Esotourism: A Liquidation Sale of Hidden Knowledge

By:
David Haldane Lee
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Hidden knowledge, which has long been jealously guarded by a literate elite, is these days largely out in the open. Astonishing truths are readily available, but they are needles in a haystack of disinformation, blind alleys, red herrings and false flags. With information technology, rare texts are now readily available on websites like Project Guttenberg. Because the populist implications of information technology are so numerous, the rhetorical currency of a scarcity model has been devalued. In a departure from his professed materialism, Walter Benjamin heretically maintained that the advent of mechanical mimesis tends to dilute the aura of rare books. In this presentation, I will suggest that electronic advances, while diluting the perception of rarity, have not effaced it outright. In order to describe the "flâneur" of the present electronic age, I have coined a neologism, "esotourism." The esotourist is a seeker of hidden knowledge when all such knowledge has been liquidated outright. In a widely literate world where magicians enchant children in popular bestsellers and the esoteric interpretation of Christianity has become cliché, I will suggest that the truth is always elsewhere, but hidden in plain sight. My presentation will suggest, in photographs of out of print book covers, a chain of signifiers indicating the domain of hidden knowledge today. I will indicate that what is occulted today are the grim realities of ecological disaster, war profiteering, and the human tragedy of neoliberal policy.


Keywords: Books, Esoterica, Technology, Benjamin
Stream: Information Society, and Print and Electronic Texts
Presentation Type: Virtual Presentation in English
Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.


David Haldane Lee

Phd Student, Department of Communication, University of South Florida
Tampa, Florida, USA

I am interested in out of print and antiquarian books, records, and ephemera. For years I worked as a disc jockey in New York City, at restaurants such as Pravda, Balthazar, and Ludlow Bar. I also owned a record store on the lower east side called Stereotype Records. During the dot com era I worked for internet companies webcasting live music, financial data, and sports. Presently I am employed by the University of South Florida Graduate School, researching community sustainability and complex adaptive systems.

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