Manon Hedenborg White
Associate Professor/Senior lecturer

Presentation

I am Associate Professor of History of Religions. My research focuses on alternative religions, mainly from the late-19th century until today, including esotericism, New Religious Movements, and contemporary ("new age") spirituality. I have a particular interest in broader questions of gender, sexuality, and authority in religions.

In 2017, I obtained a doctoral degree in History of Religions at Uppsala University. My doctoral dissertation was published as a monograph by Oxford University Press in 2020, as The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism. The book was described by a reviewer as "one of the most important contributions to the field of contemporary occultism and alternative spiritualities in recent years, as well as to the intersections between gender and contemporary forms of religion more broadly". I have also co-edited the volume Esotericism and Deviance (Brill, 2023), special issues of the journals Aries, The Pomegranate, and Religion & the Arts, and the book The Magical Diaries of Leah Hirsig, 1923–1925: Aleister Crowley, Magick, and the New Occult Woman (Oxford University Press, 2025).

From 2025 until 2028, I am conducting a research project on women's leadership in new religious movements and the importance of close relationships for patterns of authority, externally funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation).

I have previously conducted a three-year, international postdoctoral project funded by the Swedish Research Council, during which I spent time as a visiting researcher at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the University of Amsterdam.

I am part of the editorial boards of the book series Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism (Oxford University Press) and Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities (Palgrave Macmillan).

Since 2025, I serve as President of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE).