title: Amman

text: Amman is introducing itself as a business hub. The city's skyline is being continuously transformed through the emergence of new projects. A significant portion of business flowed into Amman following the 2003 Iraq War. Jordan's main airport, Queen Alia International Airport, is located south of Amman and is the hub for the country's national carrier Royal Jordanian, a major airline in the region. The airline is headquartered in Zahran district. Rubicon Group Holding and Maktoob, two major regional information technology companies, are based in Amman, along with major international corporations such as Hikma Pharmaceuticals, one of the Middle East's largest pharmaceutical companies, and Aramex, the Middle East's largest logistics and transportation company.


title: Amman

text: In a report by Dunia Frontier Consultants, Amman, along with Doha, Qatar and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are the favored hubs for multinational corporations operating in the Middle East and North Africa region. In "FDI" magazine, Amman was chosen as the Middle Eastern city with the most potential to be a leader in foreign direct investment in the region. Furthermore, several of the world's largest investment banks have offices in Amman including Standard Chartered, Société Générale, and Citibank.


title: Amman

text: The population of Amman reached 4,007,526 in 2015; the city contains about 42% of Jordan's entire population. It has a land area of which yields a population density of about . The population of Amman has risen exponentially with the successive waves of immigrants and refugees arriving throughout the 20th century. From a population of roughly 1,000 in 1890, Amman grew to around 1,000,000 inhabitants in 1990, primarily as a result of immigration, but also due to the high birthrate in the city. Amman had been abandoned for centuries until hundreds of Circassians settled it in the 19th century. Today, about 40,000 Circassians live in Amman and its vicinity. After Amman became a major hub along the Hejaz Railway in 1914, many Muslim and Christian merchant families from al-Salt immigrated to the city. A large proportion of Amman's inhabitants have Palestinian roots (urban or rural origin), and the two main demographic groups in the city today are Arabs of Palestinian or Jordanian descent. Other ethnic groups comprise about 2% of the population. There are no official statistics about the proportion of people of Palestinian or Jordanian descent.


title: Amman

text: New arrivals consisting of Jordanians from the north and south of the country and immigrants from Palestine had increased the city's population from 30,000 in 1930 to 60,000 in 1947. About 10,000 Palestinians, mostly from Safed, Haifa and Acre, migrated to the city for economic opportunities before the 1948 war. Many of the immigrants from al-Salt from that time were originally from Nablus. The 1948 war caused an exodus of urban Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugees, mostly from Jaffa, Ramla and Lydda, to Amman, whose population swelled to 110,000. With Jordan's capture of the West Bank during the war, many Palestinians from that area steadily migrated to Amman between 1950 and 1966, before another mass wave of Palestinian refugees from the West Bank moved to the city during the 1967 War. By 1970, the population had swelled to an estimated 550,000. A further 200,000 Palestinians arrived after their expulsion from Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. Several large Palestinian refugee camps exist around the center of Amman.


title: Amman

text: Because Amman lacks a deep-rooted native population, the city does not have a distinct Arabic dialect, although recently such a dialect utilizing the various Jordanian and Palestinian dialects, has been forming. The children of immigrants in the city are also increasingly referring to themselves as "Ammani", unlike much of the first-generation inhabitants who identify more with their respective places of origin.


title: Amman

text: Amman has a mostly Sunni Muslim population, and the city contains numerous mosques. Among the main mosques is the large King Abdullah I Mosque, built between 1982 and 1989. It is capped by a blue mosaic dome beneath which 3,000 Muslims may offer prayer. The Abu Darweesh Mosque, noted for its checkered black-and-white pattern, has an architectural style that is unique to Jordan. The mosque is situated on Jabal Ashrafieh, the highest point in the city. The mosque's interior is marked by light-colored walls and Persian carpets. During the 2004 Amman Message conference, edicts from various clergy-members afforded the following schools of thought as garnering collective recognition: Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i, Ja'fari, Zahiri, Zaydi, Ibadi, tassawuf-related Sufism, Muwahhidism and Salafism. Amman also has a small Druze community.


title: Amman

text: Large numbers of Christians from throughout Jordan, particularly from al-Salt, have moved to Amman. Nearby Fuheis is a predominantly Christian town located to the northwest of the city. A small Armenian Catholic community of around 70 families is present in the city. Ecclesiastical courts for matters of personal status are also located in Amman. A total of 16 historic churches are located in Umm ar-Rasas ruins in Al-Jeezah district; the site is believed to have initially served as Roman fortified military camps which gradually became a town around the 5th century AD. It has not been completely excavated. It was influenced by several civilizations including the Romans, Byzantines and Muslims. The site contains some well-preserved mosaic floors, particularly the mosaic floor of the Church of Saint Stephen.


title: Amman

text: Downtown Amman, the city center area (known in Arabic as "Al-Balad"), has been dwarfed by the sprawling urban area that surrounds it. Despite the changes, much remains of its old character. Jabal Amman is a well-known tourist attraction in old Amman, where the city's greatest souks, fine museums, ancient constructions, monuments, and cultural sites are found. Jabal Amman also contains the famous Rainbow Street and the cultural Souk Jara market.


title: Amman

text: Residential buildings are limited to four stories above street level and if possible another four stories below, according to the Greater Amman Municipality regulations. The buildings are covered with thick white or beige limestone or sandstone. The buildings usually have balconies on each floor, with the exception of the ground floor, which has a front and back yard. Some buildings make use of Mangalore tiles on the roofs or on the roof of covered porches. Hotels, towers and commercial buildings are either covered by stone, plastic or glass. There is also many other beautiful architecture in the city.


title: Amman

text: Zahran district in west Amman is the location of the Jordan Gate Towers, the first high-rise towers in the city. It is a high-class commercial and residential project under construction, close to the 6th Circle. The towers are one of the best-known skyscrapers in the city. The southern tower will host a Hilton Hotel, while the northern tower will host offices. The towers are separated by a podium that is planned to become a mall. It also contains bars, swimming pools and conference halls. The developers are Bahrain's Gulf Finance House, the Kuwait Investment and Finance Company (KIFC). The project is expected to be opened by 2018.


title: Amman

text: Abdali Urban Regeneration Project in Abdali district will host a mall, a boulevard along with several hotels, commercial and residential towers. Valued at more than US$5 billion, the Abdali project will create a new visible center for Amman and act as the major business district for the city. The first phase contains about ten towers, five of which are under construction to be completed by 2016. Across 30,000 square meters of land, a central dynamic park is the main feature of phase II which will serve as a focal theme for mainly residential, office, hotel and retail developments over 800,000 square meters.


title: Amman

text: The towers in the first phase include Rotana Hotel Amman, W Hotel Amman, The Heights Tower, Clemenceau Medical Center tower, Abdali mall tower, Abdali Gateway tower, K tower, Vertex Tower, Capital tower, Saraya headquarters tower and Hamad tower.


title: Amman

text: The largest museum in Jordan is The Jordan Museum. It contains much of the valuable archeological findings in the country, including some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Neolithic limestone statues of 'Ain Ghazal, and a copy of the Mesha Stele. Other museums include the Duke's Diwan, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Jordan Archaeological Museum, The Children's Museum Jordan, The Martyrs' Memorial and Museum, the Royal Automobile Museum, the Prophet Mohammad Museum, the Museum of Parliamentary Life, the Jordan Folklore Museum, and museums at the University of Jordan.


title: Amman

text: Amman is considered one of the most liberal cities in the Arab world. The city has become one of the most popular destinations for expatriates and college students who seek to live, study, or work in the Middle East or the Arab world in general. The city's culinary scene has changed from its shawarma stands and falafel joints to embrace many popular international restaurants and fast-food outlets such as Asian fusion restaurants, French bistros and Italian trattorias. The city has become famous for its fine dining scene among Western expatriates and Persian Gulf tourists.


title: Amman

text: Large shopping malls were built during the 2000s in Amman, including the Mecca Mall, Abdoun Mall, City Mall, Al-Baraka Mall, Taj Mall, Zara Shopping Center, Avenue Mall, and Abdali Mall in Al Abdali. Wakalat Street ("Agencies Street") is Amman's first pedestrian-only street and carries a lot of name-label clothes. The Sweifieh area is considered to be the main shopping district of Amman.


title: Amman

text: Nightclubs, music bars and shisha lounges are present across Amman, changing the city's old image as the conservative capital of the kingdom. This burgeoning new nightlife scene is shaped by Jordan's young population. In addition to the wide range of drinking and dancing venues on the social circuit of the city's affluent crowd, Amman hosts cultural entertainment events, including the annual Amman Summer Festival. Souk Jara is a Jordanian weekly flea market event that occurs every Friday throughout the summer. Sweifieh is considered to be the unofficial red-light district of Amman as it holds most of the city's nightclubs, bars. Jabal Amman and Jabal al-Weibdeh are home to many pubs and bars as well, making the area popular among bar hoppers.


title: Amman

text: Alcohol is widely available in restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and supermarkets. There are numerous nightclubs and bars across the city, especially in West Amman. , there were 77 registered nightclubs in Jordan (excluding bars and pubs), overwhelmingly located in the capital city. In 2009, there were 222 registered liquor stores in Amman.


title: Amman

text: Danielle Pergament of "The New York Times" described Ammani cuisine as a product of several cuisines in the region, writing that it combines "the bright vegetables from Lebanon, crunchy falafels from Syria, juicy kebabs from Egypt and, most recently, spicy meat dishes from Jordan's neighbor, Iraq. It's known as the food of the Levant – an ancient word for the area bounded by the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian peninsula. But the food here isn't just the sum of its calories. In this politically, religiously and ethnically fraught corner of the world, it is a symbol of bloodlines and identity." However, the city's street food scene makes the Ammani cuisine distinctive.


