericism as a field of interdisciplinary academic study.

He was a founding member, and currently an honorary member, of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.

• Toison d'or et alchimie, Milan, Archè, 1990. English Transl. Golden Fleece and Alchemy, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1993, reprint 1995.
• Philosophie de la nature (physique sacrée et théosophie, XVIIIe-XIXe siècles), Paris, Albin Michel, 1996 (Prix de philosophie Louis Liard, de l'Académie des Sciences morales et politiques).
• The Eternal Hermes (From Greek God to Alchemical Magus), Grand Rapids, Phanes Press, 1996.
• Accès de l'ésotérisme occidental, Paris, Gallimard (" Bibliothèque des sciences humaines"), vol. I, 1986, 2nd ed., 1996,vol. II, 1996. English Transl. vol. I : Access to Western Esotericism, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1994, vol. II : Theosophy, Imagination, Tradition, Studies in Western Esotericism, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2000.
• L'ésotérisme, Paris, PUF, 1992, 3e éd., 2003