This chapter offers an overview of academic theorization on esotericism, deviance, and the relationship between the two. A social constructivist approach to deviance is outlined. The volume takes as its starting point the idea that deviance – or the processes by which something or someone is deemed deviant – is relative and contextual. Revisiting historical contexts and events with a nuanced and context- sensitive concept of “deviance,” which accounts for the historical and cultural contingency of normality as well as responses to that which is perceived as outside of it, is thus an important aim of the volume.