title: Amman

text: Amman-based football clubs Al-Wehdat and Al-Faisaly, both former league champions, share one of the most popular rivalries in the local football scene. Amman hosted the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup along with Irbid and Zarqa.


title: Amman

text: The 2007 Asian Athletics Championships and more than one edition of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships were held in the city. Amman also hosts the Jordan Rally, which form part of the FIA World Rally Championship, becoming one of the largest sporting events ever held in Jordan.


title: Amman

text: Amman is home to a growing number of foreign sports such as skateboarding and rugby; the latter has two teams based in the city: Amman Citadel Rugby Club and Nomads Rugby Club. In 2014, German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life completed construction of the 7Hills Skatepark, a 650 square meter concrete skatepark located at Samir Rifai park in Downtown Amman.


title: Amman

text: The majority of Jordan's radio stations are based in Amman. The first radio station to originate in the city was "Hunna Amman" in 1959; it mainly broadcast traditional Bedouin music. In 2000, Amman Net became the first de facto private radio station to be established in the country, despite private ownership of radio stations being illegal at the time. After private ownership was legalized in 2002, several more radio stations were created. There were eight registered radio stations broadcasting from Amman by 2007. Most English language stations play pop music targeted towards young audiences.


title: Amman

text: Most Jordanian newspapers and news stations are situated in Amman. Daily newspapers published in Amman include "Alghad", "Ad-Dustour", "The Jordan Times", and "Al Ra'i", the most circulated newspaper in the country. In 2011, "Al Ra'i" was ranked the 5th most popular newspaper in the Arab world by Forbes Middle-East report. "Al-Arab Al-Yawm" is the only daily pan-Arab newspaper in Jordan. The two most popular Jordanian TV channels, Ro'ya TV and JRTV, are based in Amman.


title: Amman

text: Aside from mainstream Arabic pop, there is a growing independent music scene in the city which includes many bands that have sizable audiences across the Arab world. Local Ammani bands along with other bands in the Middle East gather in the Roman Theater during the Al-Balad Music Festival held annually in August. Music genres of the local bands are diverse, ranging from heavy metal to Arabic Rock, jazz and rap. Performers include JadaL, Torabyeh, Bilocate, Akher Zapheer, Autostrad and El Morabba3.


title: Amman

text: Many events take place in Amman, including Red Bull-sponsored events Soundclash and Soapbox race, the second part of Jerash Festival, Al-Balad Music Festival, Amman Marathon, Made in Jordan Festival, Amman Book Festival and New Think Festival. Venues for such cultural events often include the Roman and Odeon Theaters downtown, the Ras al Ain Hanger, King Hussein Business Park, Rainbow Theater and Shams Theater, the Royal Film Commission, Shoman libraries and Darat al Funun, and the Royal Cultural Center at Sports City. In addition to large-scale events and institutional planning, scholars point to tactical urbanism as a key element of the city's cultural fabric.


title: Amman

text: With the exception of a functioning railway system, Amman has a railway station as part of the Hejaz Railway. Amman has a developed public and private transportation system. There are two international airports in Amman.


title: Amman

text: The main airport serving Amman is Queen Alia International Airport, situated about south of Amman. Much smaller is Amman Civil Airport, a one-terminal airport that serves primarily domestic and nearby international routes and the army. Queen Alia International Airport is the major international airport in Jordan and the hub for Royal Jordanian, the flag carrier. Its expansion was recently done and modified, including the decommissioning of the old terminals and the commissioning of new terminals costing $700M, to handle over 16 million passengers annually. It is now considered a state-of-the-art airport and was named 'the best airport in the Middle East' for 2014 and 2015 and 'the best improvement in the Middle East' for 2014 by Airport Service Quality Survey, the world's leading airport passenger satisfaction benchmark program.


title: Amman

text: Amman has an extensive road network, although the mountainous terrain of the area has prevented the connection of some main roads, which are instead connected by bridges and tunnels. The Abdoun Bridge spans Wadi Abdoun and connects the 4th Circle to Abdoun Circle. It is considered one of Amman's many landmarks and is the first curved suspended bridge to be built in the country.


title: Amman

text: There are eight circles, or roundabouts, that span and connect west Amman. Successive waves of refugees to the city has led to the rapid construction of new neighborhoods, but Amman's capacity for new or widened roads remains limited despite the influx. This has resulted in increasing traffic jams, particularly during summer when there are large numbers of tourists and Jordanian expatriates visiting. The municipality began construction on a bus rapid transit (BRT) system as a solution in 2015. In 2015, a ring road encompassing the city was constructed, which aims to connect the northern and southern parts of the city in order for traffic to be diverted outside Amman and to improve the environmental conditions in the city.


title: Amman

text: The Amman Bus and the Amman Bus Rapid Transit public transportation systems currently serve the city. Construction work on the BRT system started in 2010, but was halted soon after amid feasibility concerns. Resuming in 2015, the first route of the BRT system was inaugurated in 2021, and the second in 2022. Another BRT route connecting Amman with Zarqa is also under construction and is expected to be operational by 2023.


title: Amman

text: The BRT system in Amman runs on 2 routes: the first from Sweileh in northwest Amman to the Ras Al-Ain area next to downtown Amman, and the second from Sweileh to Mahatta terminal in eastern Amman. Both routes meet at the Sports City intersection. The first route is currently served by three lines: 98, 99 and 100.


title: Amman

text: Ticket price for all lines of Amman Bus and Amman BRT are bought either online via the Amman Bus mobile application or as a rechargeable card in major terminals. Passengers scan their cards or QR codes on phone when boarding the bus, where the price ticket is subtracted from the available balance. The buses are air-conditioned, accessible, monitored with security cameras and have free internet service.


title: Amman

text: The city has frequent bus connections to other cities in Jordan, as well as to major cities in neighboring countries; the latter are also served by service taxis. Internal transport is served by a number of bus routes and taxis. Service taxis, which most often operate on fixed routes, are readily available and inexpensive. The two main bus and taxi stations are Abdali (near the King Abdullah Mosque, the Parliament and Palace of Justice) and the Raghadan Central Bus Station near the Roman theater in the city center. Popular Jordanian bus company services include JETT and Al-Mahatta. Taxis are the most common way to get around in Amman due their high availability and inexpensiveness.


title: Amman

text: Amman is a major regional center of education. The Amman region hosts Jordan's highest concentration of education centers. There are 20 universities in Amman. The University of Jordan is the largest public university in the city. There are 448 private schools in the city attended by 90,000 students, including Amman Baccalaureate School, Amman Academy, Amman National School, Modern American School (Jordan), American Community School in Amman and National Orthodox School.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The 2019 UEFA Champions League Final was the final match of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League, the 64th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA and the 27th season since it was rebranded the UEFA Champions League. It was played at the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid, Spain on 1 June 2019, between English sides Tottenham Hotspur (in their first European Cup final) and Liverpool (in their ninth overall and their second in a row, having been defeated by Real Madrid in 2018). It was the seventh Champions League final – and the fourth of the decade – to feature two teams from the same association, and the second all-English final (the first was in 2008). It was also the first final since 2013 to not feature at least one Spanish team, with Real Madrid and Barcelona having shared the previous five titles between them.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Liverpool won the final 2–0, with a penalty which was scored after 106 seconds by Mohamed Salah and a goal by substitute Divock Origi after 87 minutes. As winners, for the sixth time overall and the first time since 2005, Liverpool earned the right to play in the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup, as well as against Chelsea, the winners of the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League, in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup, winning in both competitions. They also secured qualification for the group stage of the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League. As Liverpool had already qualified through their league position, the reserved berth was given to Red Bull Salzburg, the champions of the 2018–19 Austrian Bundesliga, the 11th-ranked association according to next season's access list.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: In March 2018, UEFA announced that a fourth substitution would be allowed in extra time and that the number of substitutes would be increased from 7 to 12. The kick-off time was also changed from 20:45 CEST to 21:00 CEST. The match was also the first Champions League final to use the video assistant referee (VAR) system.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: "In the following table, finals until 1992 were in the European Cup era, since 1993 were in the UEFA Champions League era."


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: This was the fifth European Cup/UEFA Champions League Final held in Madrid, after the 1957, 1969, 1980 and 2010 finals, all held at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The 67,000-seat Metropolitano Stadium is the home of Atlético Madrid, who have occupied it since major renovations were completed in September 2017. Due to UEFA regulations regarding naming rights of non-tournament sponsors, the stadium was referred to as the "Estadio Metropolitano" in all UEFA materials.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: For the first time, UEFA launched an open bidding process to select the venues of the club competition finals (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Women's Champions League and UEFA Super Cup). The bidding process was opened on 9 December 2016 and associations were given until 27 January 2017 to express interest and 6 June 2017 to submit bid dossiers to UEFA.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: UEFA announced on 3 February 2017 that the associations of Azerbaijan and Spain had expressed interest in hosting the Champions League final. On 7 June 2017, UEFA confirmed that they submitted bids for the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final, with Azerbaijan proposing the 68,700-seat Baku Olympic Stadium and Spain proposing the then-unfinished Wanda Metropolitano, which would hold 67,000 spectators. The bid evaluation report was published by UEFA on 14 September 2017. The Wanda Metropolitano was selected as the venue by the UEFA Executive Committee on 20 September 2017, while the Baku Olympic Stadium was successful in its bid to host the 2019 UEFA Europa League Final.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Tottenham Hotspur reached their first ever Champions League final, becoming the eighth unique finalist from England and the fortieth overall. They were the first final debutants since fellow English and London club Chelsea in 2008. It was the fifth time they had appeared in the final of a UEFA competition, having played in one Cup Winners' Cup final (winning in 1963 to become the first British team to win a European trophy) and three UEFA Cup finals (winning in 1972 and 1984 and losing in 1974). Had they won the final, they would have become the third English club, as well as the sixth club overall, to have won all three pre-1999 major European trophies (European Cup/Champions League, UEFA Cup/Europa League and the now-defunct Cup Winners' Cup).


