Aaron French, PhD, received his doctorate in the study of religion, including an emphasis in science and technology studies, from the University of California, Davis. His first monograph Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism: A Transcultural Approach will appear with Routledge in 2025 in the “Asia, Europe, and Global Connections: Culture, History, and Trans-Area Studies“ book series. As part of this book project, Dr. French made extensive researches in the Max Weber Collection at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich, as well as in the Rudolf Steiner Archive in Dornach, Switzerland.

Dr. French has published a number of peer-reviewed articles in academic journals and regularly lectures and presents at international conferences. He collaborates on research projects and publications dealing with the topic of the occult in history, spiritualism, alternative religious movements, and conspiracism. More recently he has focused his attention on modern architecture and sacred space, which resulted in the edited volume Modernity and the Construction of Sacred Space (De Gruyter, 2024) co-edited with Prof. Dr. Katharina Waldner. He currently teaches in the international Religious Studies Masters program at the University of Erfurt in Germany and works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Freie Universität Berlin, focusing on the intersections between early modern East-Central European kabbalah and freemasonry.

https://uni-erfurt.academia.edu/AaronFrench

Publications

Monographs:

• Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism: A Transcultural Approach. Routledge, March 2025.

• (with Henry Holland) Modernity’s Provocateur: A Critical Biography of the Young Rudolf Steiner, 1861–1903. SUNY Press, 2026 (under contract, forthcoming). 

Edited volumes: 

• Religion and the UFO Phenomenon: Methodological Challenges. Bloomsbury, 2026 (under contract, forthcoming). 

• (with Katharina Waldner) Modernity and the Construction of Sacred Space. De Gruyter, 2024. 

• (with Krzysztof Nawratek, and Asma Mehan) “Non-sacred Spaces for Religious Practices and Spirituality [special issue].” Religions 14 (2023). 

Journal articles:

• “Esotericism against Capitalism? Rudolf Steiner’s Alternative Pedagogy as a Site of Resistance.” Approaching Religion 14, No. 2 (2024): 170–189.

• “Parallel Metaphors in Theosophy and Transhumanism.” Religio: Revue pro religionistiku 30, no. 1 (2022): 25–43.

• “Sacred Space and Nature in Early 20th Century Alternative Healing Sites.” Religions 2022, 13(2), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13020110.

• “Technology as a Necessary Evil: Rudolf Steiner’s Ahriman and the Rollout of ‘5G.’” La Rosa di Paracelso, No. 1 (2020), 35–53.

• “The Mandela Effect and Future Memory.” Correspondences: Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism 6, No. 2 (2018), 201–233.

Book chapters/anthology contributions:

• “Henry Corbin and the ‘Secret’ Understanding of Aql in Shiite Traditions.” In Secrecy and Esotericism, edited by Tim Rudbøg. SUNY Press, 2025 (under contract, forthcoming).

• “Bruno Taut: Architect as Modern Spiritual Builder.” In Modernity and the Construction of Sacred Space, edited by Aaron French and Katharina Waldner. De Gruyter, June 2024.

• “Fabulations of Theory.” In The Theology of Philp K. Dick, edited by George Sieg and Michael Barros. Lexington Books, 2024 (forthcoming, under contract). 

• “Science and Rationality as Modern Re-Enchantment.” In New Approaches to Disenchantment. University of Indiana Press, 2024 (under contract, forthcoming).

• “Esoteric Nationalism and Conspiracism in WWI.” In Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories: Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends, edited by Francesco Piraino, Marco Pasi, Egil Asprem. Taylor and Francis, 2022. 

• “Voyage to India with Sir William Jones: The Asiatick Society Remakes the West.” In Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time, edited by Albrecht Classen. De Gruyter, 2018.