Esoteric
Does everyone remember The Esoteric Order of Dagon? What? No one reads Lovecraft anymore? It's mentioned most frequently in one of H.P. Lovecraft's most famous tales of the weird and wicked, The Shadow over Innsmouth.
But that's not really the point of this post. As fascinating as both that short story, and the cult that's mentioned in it are, the word esoteric can have a much broader meaning, and application.
es·o·ter·ic [es-uh-ter-ik] adj. 1. understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite
2. private; secret; confidential
Synonyms: obscure, private, secret, hidden, inner, mysterious, mystical, mystic, occult, arcane, cryptic, inscrutable, abstruse, recondite, cabbalistic (notice the similarity to our A term: arcane)
Etymology: 1650s, from Gk. esoterikos "belonging to an inner circle," from esotero "more within," comparative adv. of eso "within," related to eis "into," en "in" (see en- (2)). In English, originally of Pythagorean doctrines. According to Lucian, the division of teachings into exoteric and esoteric originated with Aristotle.