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: In eight matches, they had a record of four wins, one draw and three losses in European competitions against fellow English clubs. Of the four ties, Tottenham won two: against Manchester City in this season's quarter-finals, and against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the 1972 UEFA Cup Final, the inaugural final of the competition, becoming the first British team to win two different European trophies.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Liverpool reached their ninth overall final, an English record, as well as their second in a row, having lost to Real Madrid in 2018. They had won the competition on five occasions (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984 and 2005) and lost three times (1985, 2007 and 2018). This was also their 14th final in UEFA competitions, having played in one Cup Winners' Cup final (losing in 1966) and four UEFA Cup/Europa League finals (winning in 1973, 1976 and 2001, and losing in 2016). In twenty matches, Liverpool had a record of seven wins, eight draws (one of which they won on penalties) and five losses in European competitions against fellow English clubs. Most recently, they won both legs against Manchester City in the 2017–18 Champions League quarter-finals. The match was the third Champions League final for manager Jürgen Klopp, who had lost both previous finals, with Borussia Dortmund in 2013 and with Liverpool in 2018.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The final was the 171st competitive meeting between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, with a record of 79 Liverpool wins, 48 Tottenham wins and 43 draws. The sides met twice during the 2018–19 Premier League season, with Liverpool winning 2–1 on both occasions, played at Wembley Stadium and Anfield respectively. They had faced each other once before in a European tie, meeting in the semi-final of the 1972–73 UEFA Cup; Liverpool won the first leg 1–0 at home and Tottenham won the second meeting 2–1, though Liverpool advanced to the final on away goals, before beating Borussia Mönchengladbach in the final. Domestically, the sides had met once in a cup final, with Liverpool winning 3–1 after extra time in the 1982 Football League Cup Final. Both managers were seeking their first major title with their respective clubs.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The match was the first final since 2013 not to feature a Spanish team, with Real Madrid (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018) and Barcelona (2015) having won the previous five seasons of the competition. It was also the first final to be won by an English team since Chelsea in 2012, as well as the second all-English final, after Manchester United and Chelsea in 2008. Overall, the match was the seventh final to feature two teams from the same association, previously achieved on three occasions by Spanish teams (2000, 2014 and 2016), and once by Italian (2003) and German (2013) teams, in addition to England in 2008.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: As Chelsea and Arsenal also reached the 2019 UEFA Europa League Final, this was the first season to have multiple finals of major European club competitions featuring teams from a single nation.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Tottenham Hotspur, making their first appearance in a European competition final since 1984 and their first ever in the European Cup final, qualified directly for the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage as the third-placed team in the 2017–18 Premier League. They were drawn into Group B alongside Spanish champions Barcelona, Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven and Inter Milan of Italy, all of whom are former European champions.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Spurs began their Champions League campaign at the San Siro in Milan, where they lost 2–1 to Inter after conceding twice in the final minutes of the match. At Wembley Stadium in London, the club's temporary home, Tottenham lost 4–2 to Barcelona and fell to third place in Group B. Spurs drew 2–2 with PSV Eindhoven on matchday 3, played in the Netherlands, but lost goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to a red card and conceded a late equalising goal to Luuk de Jong in the 87th minute. Tottenham conceded early to PSV in the home leg at Wembley, but two goals from Harry Kane late in the second half gave the team their first Champions League win of the season. Against Inter at Wembley, substitute Christian Eriksen's 80th-minute goal gave Spurs a 1–0 victory and prevented the club from being eliminated. The final group stage match against Barcelona at Camp Nou began with an early goal for the home side, but a late equaliser by Lucas Moura preserved a 1–1 draw for Tottenham. The team finished level on points with Inter, but advanced to the knockout stage on head-to-head away goals as group runners-up to Barcelona.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Tottenham faced German club Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16, marking the second time in three years that the two teams had met in a European competition. Spurs won 3–0 with a dominant performance in the first leg at home, highlighted by second-half goals from Son Heung-min, Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Llorente. The second leg at the Westfalenstadion in Dortmund ended as a 1–0 win for the visitors, with a goal by Harry Kane early in the second half bringing the tie to 4–0 on aggregate and sending Tottenham to the quarter-finals.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The club was drawn in the quarter-finals against their compatriots and reigning English champions Manchester City, with two legs scheduled within 11 days of a Premier League fixture between the clubs. Tottenham hosted the first leg, the first European tie at the newly-completed Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and won 1–0 thanks to a goal scored by Son Heung-min in the 78th minute, following an earlier penalty from City's Sergio Agüero in the first half that was saved by Hugo Lloris. Manchester City took an early 3–2 lead within 21 minutes to open the second leg, including two goals apiece for Son and City's Raheem Sterling and an additional goal scored by Bernardo Silva. Agüero's goal in the 59th minute gave Manchester City a 4–3 lead on aggregate in the series, but Fernando Llorente scored in the 73rd minute to tie the series once again and give Tottenham an advantage on away goals. Sterling scored a fifth goal for City in the third minute of stoppage time, but it was ruled out by the video assistant referee for an offside during the buildup to the goal, giving Tottenham a victory on away goals to send them to their first European Cup semi-final since 1962.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: In the semi-finals, Tottenham faced Dutch club Ajax, who had won the European Cup four times. A resurgent Ajax had entered the competition through the qualifying rounds with a young squad and went on to eliminate reigning holders Real Madrid in the round of 16 and Juventus in the quarter-finals. Spurs, missing forwards Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, among others, to injuries, lost 1–0 in the first leg at home, Ajax's lone goal coming in the 15th minute from Donny van de Beek. Ajax began the second leg at their Johan Cruyff Arena with goals from Matthijs de Ligt and Hakim Ziyech to extend their aggregate lead to 3–0 at half-time. Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino substituted defensive midfielder Victor Wanyama for striker Fernando Llorente at half-time, and his strike partner, Lucas Moura, scored the team's first goal of the semi-final in the 55th minute. Moura then scored a second goal five minutes later, his tight footwork helping him beat several Ajax players after an initial save by goalkeeper André Onana. After Tottenham failed to convert several chances to level the tie, the match entered five minutes of stoppage time. As the clock passed the five-minute mark, Moura completed his hat-trick with a first-time shot from just inside the penalty area to make the score 3–3 on aggregate and put Spurs through to the final on away goals. The second leg was hailed as one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history, alongside Liverpool's semi-final played the day before.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Liverpool, the runners-up in the previous year's final, qualified directly for the group stage as the fourth-placed team in the Premier League. They were drawn into Group C alongside French champions Paris Saint-Germain, Napoli of Italy and Serbian champions Red Star Belgrade, who qualified through the play-off round and were making their Champions League group stage debut.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: In the opening match of the group stage, Liverpool faced Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield and won 3–2 with a goal in stoppage time by substitute Roberto Firmino. Liverpool failed to produce a shot on target during their 1–0 loss to Napoli at the Stadio San Paolo on matchday 2, which the home side won with a 90th-minute goal from Lorenzo Insigne. Liverpool retook their position at the top of Group C following a 4–0 home victory over Red Star Belgrade on 24 October, including a brace from Mohamed Salah, but suffered a shock 2–0 defeat to Red Star two weeks later in Belgrade and fell to second place behind Napoli.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: At the Parc des Princes in Paris, Liverpool were defeated 2–1 by Paris Saint-Germain and fell to third place in the group, putting them in jeopardy of a group stage elimination. Liverpool won their final group stage match, played on 11 December against Napoli at Anfield, with Salah scoring the only goal of the game. Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson saved Arkadiusz Milik's shot from eight yards out deep into second half injury time to preserve a clean sheet. Liverpool remained tied with Napoli on points, head-to-head record and goal difference but advanced to the knockout phase on total goals scored, with nine goals to Napoli's seven.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Liverpool were matched against German champions Bayern Munich in the round of 16 and played to a scoreless draw in the first leg at Anfield, mirroring the two sides' semi-final tie in the 1980–81 European Cup. They advanced to the quarter-finals by defeating Bayern 3–1 in the second leg at the Allianz Arena, with two goals from Sadio Mané and one from Virgil van Dijk in the second half. Liverpool won their quarter-final tie against Portuguese club Porto with an aggregate score of 6–1, winning 2–0 in the first leg at home and 4–1 away at the Estádio do Dragão.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: In the semi-finals, Liverpool faced tournament favourites Barcelona. Former Liverpool forwards Luis Suárez and Philippe Coutinho were playing against their old club for the first time competitively since being sold to Barça for record transfer fees in 2014 and 2018, respectively. Barcelona took advantage of several missed chances from Liverpool's strikers and won 3–0 at home, with two second-half goals by Lionel Messi, including a free kick in the 82nd minute, his 600th goal for the club. With a three-goal deficit going into the second leg and preoccupation with the Premier League title race, Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp asked his players to "just try" or "fail in the most beautiful way". Despite Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino being absent with injuries, Liverpool overturned the deficit with a 4–0 win at Anfield, advancing to the final 4–3 on aggregate, in what was described as one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history. Liverpool's reserve striker Divock Origi scored the opening goal in the seventh minute, followed by a pair of goals in quick succession by half-time substitute Georginio Wijnaldum to level the tie on aggregate in the 56th minute. Alisson made a series of key saves to deny Barcelona a valuable away goal, a repeat of his performance for Roma in the previous year's quarter-final as they overcame a three-goal deficit against Barcelona. Origi scored the match's final goal in the 79th minute, taking advantage of a corner taken quickly from Trent Alexander-Arnold that left him unmarked in the penalty area.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The final identity to be used in the final was unveiled on 30 August 2018 during the group stage draw. It was designed by Madrid-based artist Ruben Sanchez (Zoonchez) who drew inspiration from local folklore, including representations of the city emblem, cats (a nickname for Madrilenians), a guitar and a statue in Puerta del Sol. The colour palette includes blues and oranges that represent a type of Madrid sunset that is known as a "candilazo".


