No reviews for this oddball of a card? Let's change that.
As I just mentioned, this is a very strange card. But it's surprisingly good. Let's dissect it piece by piece.
???? is great. There's no question about that. 1XP is an ask for this skill. You won't be able to run it at the start of a campaign unless you take In the Thick of It, but there are so many better options to spend your XP on. Practiced and Cursed increases the potential of this card tenfold. Since it's Practiced you are able to run Practice Makes Perfect with it, and since there aren't that many Seeker and Neutral skills that you'd be wanting to run in a Cluever deck, this is a potential target. But the real trait for this card is Cursed. We'll get more into that later.
Now for the downside of the card- and it's a big one. You add a Curse token for every point you pass/fail by. That's huge. Each Curse token is -2 and ideally you would want to pass/fail by 2 or less if you're not looking to generate a whole bunch of Curses. It's not worth it to play around it, even with using a Premonition. Just let it ride. Now, the Curses will inevitably have you fail a test at some point. That is... unless you have two copies of tabooed Ritual Candles out. Doing so would give you +2 for each Curse you reveal in a test, effectively negating any downside of the card. Even with one of them out, each Curse will only be -1, which isn't that bad. If you're not using it as a Curse generation card, it's best to save it for a crucial test that you desperately want to pass. TFA SPOILER comes to mind. Or you can save it for one of the last turns of the game when you're not making too many tests at that stage of the game.
Card Comparisons:
Inquiring Mind: Inquiring Mind is very similar to Esoteric, as it has the second-highest amount of commits[Barring Survey the Area] in the class. The ??? is great, but it loses value as the scenario runs long, because of the fact that you clear a whole bunch of locations. Esoteric is the opposite of that. The later in the scenario you commit this, the more you're able to play around the downside of the card. If you make perform less tests, then you'll be able to draw the Curses less. Inquiring Mind does not have the same traits as Esoteric, so it can't be used for PMP.
Promise of Power: If you have access to Mystic off-class as a Seeker, 9 times out of 10 you should run Promise of Power instead. The biggest differences are that you add the Curse in as soon as you commit it, rather than after. However, this rarely matters. Secondly, you're guaranteed to only add one Curse instead of who knows how much. And it's even better since it has the same traits and can be used in PMP.
Who'd like this card?
Kōhaku, Parallel Wendy Adams, Parallel Jim Culver, and Parallel Rex Murphy, can take it and would enjoy to do so. Wendy can seal them on her Tidal Memento, Kōhaku can repeatedly gain extra turns with how many curses you'll generate from it, Parallel Jim could recharge his assets (But he'd struggle a fair bit with his Advanced Final Rhapsody), and Parallel Rex would take it for fueling every version of Cryptic Grimoire. He'd also like it for the chance of negating all of them for his Elder Sign. I think Parallel Jim(If you can play around his Final Rhapsody) or Kōhaku is the best user of this card for the synergies it provides with other Mystic curse cards, most notably the big three: Eye of Chaos, Armageddon, and Rod of Carbonara Sauce. As mentioned earlier, Parallel Rex Murphy can also take it, but I find the Curse Seeker archetype to not have the greatest pay-offs. Besides, Parallel Rex also has plenty of ways to generate curses with his reaction ability, so Esoteric isn't necessary.
TLDR: It isn't Promise of Power or Inquiring Mind, but it has it's homes. You can look at it either one of three ways: It's a curse generation card, a way to fuel Practice Makes Perfect, or use it as a way to pass an important test if you don't mind failing a few later. In my opinion, it's best as a curse-generation card.
The first time I played this card was in a Harvey deck and ended up putting 9 Curses in the bag. Worth.