Difference between Esoteric and Abstruse

ESOTERIC vs ABSTRUSE: NOUN

Confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle
Relating to or being a small group with specialized knowledge or interests.
Not known by or suitable for the public; private.
Designed for, and understood by, the specially initiated alone; not communicated, or not intelligible, to the general body of followers; private; interior; acroamatic; -- said of discussions of technical topics and of the private and more recondite instructions and doctrines of philosophers. Opposed to exoteric.
Marked by secrecy or privacy; private; select; confidential.
Understood only by a chosen few or an enlightened inner circle.
Having to do with concepts that are highly theoretical and without obvious practical application; often with mystical or religious connotations.
Confidential; private.
Intended for or understood by only a small group, especially one with specialized knowledge or interests: : mysterious.

Difficult to penetrate; incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge
Difficult to understand; recondite.
Concealed or hidden out of the way.
Remote from apprehension; difficult to be comprehended or understood; recondite.

Literally, inner: originally applied to certain writings of Aristotle of a scientific, as opposed to a popular, character, and afterward to the secret or acroamatic teachings of Pythagoras; hence, in general, secret; intended to be communicated only to the initiated; profound.
In embryology, endoblastic. See the extract.

Difficult to penetrate
Remote from comprehension; difficult to be apprehended or understood; profound; occult; esoteric: opposed to obvious.
Withdrawn from view; out of the way; concealed.

Dark, Obscure, Sibylline, Cryptical, Deep, Secret, Mysterious, Mystic, Cabalistic, Occult, Cryptic, Mystical, Recondite, Arcane, Abstruse

Cryptic, Comprehensible, Incomprehensible, Indecipherable, Banal, Metaphysical, Obscure, Prosaic, Inscrutable, Obtuse, Arcane, Cryptographs, Deep, Recondite, Esoteric

Dark, Obscure, Sibylline, Cryptical, Deep, Secret, Mysterious, Mystic, Cabalistic, Occult, Cryptic, Mystical, Recondite, Arcane, Abstruse

Ambiguous, Cryptic, Comprehensible, Incomprehensible, Indecipherable, Banal, Metaphysical, Obscure, Prosaic, Inscrutable, Obtuse, Arcane, Deep, Recondite, Esoteric

This is hardly esoteric or limited to religion.
Esoteric or Tantric Buddhism, a form of Mahayana.
This view: Esoteric - For our New-Age customers.
Nor is intentional sexuality confined to esoteric traditions.
His Proclus is esoteric, dogmatic and often unintelligible.
Is dollar policy just an esoteric, econometric issue?
Esoteric decode of the Janelle Monet movie: Antebellum.
And these are not just esoteric academic discussions.
These Texts about Esoteric and Occult topics make a fascinating reading for occultists and the people intersted in esoteric alike.
And esoteric cosmology is the occult and esoteric teachings that involve elaborate cosmologies.

Pretty abstruse legalese, though, since it goes back such a long way.
Samuel Johnson because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved.
SYN: Mental, intellectual, abstract, Ideal, conceptional, subjective, relational, notional, abstruse, psychical.
For by simple things you arrive at the abstruse.
So deep abstruse he has not mastered it.
It is far too abstruse for description here.
Great these gatherings the abstruse all around them.
Some puzzles employ abstruse definitions, puns, and anagrams.
Softw engineers put off by more abstruse notations.
Virtue ethics is not an abstruse ethical theory.