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The ambassador for the final was former Spain international Luis García, who played for Atlético Madrid in 2002–03 and from 2007 to 2009, and won the UEFA Champions League with Liverpool in 2005.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: With a stadium capacity of 63,500 for the final, a total of 38,000 tickets were available to fans and the general public; the two finalist teams received 17,000 tickets each and another 4,000 tickets were made available for purchase by fans worldwide via "UEFA.com" from 14 to 21 March 2019 in four price categories: €600, €450, €160 and €70. The remaining tickets were allocated to the local organising committee, UEFA and national associations, commercial partners and broadcasters, and to serve the corporate hospitality programme.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Prices for accommodation in Madrid and flights to the city from English airports surged by up to 683 percent in the hours after the semi-finals. The handling of the travel logistics and ticket pricing by UEFA were criticised by managers Jürgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino, as well as supporters groups representing the two clubs. Tottenham announced plans to show a live screening of the Champions League final at their stadium in London that would be opened to a full-capacity audience.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: American pop rock band Imagine Dragons performed at the opening ceremony before kick-off, playing a medley of their hits "Believer", "Thunder", "Radioactive" and "On Top of the World", supported by a display of pyrotechnics and fireworks. Ukrainian electric string quartet Asturia Girls performed the UEFA Champions League Anthem as the teams walked out for the match.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: On 14 May 2019, UEFA named Slovenian Damir Skomina as the referee for the final. Skomina became a FIFA referee in 2002, and was previously the fourth official in the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final. His appointment completed a treble of European finals, having officiated the 2017 UEFA Europa League Final between Ajax and Manchester United, as well as the 2012 UEFA Super Cup between Chelsea and Atlético Madrid. He was joined by two of his fellow countrymen, with Jure Praprotnik and Robert Vukan as assistant referees. Spaniard Antonio Mateu Lahoz was the fourth official and Danny Makkelie of the Netherlands was the video assistant referee in the debut of the system at a Champions League final. He was joined by his compatriot Pol van Boekel as one of the assistant VAR officials, with Felix Zwayer of Germany appointed as the other assistant VAR for the final. His fellow German Mark Borsch served as the offside VAR official.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Prior to kick-off, a moment of silence was observed for Spanish footballer José Antonio Reyes, who had died in a car crash earlier in the day. Liverpool kicked off and earned a penalty kick just 24 seconds into the match when Moussa Sissoko handled the ball in the penalty area, after a pass by Sadio Mané from the left struck his outstretched arm. The resulting penalty in the second minute was scored by Mohamed Salah shooting to the right, giving Liverpool a 1–0 lead and Salah the second-fastest goal in a Champions League final. Tottenham held the majority of possession in the first half, but were unable to find scoring chances; Liverpool had their own chances from a series of six corner kicks, but played cautiously with their lead. The match was briefly interrupted in the 18th minute by a pitch invader.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The second half featured more chances for Liverpool, including a shot by James Milner that beat goalkeeper Hugo Lloris but went wide of the goal. Both managers made their first set of substitutions around the 60th minute, with Klopp bringing on Divock Origi for Roberto Firmino and Pochettino replacing Harry Winks with Lucas Moura. Tottenham began pressing their attackers forward and took several shots on target in the last half-hour of the regular time, leaving themselves open to counterattacks by Liverpool. Following a corner kick in the 87th minute that was not cleared away by Spurs, Divock Origi struck from inside the penalty area and scored into the bottom right corner of the net. Liverpool won their sixth European Cup and Jürgen Klopp won his first trophy for the club.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: The "home" team (for administrative purposes) was determined by an additional draw held after the quarter-final and semi-final draws, which was held on 15 March 2019, 12:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Liverpool won their sixth European Cup and their second of the Champions League era. The club surpassed Barcelona and Bayern Munich, each with five titles, and ranks third behind Real Madrid (13) and Milan (7) for overall European titles. Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk was named the man of the match by UEFA for his leadership and interventions to break up Tottenham's attacks.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: Liverpool returned to England the day after the final and celebrated their victory by parading the trophy around Liverpool in an open-top double-decker bus. The parade began at Allerton Maze and continued for 8 miles (13 kilometres) towards the city centre, ending on the Liverpool Strand. Police estimated the number of supporters to be approximately 750,000, with the number of people lining the route causing the parade to last an additional two hours.


title: 2019 UEFA Champions League Final

text: As champions, Liverpool faced Chelsea (winners of the 2019 UEFA Europa League Final) in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup, held on 14 August. Liverpool won the match 5–4 on penalties after the game had ended 2–2 after extra time. Representing Europe, Liverpool also took part in the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup. Liverpool went on to win their first Club World Cup title, defeating Monterrey 2–1 in the semi-finals and Flamengo 1–0 after extra time in the final.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy I Soter (; , "Ptolemaîos Sōtḗr" "Ptolemy the Savior"; c. 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a Macedonian Greek general, historian and companion of Alexander the Great from the Kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece who became ruler of Egypt, part of Alexander's former empire. Ptolemy was pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 305/304 BC to his death. He was the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt until the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC, turning the country into a Hellenistic kingdom and Alexandria into a center of Greek culture.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy I was the son of Arsinoe of Macedon by either her husband Lagus or Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander. However, the latter is unlikely and may be a myth fabricated to glorify the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Ptolemy was one of Alexander's most trusted companions and military officers. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Ptolemy retrieved his body as it was en route to be buried in Macedon, placing it in Memphis instead, where it was later moved to Alexandria in a new tomb. Afterwards he joined a coalition against Perdiccas, the royal regent over Philip III of Macedon. The latter invaded Egypt but was assassinated by his own officers in 320 BC, allowing Ptolemy I to consolidate his control over the country. After a series of wars between Alexander's successors, Ptolemy gained a claim to Judea in southern Syria, which was disputed with the Syrian king Seleucus I. He also took control of Cyprus and Cyrenaica, the latter of which was placed under the control of Ptolemy's stepson Magas. Ptolemy also had the Library of Alexandria built.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy I may have married Thaïs, his mistress during the life of Alexander; he is known to have married the Persian noblewoman Artakama on Alexander's orders. He later married Eurydice, daughter of the Macedonian regent Antipater; their sons Ptolemy Keraunos and Meleager ruled in turn as kings of Macedon. Ptolemy's final marriage was to Eurydice's cousin and lady-in-waiting, Berenice I. Ptolemy I died in 282 BC and was succeeded by his son with Berenice, Ptolemy II.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: A Greek Macedonian, Ptolemy was born in 367 BC. Ptolemy's mother was Arsinoe. According to Satyrus the Peripatetic, Arsinoe was a descendant of Alexander I of Macedon and thus a member of the Argead dynasty, claiming ultimate descent from Heracles. Ostensibly, Ptolemy's father was Lagus, a Macedonian nobleman from Eordaea, but many ancient sources claim that he was actually an illegitimate son of Philip II of Macedon. If true, this would have made Ptolemy the half-brother of Alexander the Great. It is probable that this is a later myth fabricated to glorify the Ptolemaic dynasty.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy served with Alexander from his first campaigns, and was among the seven "somatophylakes" (bodyguards) of Alexander. He played a principal part in the later campaigns in Afghanistan and India. He participated in the Battle of Issus, commanding troops on the left wing under the authority of Parmenion. Later he accompanied Alexander during his journey to the Oracle in the Siwa Oasis where he was proclaimed a son of Zeus. Ptolemy had his first independent command during the campaign against the rebel Bessus whom his own guards captured and handed over to Ptolemy, who then handed him over to Alexander for execution.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: When Alexander died in 323 BC, Ptolemy is said to have instigated the settlement of the empire made at Babylon. Through the Partition of Babylon, he was appointed satrap of Egypt, under the nominal kings Philip III and the infant Alexander IV; the former satrap, the Greek Cleomenes, stayed on as his deputy. Ptolemy quickly moved, without authorization, to subjugate Cyrenaica.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: By custom, kings in Macedonia asserted their right to the throne by burying their predecessor. Probably because he wanted to pre-empt Perdiccas, the imperial regent, from staking his claim in this way, Ptolemy took great pains in acquiring the body of Alexander the Great. On his deathbed, Alexander wished to be buried at the Temple of Zeus Ammon in the Siwa Oasis of ancient Libya instead of the royal tombs of Aigai in Macedon. However, his successors including Perdiccas attempted to bury his body in Macedon instead. In late 322 or early 321 BC, Alexander's body was in Syria, on its way to Macedon, when it was captured by Ptolemy I. He brought Alexander's remains back to Egypt, interring them at Memphis, but they were later moved to Alexandria where a tomb was constructed for them. Shortly after this event, Ptolemy openly joined the coalition against Perdiccas. Perdiccas appears to have suspected Ptolemy of aiming for the throne himself, and may have decided that Ptolemy was his most dangerous rival. Ptolemy executed Cleomenes for spying on behalf of Perdiccas; this removed the chief check on his authority, and allowed Ptolemy to obtain the huge sum that Cleomenes had accumulated.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: In 321 BC, Perdiccas attempted to invade Egypt, only to fall at the hands of his own men. Ptolemy's decision to defend the Nile against Perdiccas ended in fiasco for Perdiccas, with the loss of 2,000 men. This failure was a fatal blow to Perdiccas' reputation, and he was murdered in his tent by two of his subordinates. Ptolemy immediately crossed the Nile, to provide supplies to what had the day before been an enemy army. Ptolemy was offered the regency in place of Perdiccas; but he declined. Ptolemy was consistent in his policy of securing a power base, while never succumbing to the temptation of risking all to succeed Alexander.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: In the long wars that followed between the different Diadochi, Ptolemy's first goal was to hold Egypt securely, and his second was to secure control in the outlying areas: Cyrenaica and Cyprus, as well as Syria, including the province of Judea. His first occupation of Syria was in 318, and he established at the same time a protectorate over the petty kings of Cyprus. When Antigonus I, master of Asia in 315, showed expansionist ambitions, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him, and on the outbreak of war, evacuated Syria. In Cyprus, he fought the partisans of Antigonus, and re-conquered the island (313). A revolt in Cyrene was crushed the same year.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: In 312, Ptolemy and Seleucus, the fugitive satrap of Babylonia, both invaded Syria, and defeated Demetrius I, the son of Antigonus, in the Battle of Gaza. Again he occupied Syria, and again—after only a few months, when Demetrius had won a battle over his general, and Antigonus entered Syria in force—he evacuated it. In 311, a peace was concluded between the combatants. Soon after this, the surviving 13-year-old king, Alexander IV, was murdered in Macedonia on the orders of Cassander, leaving the satrap of Egypt absolutely his own master.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: The peace did not last long, and in 309 Ptolemy personally commanded a fleet which detached the coastal towns of Lycia and Caria from Antigonus, then crossed into Greece, where he took possession of Corinth, Sicyon and Megara (308 BC). In 306, a great fleet under Demetrius attacked Cyprus, and Ptolemy's brother Menelaus was defeated and captured in another decisive Battle of Salamis. Ptolemy's complete loss of Cyprus followed.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: The satraps Antigonus and Demetrius now each assumed the title of king; Ptolemy, as well as Cassander, Lysimachus and Seleucus I Nicator, responded by doing the same. In the winter of 306 BC, Antigonus tried to follow up his victory in Cyprus by invading Egypt; but Ptolemy was strongest there, and successfully held the frontier against him. Ptolemy led no further overseas expeditions against Antigonus. However, he did send great assistance to Rhodes when it was besieged by Demetrius (305/304). The Rhodians granted divine honors to Ptolemy as a result of the lifting of the siege.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: When the coalition against Antigonus was renewed in 302, Ptolemy joined it, and invaded Syria a third time, while Antigonus was engaged with Lysimachus in Asia Minor. On hearing a report that Antigonus had won a decisive victory there, he once again evacuated Syria. But when the news came that Antigonus had been defeated and slain by Lysimachus and Seleucus at the Battle of Ipsus in 301, he occupied Syria a fourth time.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: The other members of the coalition had assigned all Syria to Seleucus, after what they regarded as Ptolemy's desertion, and for the next hundred years, the question of the ownership of southern Syria (i.e., Judea) produced recurring warfare between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties. Henceforth, Ptolemy seems to have involved himself as little as possible in the rivalries between Asia Minor and Greece; he lost what he held in Greece, but reconquered Cyprus in 295/294. Cyrenaica, after a series of rebellions, was finally subjugated in about 300 and placed under his stepson Magas.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: While Alexander was alive, Ptolemy had three children with his mistress Thaïs, who may also have been his wife: Lagus; Leontiscus; and Eirene, who was given in marriage to Eunostos of Soloi in Cyprus. During the Susa weddings, Ptolemy married Persian noblewoman Artakama, as ordered by Alexander the Great. Around 322 BC, he married Eurydice, daughter of Antipater, regent of Macedonia. They had five children before she was repudiated: three sons–Ptolemy Keraunos, king of Macedon from 281 BC to 279 BC; his brother and successor Meleager, who ruled for two months in 279 BC; and a 'rebel in Cyprus' who was put to death by his half-brother Ptolemy II–as well as the daughters Ptolemais, who married Demetrius I of Macedon, and Lysandra, first married to Alexander V of Macedon and after to Lysimachus' son Agathocles. Ptolemy married once more to Berenice, Eurydice's cousin, who had come to Egypt as Eurydice's lady-in-waiting with the children from her first marriage to Philip. Their children were Arsinoe II, Philotera, and Ptolemy II. Their eldest child Arsinoe married Lysimachus, then her half-brother Ptolemy Keraunos, and finally her full brother Ptolemy II.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: In 285, Ptolemy made his son Ptolemy II his co-regent. His eldest legitimate son, Ptolemy Keraunos, fled to the court of Lysimachus. Ptolemy I died in January 282 aged 84 or 85. Shrewd and cautious, he had a compact and well-ordered realm to show at the end of forty years of war. His reputation for good nature and liberality attached the floating soldier-class of Macedonians and other Greeks to his service, and was not insignificant; nor did he wholly neglect conciliation of the natives. He was a ready patron of letters, founding the Great Library of Alexandria. The Ptolemaic dynasty which he founded ruled Egypt for nearly three hundred years. It was a Hellenistic kingdom known for its capital Alexandria, which became a center of Greek culture. Ptolemaic rule ended with the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy himself wrote an eyewitness history of Alexander's campaigns (now lost). In the second century AD, Ptolemy's history was used by Arrian of Nicomedia as one of his two main primary sources (alongside the history of Aristobulus of Cassandreia) for his own extant "Anabasis" of Alexander, and hence large parts of Ptolemy's history can be assumed to survive in paraphrase or précis in Arrian's work. Arrian cites Ptolemy by name on only a few occasions, but it is likely that large stretches of Arrian's "Anabasis" reflect Ptolemy's version of events. Arrian once names Ptolemy as the author "whom I chiefly follow", and in his Preface writes that Ptolemy seemed to him to be a particularly trustworthy source, "not only because he was present with Alexander on campaign, but also because he was himself a king, and hence lying would be more dishonourable for him than for anyone else".


