I addressed the so-called 'Dillon’s term'—the 'Underworld of Platonism'—long ago (see my paper 'Ciento cincuenta años de hermetismo', 2010). I took it for a sort of scholarly laziness, perhaps a superiority complex exhibited by an academic elite focused on determining what was worthy of their rational attention and what was not; Dylan's paper addresses this and other topics on the same subject.
I reckon there is indeed an emic-etic combo encapsulating the whole subject in many layers and periods. In the end, we should make a distinction between what we make of the texts from an academic point of view and what the authors themselves may have thought while elaborating them.
Regardless, it is a fact that many (good) scholars have cast their own personal beliefs onto their work; however, it is also a fact that what matters most is whether they have applied a rigorous scientific approach to their commentary.
Receptions of Revelations: A Future for the Study of Esotericism and Antiquity
D. Burns
Published in New Approaches to the Study… 3 December 2020
New Approaches to the Study of Esotericism
