Video: Om-gnosis Episode 20: Comparing Magic, Yoga, and Occultism
In this episode of Om-gnosis, Keith Edward Cantú speaks with Gordan Djurdjevic, an independent scholar and author who writes about global esotericism, South Asian yoga and tantra, and comparative religion. As the author of the books India and the Occult and Masters of Magical Powers, and co-translator with Shukdev Singh on Sayings of Gorakhnāth, Gordan reflects on his lifelong inquiry into yoga, tantra, occultism, and the study of hidden knowledge across cultures.
Beginning with early encounters with books on yogic psychology and meditation in former Yugoslavia, Gordan recounts how these interests developed through migration, academic study in Canada, and a career exploring intersections between esoteric traditions. He discusses how yoga, tantra, Hermeticism, alchemy, and ceremonial magic are often considered rigidly separate worlds, yet they share many overlapping themes and histories that can be responsibly compared.
Drawing on examples from Nāth Yogīs, tantra, and other Indian and South Asian ritual traditions, Gordan explores secrecy, initiation, symbolic language, subtle bodies, transformation, and the pursuit of siddhis or special powers. This comparative approach, when done systematically, is not intended to erase cultural specificity but to open new ways of understanding how esoteric movements develop across time and place.
The episode also examines the meanings of magic(k)—not merely as superstition, but as power, agency, ritual efficacy, and spiritual transformation. From Sanskrit karma and yogic powers to Aleister Crowley and modern occultism, the discussion reveals the deep entanglements between South Asian spirituality and so-called “Western” esoteric thought.
Finally, Gordan shares information about his current project on Crowley and comparative religion and reflects on the future of esotericism studies in an increasingly global scholarly landscape.
Gordan Djurdjevic, independent scholar, is a contributor to the anthologies Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism (Oxford University Press, 2012); Esotericism, Religion, and Politics (Association for the Study of Esotericism, 2012); A Rose Veiled in Black: Arcana and Art of Our Lady Babalon (Three Hands Press, 2016); Handbook of Religion and Secrecy (Routledge, 2022); Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China (Bloomsbury, 2024); Daimon and Pharmakon: Essays on the Nexus of Entheogens and the Occult (Three Hands Press, forthcoming); Occult South Asia: From the 19th to 21st Century (Brill, forthcoming), and The Tantric World (Routledge, forthcoming). He is co-editor, with Henrik Bogdan, of the collection of essays Occultism in a Global Perspective (Acumen, 2013; reprint, Routledge, 2015), and the author of Masters of Magical Powers: The Nāth Yogis in the Light of Esoteric Notions (VDM, 2008); India and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality on Modern Western Occultism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); and, with Shukdev Singh, Sayings of Gorakhnāth: Annotated Translation of the Gorakh Bānī (Oxford University Press, 2019). His book, with a working title of “Aleister Crowley and ‘Oriental Wisdom’: Influences and Correlations between Thelema and Asian Thought,” is forthcoming from Inner Traditions.