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy's lost history was long considered an objective work, distinguished by its straightforward honesty and sobriety, but more recent work has called this assessment into question. R. M. Errington argued that Ptolemy's history was characterised by persistent bias and self-aggrandisement, and by systematic blackening of the reputation of Perdiccas, one of Ptolemy's chief dynastic rivals after Alexander's death. For example, Arrian's account of the fall of Thebes in 335 BC ("Anabasis" , a rare section of narrative explicitly attributed to Ptolemy by Arrian) shows several significant variations from the parallel account preserved in Diodorus Siculus (17.11–12), most notably in attributing a distinctly unheroic role in proceedings to Perdiccas. More recently, J. Roisman has argued that the case for Ptolemy's blackening of Perdiccas and others has been much exaggerated.


title: Ptolemy I Soter

text: Ptolemy personally sponsored the great mathematician Euclid. He found Euclid's seminal work, the "Elements", too difficult to study, so he asked if there were an easier way to master it. According to Proclus, Euclid famously quipped: "Sire, there is no Royal Road to geometry."


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hermann Karl Hesse (; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include "Demian", "Steppenwolf", "Siddhartha", and "The Glass Bead Game", each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, German Empire. His grandparents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. His grandfather Hermann Gundert compiled a Malayalam grammar and a Malayalam-English dictionary, and also contributed to a translation of the Bible into Malayalam in South India. Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in South India in 1842. In describing her own childhood, she said, "A happy child I was not..." As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents returned to India.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hesse's father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in Weissenstein, Governorate of Estonia in the Russian Empire (now Paide, Järva County, Estonia). Johannes Hesse belonged to the Baltic German minority in the Russian-ruled Baltic region: thus his son Hermann was at birth a citizen of both the German Empire and the Russian Empire. Hermann had five siblings, but two of them died in infancy. In 1873, the Hesse family moved to Calw, where Johannes worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, a publishing house specializing in theological texts and schoolbooks. Marie's father, Hermann Gundert (also the namesake of his grandson), managed the publishing house at the time, and Johannes Hesse succeeded him in 1893.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hesse grew up in a Swabian Pietist household, with the Pietist tendency to insulate believers into small, deeply thoughtful groups. Furthermore, Hesse described his father's Baltic German heritage as "an important and potent fact" of his developing identity. His father, Hesse stated, "always seemed like a very polite, very foreign, lonely, little-understood guest". His father's tales from Estonia instilled a contrasting sense of religion in young Hermann. "[It was] an exceedingly cheerful, and, for all its Christianity, a merry world... We wished for nothing so longingly as to be allowed to see this Estonia... where life was so paradisiacal, so colourful and happy." Hermann Hesse's sense of estrangement from the Swabian petite bourgeoisie grew further through his relationship with his maternal grandmother Julie Gundert, née Dubois, whose French-Swiss heritage kept her from ever quite fitting in among that milieu.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: From childhood, Hesse was headstrong and hard for his family to handle. In a letter to her husband, Hermann's mother Marie wrote: "The little fellow has a life in him, an unbelievable strength, a powerful will, and, for his four years of age, a truly astonishing mind. How can he express all that? It truly gnaws at my life, this internal fighting against his tyrannical temperament, his passionate turbulence [...] God must shape this proud spirit, then it will become something noble and magnificent – but I shudder to think what this young and passionate person might become should his upbringing be false or weak."


