The Exoteric Meta-History between Secrecy and Disclosure of the Illusiveness of Reality

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to reveal and to analyze the principles of metahistory that is considered to be based on the so called esoteric knowledge. The difference between the esoteric and the exoteric metahistory is examined against a background of the concepts of esotericism and secrecy in the capacity of socio-cultural phenomena. The changes of concepts of esoteric metahistory in the conditions of modernity that resulted in the tendency of disclosure of secret knowledge are interpreted as the effect of Enlightenment. It is pointed out that the peculiarity of popular projects of post-modernist esoteric metahistory consists in the cultivated by them aspiration for the emancipation not only from secrecy but also from reality itself which is regarded as illusive. It is stated that the ideological consequences of post-modernist esoteric metahistory contradict the imperative of social development which is relevant to the fundamental values of the culture of modernity.