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In his juvenilia collection "Gerbersau", Hesse vividly describes experiences and anecdotes from his childhood and youth in Calw: the atmosphere and adventures by the river, the bridge, the chapel, the houses leaning closely together, hidden nooks and crannies, as well as the inhabitants with their admirable qualities, their oddities, and their idiosyncrasies. The fictional town of Gerbersau is pseudonymous for Calw, imitating the real name of the nearby town of Hirsau. It is derived from the German words "gerber", meaning "tanner", and "aue", meaning "meadow". Calw had a centuries-old leather-working industry, and during Hesse's childhood the tanneries' influence on the town was still very much in evidence. Hesse's favourite place in Calw was the St. Nicholas Bridge ("Nikolausbrücke"), which is why a Hesse monument was built there in 2002.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hermann Hesse's grandfather Hermann Gundert, a doctor of philosophy and fluent in multiple languages, encouraged the boy to read widely, giving him access to his library, which was filled with the works of world literature. All this instilled a sense in Hermann Hesse that he was a citizen of the world. His family background became, he noted, "the basis of an isolation and a resistance to any sort of nationalism that so defined my life".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Young Hesse shared a love of music with his mother. Both music and poetry were important in his family. His mother wrote poetry, and his father was known for his use of language in both his sermons and the writing of religious tracts. His first role model for becoming an artist was his half-brother, Theo, who rebelled against the family by entering a music conservatory in 1885. Hesse showed a precocious ability to rhyme, and by 1889–90 had decided that he wanted to be a writer.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In 1881, when Hesse was four, the family moved to Basel, Switzerland, staying for six years and then returning to Calw. After successful attendance at the Latin School in Göppingen, Hesse entered the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Maulbronn Abbey in 1891. The pupils lived and studied at the abbey, one of Germany's most beautiful and well-preserved, attending 41 hours of classes a week. Although Hesse did well during the first months, writing in a letter that he particularly enjoyed writing essays and translating classic Greek poetry into German, his time in Maulbronn was the beginning of a serious personal crisis. In March 1892, Hesse showed his rebellious character, and, in one instance, he fled from the Seminary and was found in a field a day later. Hesse began a journey through various institutions and schools and experienced intense conflicts with his parents. In May, after an attempt at suicide, he spent time at an institution in Bad Boll under the care of theologian and minister Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Later, he was placed in a mental institution in Stetten im Remstal, and then a boys' institution in Basel. At the end of 1892, he attended the Gymnasium in Cannstatt, now part of Stuttgart. In 1893, he passed the One Year Examination, which concluded his schooling. The same year, he began spending time with older companions and took up drinking and smoking.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: After this, Hesse began a bookshop apprenticeship in Esslingen am Neckar, but quit after three days. Then, in the early summer of 1894, he began a 14-month mechanic apprenticeship at a clock tower factory in Calw. The monotony of soldering and filing work made him turn himself toward more spiritual activities. In October 1895, he was ready to begin wholeheartedly a new apprenticeship with a bookseller in Tübingen. This experience from his youth, especially his time spent at the Seminary in Maulbronn, he returns to later in his novel "Beneath the Wheel".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: On 17 October 1895, Hesse began working in the bookshop in Tübingen, which had a specialized collection in theology, philology, and law. Hesse's tasks consisted of organizing, packing, and archiving the books. After the end of each twelve-hour workday, Hesse pursued his own work, and he spent his long, idle Sundays with books rather than friends. Hesse studied theological writings and later Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, and Greek mythology. He also began reading Nietzsche in 1895, and that philosopher's ideas of "dual…impulses of passion and order" in humankind was a heavy influence on most of his novels.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: By 1898, Hesse had a respectable income that enabled financial independence from his parents. During this time, he concentrated on the works of the German Romantics, including much of the work of Clemens Brentano, Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Novalis. In letters to his parents, he expressed a belief that "the morality of artists is replaced by aesthetics".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: During this time, he was introduced to the home of Fräulein von Reutern, a friend of his family's. There he met with people his own age. His relationships with his contemporaries were "problematic", in that most of them were now at university. This usually left him feeling awkward in social situations.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In 1896, his poem "Madonna" appeared in a Viennese periodical and Hesse released his first small volume of poetry, "Romantic Songs". In 1897, a published poem of his, "Grand Valse", drew him a fan letter. It was from Helene Voigt, who the next year married Eugen Diederichs, a young publisher. To please his wife, Diederichs agreed to publish Hesse's collection of prose entitled "One Hour After Midnight" in 1898 (although it is dated 1899). Both works were a business failure. In two years, only 54 of the 600 printed copies of "Romantic Songs" were sold, and "One Hour After Midnight" received only one printing and sold sluggishly. Furthermore, Hesse "suffered a great shock" when his mother disapproved of "Romantic Songs" on the grounds that they were too secular and even "vaguely sinful".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: From late 1899, Hesse worked in a distinguished antique book shop in Basel. Through family contacts, he stayed with the intellectual families of Basel. In this environment with rich stimuli for his pursuits, he further developed spiritually and artistically. At the same time, Basel offered the solitary Hesse many opportunities for withdrawal into a private life of artistic self-exploration, journeys and wanderings. In 1900, Hesse was exempted from compulsory military service due to an eye condition. This, along with nerve disorders and persistent headaches, affected him his entire life.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In 1901, Hesse undertook to fulfill a long-held dream and travelled for the first time to Italy. In the same year, Hesse changed jobs and began working at the antiquarium Wattenwyl in Basel. Hesse had more opportunities to release poems and small literary texts to journals. These publications now provided honorariums. His new bookstore agreed to publish his next work, "Posthumous Writings and Poems of Hermann Lauscher". In 1902, his mother died after a long and painful illness. He could not bring himself to attend her funeral, stating in a letter to his father: "I think it would be better for us both that I do not come, in spite of my love for my mother."


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Due to the good notices that Hesse received for "Lauscher", the publisher Samuel Fischer became interested in Hesse and, with the novel "Peter Camenzind", which appeared first as a pre-publication in 1903 and then as a regular printing by Fischer in 1904, came a breakthrough: from now on, Hesse could make a living as a writer. The novel became popular throughout Germany. Sigmund Freud "praised "Peter Camenzind" as one of his favourite readings".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Having realised he could make a living as a writer, Hesse finally married Maria Bernoulli (of the famous family of mathematicians) in 1904, while her father, who disapproved of their relationship, was away for the weekend. The couple settled down in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance, and began a family, eventually having three sons. In Gaienhofen, he wrote his second novel, "Beneath the Wheel", which was published in 1906. In the following time, he composed primarily short stories and poems. His story "The Wolf", written in 1906–07, was "quite possibly" a foreshadowing of "Steppenwolf".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: His next novel, "Gertrude", published in 1910, revealed a production crisis. He had to struggle through writing it, and he later would describe it as "a miscarriage". Gaienhofen was the place where Hesse's interest in Buddhism was re-sparked. Following a letter to Kapff in 1895 entitled "Nirvana", Hesse had ceased alluding to Buddhist references in his work. In 1904, however, Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophical ideas started receiving attention again, and Hesse discovered theosophy. Schopenhauer and theosophy renewed Hesse's interest in India. Although it was many years before the publication of Hesse's "Siddhartha" (1922), this masterpiece was to be derived from these new influences.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: During this time, there also was increased dissonance between him and Maria, and in 1911 Hesse left for a long trip to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. He also visited Sumatra, Borneo, and Burma, but "the physical experience... was to depress him." Any spiritual or religious inspiration that he was looking for eluded him, but the journey made a strong impression on his literary work. Following Hesse's return, the family moved to Bern (1912), but the change of environment could not solve the marriage problems, as he himself confessed in his novel "Rosshalde" from 1914.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Hesse registered himself as a volunteer with the Imperial army, saying that he could not sit inactively by a warm fireplace while other young authors were dying on the front. He was found unfit for combat duty, but was assigned to service involving the care of prisoners of war. While most poets and authors of the warring countries quickly became embroiled in a tirade of mutual hate, Hesse, seemingly immune to the general war enthusiasm of the time, wrote an essay titled "O Friends, Not These Tones" ("O Freunde, nicht diese Töne"), which was published in the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", on 3 November. In this essay he appealed to his fellow intellectuals not to fall for nationalistic madness and hatred. Calling for subdued voices and a recognition of Europe's common heritage, Hesse wrote: "That love is greater than hate, understanding greater than ire, peace nobler than war, this exactly is what this unholy World War should burn into our memories, more so than ever felt before." What followed from this, Hesse later indicated, was a great turning point in his life. For the first time, he found himself in the middle of a serious political conflict, attacked by the German press, the recipient of hate mail, and distanced from old friends. However, he did receive support from his friend Theodor Heuss, and the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited Hesse in August 1915. In 1917, Hesse wrote to Rolland, "The attempt...to apply love to matters political has failed."


title: Hermann Hesse

text: This public controversy was not yet resolved when a deeper life crisis befell Hesse with the death of his father on 8 March 1916, the serious illness of his son Martin, and his wife's schizophrenia. He was forced to leave his military service and begin receiving psychotherapy. This began for Hesse a long preoccupation with psychoanalysis, through which he came to know Carl Jung personally, and was challenged to new creative heights. Hesse and Jung both later maintained a correspondence with Chilean author, diplomat and Nazi sympathizer Miguel Serrano, who detailed his relationship with both figures in the book "C.G. Jung & Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships". During a three-week period in September and October 1917, Hesse penned his novel "Demian", which would be published following the armistice in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: By the time Hesse returned to civilian life in 1919, his marriage had fallen apart. His wife had a severe episode of psychosis, but, even after her recovery, Hesse saw no possible future with her. Their home in Bern was divided, their children were accommodated in boarding houses and by relatives, and Hesse resettled alone in the middle of April in Ticino. He occupied a small farm house near Minusio (close to Locarno), living from 25 April to 11 May in Sorengo. On 11 May, he moved to the town Montagnola and rented four small rooms in a castle-like building, the Casa Camuzzi. Here, he explored his writing projects further; he began to paint, an activity reflected in his next major story, "Klingsor's Last Summer", published in 1920. This new beginning in different surroundings brought him happiness, and Hesse later called his first year in Ticino "the fullest, most prolific, most industrious and most passionate time of my life". In 1922, Hesse's novella "Siddhartha" appeared, which showed the love for Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy that had already developed earlier in his life. In 1924, Hesse married the singer Ruth Wenger, the daughter of the Swiss writer Lisa Wenger and aunt of Méret Oppenheim. This marriage never attained any stability, however.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In 1923, Hesse was granted Swiss citizenship. His next major works, "Kurgast" (1925) and "The Nuremberg Trip" (1927), were autobiographical narratives with ironic undertones and foreshadowed Hesse's following novel, "Steppenwolf", which was published in 1927. In the year of his 50th birthday, the first biography of Hesse appeared, written by his friend Hugo Ball. Shortly after his new successful novel, he turned away from the solitude of "Steppenwolf" and started a cohabitation with art historian Ninon Dolbin, née Ausländer. This change to companionship was reflected in the novel "Narcissus and Goldmund", appearing in 1930.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In 1931, Hesse left the Casa Camuzzi and moved with Ninon to a larger house, also near Montagnola, which was built for him to use for the rest of his life, by his friend and patron Hans C. Bodmer. In the same year, Hesse formally married Ninon, and began planning what would become his last major work, "The Glass Bead Game" (a.k.a. "Magister Ludi"). In 1932, as a preliminary study, he released the novella "Journey to the East".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hesse observed the rise to power of Nazism in Germany with concern. In 1933, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann made their travels into exile, each aided by Hesse. In this way, Hesse attempted to work against Hitler's suppression of art and literature that protested Nazi ideology. Hesse's third wife was Jewish, and he had publicly expressed his opposition to anti-Semitism long before then. Hesse was criticized for not condemning the Nazi Party, but his failure to criticize or support any political idea stemmed from his "politics of detachment [...] At no time did he openly condemn (the Nazis), although his detestation of their politics is beyond question." Nazism, with its blood sacrifice of the individual to the state and the race, represented the opposite of everything he believed in. In March 1933, seven weeks after Hitler took power, Hesse wrote to a correspondent in Germany, "It is the duty of spiritual types to stand alongside the spirit and not to sing along when the people start belting out the patriotic songs their leaders have ordered them to sing." In the 1930s, Hesse made a quiet statement of resistance by reviewing and publicizing the work of banned Jewish authors, including Franz Kafka. In the late 1930s, German journals stopped publishing Hesse's work, and the Nazis eventually banned it.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: According to Hesse, he "survived the years of the Hitler regime and the Second World War through the eleven years of work that [he] spent on ["The Glass Bead Game"]""." Printed in 1943 in Switzerland, this was to be his last novel. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: During the last twenty years of his life, Hesse wrote many short stories (chiefly recollections of his childhood) and poems (frequently with nature as their theme). Hesse also wrote ironic essays about his alienation from writing (for instance, the mock autobiographies: "Life Story Briefly Told" and "Aus den Briefwechseln eines Dichters") and spent much time pursuing his interest in watercolours. Hesse also occupied himself with the steady stream of letters he received as a result of the Nobel Prize and as a new generation of German readers explored his work. In one essay, Hesse reflected wryly on his lifelong failure to acquire a talent for idleness and speculated that his average daily correspondence exceeded 150 pages. He died on 9 August 1962, aged 85, and was buried in the cemetery of Sant’Abbondio in Gentilino, where his friend and biographer Hugo Ball and another German personality, the conductor Bruno Walter, are also buried.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: As reflected in "Demian", and other works, he believed that "for different people, there are different ways to God"; but despite the influence he drew from Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, he stated about his parents: “their Christianity, one not preached but lived, was the strongest of the powers that shaped and moulded me".


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In his time, Hesse was a popular and influential author in the German-speaking world; worldwide fame only came later. Hesse's first great novel, "Peter Camenzind", was received enthusiastically by young Germans desiring a different and more "natural" way of life in this time of great economic and technological progress in the country (see also Wandervogel movement). "Demian" had a strong and enduring influence on the generation returning home from the First World War. Similarly, "The Glass Bead Game", with its disciplined intellectual world of Castalia and the powers of meditation and humanity, captivated Germans' longing for a new order amid the chaos of a broken nation following the loss in the Second World War.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Towards the end of his life, German (born Bavarian) composer Richard Strauss (1864–1949) set three of Hesse's poems to music in his song cycle "Four Last Songs" for soprano and orchestra (composed 1948, first performed posthumously in 1950): "Frühling" ("Spring"), "September", and "Beim Schlafengehen" ("On Going to Sleep").


title: Hermann Hesse

text: In the 1950s, Hesse's popularity began to wane, while literature critics and intellectuals turned their attention to other subjects. In 1955, the sales of Hesse's books by his publisher Suhrkamp reached an all-time low. However, after Hesse's death in 1962, posthumously published writings, including letters and previously unknown pieces of prose, contributed to a new level of understanding and appreciation of his works.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: By the time of Hesse's death in 1962, his works were still relatively little read in the United States, despite his status as a Nobel laureate. A memorial published in "The New York Times" went so far as to claim that Hesse's works were largely "inaccessible" to American readers. The situation changed in the mid-1960s, when Hesse's works suddenly became bestsellers in the United States. The revival in popularity of Hesse's works has been credited to their association with some of the popular themes of the 1960s counterculture (or hippie) movement. In particular, the quest-for-enlightenment theme of "Siddhartha", "Journey to the East", and "Narcissus and Goldmund" resonated with those espousing counter-cultural ideals. The "magic theatre" sequences in "Steppenwolf" were interpreted by some as drug-induced psychedelia although there is no evidence that Hesse ever took psychedelic drugs or recommended their use. In large part, the Hesse boom in the United States can be traced back to enthusiastic writings by two influential counter-culture figures: Colin Wilson and Timothy Leary. From the United States, the Hesse renaissance spread to other parts of the world and even back to Germany: more than 800,000 copies were sold in the German-speaking world from 1972 to 1973. In a space of just a few years, Hesse became the most widely read and translated European author of the 20th century. Hesse was especially popular among young readers, a tendency which continues today.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: There is a quote from "Demian" on the cover of Santana's 1970 album "Abraxas", revealing the source of the album's title.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Hesse's "Siddhartha" is one of the most popular Western novels set in India. An authorised translation of "Siddhartha" was published in the Malayalam language in 1990, the language that surrounded Hesse's grandfather, Hermann Gundert, for most of his life. A Hermann Hesse Society of India has also been formed. It aims to bring out authentic translations of "Siddhartha" in all Indian languages and has already prepared the Sanskrit,


title: Hermann Hesse

text: One enduring monument to Hesse's lasting popularity in the United States is the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Referring to "The Magic Theatre for Madmen Only" in "Steppenwolf" (a kind of spiritual and somewhat nightmarish cabaret attended by some of the characters, including Harry Haller), the Magic Theatre was founded in 1967 to perform works by new playwrights. Founded by John Lion, the Magic Theatre has fulfilled that mission for many years, including the world premieres of many plays by Sam Shepard.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: Throughout Germany, many schools are named after him. The Hermann-Hesse-Literaturpreis is a literary prize associated with the city of Karlsruhe that has been awarded since 1957. Since 1990, the Calw Hermann Hesse Prize has been awarded every two years alternately to a German-language literary journal and a translator of Hesse's work.


title: Hermann Hesse

text: The Internationale Hermann-Hesse-Gesellschaft (unofficial English name: "International Hermann Hesse Society") was founded in 2002 on Hesse's 125th birthday and began awarding its Hermann Hesse prize in 2017.


title: Western esotericism

text: Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthodox Judeo-Christian religion and Enlightenment rationalism. Esotericism has pervaded various forms of Western philosophy, religion, pseudoscience, art, literature, and music—and continues to influence intellectual ideas and popular culture.


title: Western esotericism

text: The idea of grouping a wide range of Western traditions and philosophies together under the term "esotericism" developed in Europe during the late seventeenth century. Various academics have debated various definitions of Western esotericism. One view adopts a definition from certain esotericist schools of thought themselves, treating "esotericism" as a perennial hidden inner tradition. A second perspective sees esotericism as a category of movements that embrace an "enchanted" worldview in the face of increasing disenchantment. A third views Western esotericism as encompassing all of Western culture's "rejected knowledge" that is accepted neither by the scientific establishment nor orthodox religious authorities.


title: Western esotericism

text: The earliest traditions that later analysis labelled as forms of Western esotericism emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, where Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism developed as schools of thought distinct from what became mainstream Christianity. Renaissance Europe saw increasing interest in many of these older ideas, with various intellectuals combining "pagan" philosophies with the Kabbalah and Christian philosophy, resulting in the emergence of esoteric movements like Christian Kabbalah and Christian theosophy. The seventeenth century saw the development of initiatory societies professing esoteric knowledge such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, while the Age of Enlightenment of the eighteenth century led to the development of new forms of esoteric thought. The nineteenth-century saw the emergence of new trends of esoteric thought now known as occultism. Prominent groups in this century included the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Also important in this connexion is Martinus Thomsen's "spiritual science". Modern Paganism developed within occultism and includes religious movements such as Wicca. Esoteric ideas permeated the counterculture of the 1960s and later cultural tendencies, which led to the New Age phenomenon in the 1970s.


title: Western esotericism

text: The idea that these varying movements could be categorised together under the rubric of "Western esotericism" developed in the late eighteenth century, but these esoteric currents were largely ignored as a subject of academic enquiry. The academic study of Western esotericism only emerged in the late twentieth century, pioneered by scholars like Frances Yates and Antoine Faivre. Esoteric ideas have meanwhile also exerted an influence on popular culture, appearing in art, literature, film, and music.


title: Western esotericism

text: with the coining of the Ancient Greek adjective "esôterikós" ("belonging to an inner circle"); the earliest known example of the word appeared in a satire authored by Lucian of Samosata ( 125 – after 180).


title: Western esotericism

text: The noun "esotericism", in its French form "ésotérisme", first appeared in 1828 in the work by protestant historian of gnosticism (1791–1864), "Histoire critique du gnosticisme" (3 vols.).


title: Western esotericism

text: The term "esotericism" thus came into use in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment and of its critique of institutionalised religion, during which alternative religious groups such as the Rosicrucians began to disassociate themselves from the dominant Christianity in Western Europe. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars increasingly saw the term "esotericism" as meaning something distinct from Christianity—as a subculture at odds with the Christian mainstream from at least the time of the Renaissance. After being introduced by (1791–1864) in French, the occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Lévi (1810–1875) popularized the term in the 1850s while Theosophist Alfred Percy Sinnett (1840–1921) introduced it into the English language in his book "Esoteric Buddhism" (1883). Lévi also introduced the term "l'occultisme", a notion that he developed against the background of contemporary socialist and Catholic discourses. "Esotericism" and "occultism" were often employed as synonyms until later scholars distinguished the concepts.


title: Western esotericism

text: The concept of "Western esotericism" represents a modern scholarly construct rather than a pre-existing, self-defined tradition of thought. In the late seventeenth century, several European Christian thinkers presented the argument that one could categorise certain traditions of Western philosophy and thought together, thus establishing the category now labelled "Western esotericism". The first to do so, (1659–1698), a German Lutheran theologian, wrote "Platonisch-Hermetisches Christianity" (1690–91). A hostile critic of various currents of Western thought that had emerged since the Renaissance—among them Paracelsianism, Weigelianism, and Christian theosophy—in his book he labelled all of these traditions under the category of "Platonic–Hermetic Christianity", portraying them as heretical to what he saw as "true" Christianity. Despite his hostile attitude toward these traditions of thought, Colberg became the first to connect these disparate philosophies and to study them under one rubric, also recognising that these ideas linked back to earlier philosophies from late antiquity.


title: Western esotericism

text: In Europe during the eighteenth century, amid the Age of Enlightenment, these esoteric traditions came to be regularly categorised under the labels of "superstition", "magic", and "the occult" - terms often used interchangeably. The modern academy, then in the process of developing, consistently rejected and ignored topics coming under "the occult", thus leaving research into them largely to enthusiasts outside of academia. Indeed, according to historian of esotericism Wouter J. Hanegraaff (born 1961), rejection of "occult" topics was seen as a "crucial identity marker" for any intellectuals seeking to affiliate themselves with the academy.


title: Western esotericism

text: Scholars established this category in the late 18th century after identifying "structural similarities" between "the ideas and world views of a wide variety of thinkers and movements" that, previously, had not been in the same analytical grouping. According to the scholar of esotericism Wouter J. Hanegraaff, the term provided a "useful generic label" for "a large and complicated group of historical phenomena that had long been perceived as sharing an "air de famille"."


title: Western esotericism

text: Various academics have emphasised that esotericism is a phenomenon unique to the Western world. As Faivre stated, an "empirical perspective" would hold that "esotericism is a Western notion." As scholars such as Faivre and Hanegraaff have pointed out, there is no comparable category of "Eastern" or "Oriental" esotericism. The emphasis on "Western" esotericism was nevertheless primarily devised to distinguish the field from a "universal" esotericism. Hanegraaff has characterised these as "recognisable world views and approaches to knowledge that have played an important though always controversial role in the history of Western culture". Historian of religion Henrik Bogdan asserted that Western esotericism constituted "a third pillar of Western culture" alongside "doctrinal faith and rationality", being deemed heretical by the former and irrational by the latter. Scholars nevertheless recognise that various non-Western traditions have exerted "a profound influence" over Western esotericism, citing the prominent example of the Theosophical Society's incorporation of Hindu and Buddhist concepts like reincarnation into its doctrines. Given these influences and the imprecise nature of the term "Western", the scholar of esotericism Kennet Granholm has argued that academics should cease referring to ""Western" esotericism" altogether, instead simply favouring "esotericism" as a descriptor of this phenomenon. Egil Asprem has endorsed this approach.


title: Western esotericism

text: The historian of esotericism Antoine Faivre noted that "never a precise term, [esotericism] has begun to overflow its boundaries on all sides", with both Faivre and Karen-Claire Voss stating that Western esotericism consists of "a vast spectrum of authors, trends, works of philosophy, religion, art, literature, and music".


title: Western esotericism

text: Scholars broadly agree on which currents of thought fall within a category of "esotericism"—ranging from ancient Gnosticism and Hermeticism through to Rosicrucianism and the Kabbalah and on to more recent phenomenon such as the New Age movement. Nevertheless, "esotericism" itself remains a controversial term, with scholars specialising in the subject disagreeing as to how best to define it.


title: Western esotericism

text: Some scholars have used "Western esotericism" to refer to "inner traditions" concerned with a "universal spiritual dimension of reality, as opposed to the merely external ('exoteric') religious institutions and dogmatic systems of established religions." This approach views Western esotericism as just one variant of a worldwide esotericism at the heart of all world religions and cultures, reflecting a hidden esoteric reality. This use is closest to the original meaning of the word in late antiquity, where it applied to secret spiritual teachings that were reserved for a specific elite and hidden from the masses. This definition was popularised in the published work of nineteenth-century esotericists like A.E. Waite, who sought to combine their own mystical beliefs with a historical interpretation of esotericism. It subsequently became a popular approach within several esoteric movements, most notably Martinism and Traditionalism.


title: Western esotericism

text: This definition, originally developed by esotericists themselves, became popular among French academics during the 1980s, exerting a strong influence over the scholars Mircea Eliade, Henry Corbin, and the early work of Faivre. Within the academic field of religious studies, those who study different religions in search of an inner universal dimension to them all are termed "religionists". Such religionist ideas also exerted an influence on more recent scholars like Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke and Arthur Versluis.


title: Western esotericism

text: Versluis for instance defined "Western esotericism" as "inner or hidden spiritual knowledge transmitted through Western European historical currents that in turn feed into North American and other non-European settings". He added that these Western esoteric currents all shared a core characteristic, "a claim to gnosis, or direct spiritual insight into cosmology or spiritual insight", and accordingly he suggested that these currents could be referred to as "Western gnostic" just as much as "Western esoteric".


title: Western esotericism

text: There are various problems with this model for understanding Western esotericism. The most significant is that it rests upon the conviction that there really is a "universal, hidden, esoteric dimension of reality" that objectively exists. The existence of this universal inner tradition has not been discovered through scientific or scholarly enquiry; this had led some to claim that it does not exist, though Hanegraaff thought it better to adopt a view based in methodological agnosticism by stating that "we simply do not know - and cannot know" if it exists or not. He noted that, even if such a true and absolute nature of reality really existed, it would only be accessible through "esoteric" spiritual practices, and could not be discovered or measured by the "exoteric" tools of scientific and scholarly enquiry. Hanegraaff pointed out that an approach that seeks a common inner hidden core of all esoteric currents masks that such groups often differ greatly, being rooted in their own historical and social contexts and expressing mutually exclusive ideas and agendas. A third issue was that many of those currents widely recognised as esoteric never concealed their teachings, and in the twentieth century came to permeate popular culture, thus problematizing the claim that esotericism could be defined by its hidden and secretive nature. Moreover, Hanegraaff noted that when scholars adopt this definition, it shows that they subscribe to the religious doctrines espoused by the very groups they are studying.


title: Western esotericism

text: Another approach to Western esotericism treats it as a world view that embraces "enchantment" in contrast to world views influenced by post-Cartesian, post-Newtonian, and positivist science that sought to "dis-enchant" the world. That approach understands esotericism as comprising those world views that eschew a belief in instrumental causality and instead adopt a belief that all parts of the universe are interrelated without a need for causal chains. It stands as a radical alternative to the disenchanted world views that have dominated Western culture since the scientific revolution, and must therefore always be at odds with secular culture.


title: Western esotericism

text: An early exponent of this definition was the historian of Renaissance thought Frances Yates in her discussions of a "Hermetic Tradition", which she saw as an "enchanted" alternative to established religion and rationalistic science. However, the primary exponent of this view was Faivre, who published a series of criteria for how to define "Western esotericism" in 1992. Faivre claimed that esotericism was "identifiable by the presence of six fundamental characteristics or components", four of which were "intrinsic" and thus vital to defining something as being esoteric, while the other two were "secondary" and thus not necessarily present in every form of esotericism. He listed these characteristics as follows:


title: Western esotericism

text: Faivre's form of categorisation has been endorsed by scholars like Goodrick-Clarke, and by 2007 Bogdan could note that Faivre's had become "the standard definition" of Western esotericism in use among scholars. However, in 2013 the scholar Kennet Granholm stated only that Faivre's definition had been "the dominating paradigm for a long while" and that it "still exerts influence among scholars outside the study of Western esotericism". The advantage of Faivre's system is that it facilitates comparing varying esoteric traditions "with one another in a systematic fashion." However, many scholars have criticised Faivre's theory, pointing out various weaknesses. Hanegraaff claimed that Faivre's approach entailed "reasoning by prototype" in that it relied upon already having a "best example" of what Western esotericism should look like, against which other phenomena then had to be compared. The scholar of esotericism Kocku von Stuckrad (born 1966) noted that Faivre's taxonomy was based on his own areas of specialism—Renaissance Hermeticism, Christian Kabbalah, and Protestant Theosophy—and that it was thus not based on a wider understanding of esotericism as it has existed throughout history, from the ancient world to the contemporary period. Accordingly, Von Stuckrad suggested that it was a good typology for understanding "Christian esotericism in the early modern period" but lacked utility beyond that.


title: Western esotericism

text: As an alternative to Faivre's framework, Kocku von Stuckrad developed his own variant, though he argued that this did not represent a "definition" but rather "a framework of analysis" for scholarly usage. He stated that "on the most general level of analysis", esotericism represented "the claim of higher knowledge", a claim to possessing "wisdom that is superior to other interpretations of cosmos and history" that serves as a "master key for answering all questions of humankind." Accordingly, he believed that esoteric groups placed a great emphasis on secrecy, not because they were inherently rooted in elite groups but because the idea of concealed secrets that can be revealed was central to their discourse. Examining the means of accessing higher knowledge, he highlighted two themes that he believed could be found within esotericism, that of mediation through contact with non-human entities, and individual experience. Accordingly, for Von Stuckrad, esotericism could be best understood as "a structural element of Western culture" rather than as a selection of different schools of thought.