THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM: A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY

By ROBERT GALBREATH

The following essay is intended as an introductory and highly selective guide to the scholarly and better popular literature on the history of Western occultism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Widespread acceptance of the occult tapered off sharply by the end of the seventeenth century among the educated, but it did not cease altogether and may have remained more or less constant among peasants. Within a hundred years the Romantic revival of Neoplatonism, Medieval German mysticism, and astrology, the introduction of Asian and especially Indian esotericism, and the sudden enthusiasm for secret societies, Mesmerism, and Swedenborgianism marked the beginnings of the modern recrudescence of the occult. From the late eighteenth century until the present, in varying degrees of popularity, faddishness, and intellectual respectability, the occult has remained a nearly ubiquitous factor in Western cultural life. For example, Martin Ebons They Knew the Unknown (World, 1971) documents the role of the occult in the lives and writings of Kant, Schopenhauer, Shelley, Lincoln, Victor Hugo, the Brownings, Mark Twain, William James, Strindberg, A. R. Wallace, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edison, William McDougall, Freud, Jung, Yeats, Alexis Carrel, Maeterlinck, Mackenzie King, Thomas Mann, Gilbert Murray, Aldous Huxley, Upton Sinclair, and C. J. Ducasse. The enthusiasm with which the occult is currently being greeted, regardless of motive, is beginning to stimulate more scholars into examining its claims, history, and impact. Yet those who plunge into the occult currents of the past

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 727199 two hundred years may easily lose their bearings. The major bibliographies, for example, mostly date from before the First World War; more recent bibliographies tend to specialize in a single occult field, such as alchemy or witchcraft, and to limit themselves to the medieval and early modern periods. Bibliographical problems are complicated further by the fact that the more prominent exponents of occult systems from Swedenborg to Annie Besant have been unusually prolific authors, the extreme hopefully having been reached with the 340 volumes of the complete German edition of Rudolf Steiners works. These writings are often published in a confusing array of editions, many of them ephemeral, unauthorized, or incomplete. Unfortunately, there are few author bibliographies, even of an amateur nature, with which one can thread such mazes with confidence. Secondary sources, of course, outnumber the writings of occultists, and the problems are multiplied accordingly. Scholarly books and articles tend to reflect rather specialized interests and methods; for this reason, they often fail to come to the attention of specialists in other fields who might profit from them. Journals of history, literature, philosophy, psychology, parapsychology, sociology, anthropology, folklore, popular culture, the history of religions, and the history of science, among others, are all apt to contain materials of value. Only Ambix, the excellent journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry, and the parapsychology journals, such as Journal of Parapsychology, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (London), and Journal of the American Society f o r Psychical Research, can be considered to be almost wholly devoted to the occult. But the former rarely contains articles pertaining to the period after the seventeenth century, while the latter are scientific journals which carry only a few articles of historical or sociological interest. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, which is concerned with the psychological and therapeutic implications of mysticism, occultism, ecstasy, and peak-experiences, and the Jungian Journal of Analytical Psychology, occasionally publish historical contributions. The bulk of popular literature is almost too vast to handle in anything but quantitative terms. Douglas G. Ellson, for example, in his Book Publication in Psychical Research and Spiritualism in Wartime, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 37 (July 1942), 388-392, counted a total of 1216 American and English titles in these two categories for the fifty-year period 1891-1940. (He discovered that the peak was reached in both countries during the 19161920 period, but that there was no agreement between the tastes of the two countries for other five-year periods). For the current occult boom, Marcello Truzzi, The Occult Revival as Popular Culture: Some Random Observations on the Old and Nouveau Witch, Sociological Quartedy (forthcoming, 1972), reports that Paperbound Books in Print for June 1968 lists 169 occult titles but that by the October 1969 issue the total had increased to 519. I can add that the July 1971 edition records an incredible 874. Equally indicative of the occult revival is the report by R. A. McConnell and Tron McConnell, Occult Books at the University of Pittsburgh, Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 65 (July 1971) and more briefly in R. A. McConnel1,ESPCurriculum

7281100 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE Guide (*Simon & Schuster, 1971), pp. 83-94, that the not untypical University

of Pittsburgh Book Center ordered 4038 copies of 454 different hardcover and paperback occult titles from August 1969 to July 1970, with the most popular categories being Tales (true and fictional), Astrology, Other Prediction, Black Magic (and witchcraft), and Noted Psychics. Faced with these figures, I have placed certain restrictions on the present bibliographical essay. It is confined to Western occultism-almost exclusively American, English, French, and German-from the late eighteenth century to the present, with emphasis upon English-language historical studies of a scholarly nature. By occultism, I do not mean the whole of the occult but only that portion of it which can be called metaphysical occultism or spiritual occultism. This distinction, as I argued in my paper, Modern Occultism: A Thematic Analysis, at the Popular Culture Association 1971 meeting, is based on observable or claimed differences in terms of psychic experiences, spiritual development, self-image, and behavior. Thus, spiritual occultism, as represented by Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, and a ritualistic-magical wing (various Rosicrucian organizations, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune), denies that it is a religion as Satanism and some forms of modern witchcraft claim to be. Spiritual occultists state that it is possible to acquire personal, empirical knowledge of that which can only be taken on faith in religion or demonstrated through deductive reasoning in philosophy. Further, this knowledge, arrived at in full consciousness through the use of spiritual disciplines, is said to reveal mans place in the spiritual plan of the universe and to reconcile the debilitating conflict between science and religion. The goal of occultism, therefore, is the complete spiritualization of man and the cosmos, and the attainment of a condition of unity. The spiritual occultists also express grave doubts concerning mysticism (too emotional), Spiritualism (too materialistic, as is parapsychology, and too reliant on unconscious trances), and occult sciences such as most forms of magic and divination (improper use of spiritual powers and morally degrading). The emphasis of this bibliography is accordingly on metaphysical occultism, with relatively less treatment accorded to Spiritualism, parapsychology (its historical development only), and the occult sciences, with mysticism and witchcraft omitted altogether, the latter of course treated fully in Professor Nugents essay in this supplement. The following essay is divided into six sections: (1) Bibliographies; (2) Occult Reference Works; (3)General Histories of Magic and Occultism; (4) Sciences and Themes; (5) Occultism from Romanticism to the Present; (6) Conclusions. The place of publication for English-language books, unless otherwise specified, is New York. Exceptions: University Books are published in New Hyde Park, New York; Doubleday in Garden City, New York; Quest paperbacks in Wheaton, Illinois, by the Theosophical Publishing House; publishers whose names indicate the city of publication, e.g., the University of Chicago Press. Place of publication for French-language books, unless noted otherwise, is Paris. Paperback editions of English-language publications are marked with an asterisk (*); all French publications are paperbound. For modern reprint editions of nineteenth century books, only the date of the original edition is given, e.g.,

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 729/101 (1884; Detroit: Gale, 1966). Publishers names are cited in short form and many subtitles have been omitted.

I. Bibliographies
Albert L. Caillet, Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes ( 3 vols., Lucien Dorbon, 1913, reissued 1964) is indispensable on nineteenth-century publications, both reprints and original editions, on all aspects of the occult, including Hermetism, Cabalism, astrology, sorcery, Mesmerism, magic, Masonry, and various curiosities and aberrations. There are occasional short biographical sketches of some authors, and the major French figures in nineteenthcentury occultism-Eliphas Livi, Stanislas de Guaita, Papus-are well represented. Twentieth century bibliographies of a general nature are all markedly inferior to Caillet. A. E. Abbot, A Guide to Occult Books and Sacred Writings of the Ages (London: *Emerson Press, 1963) is a 64-page pamphlet which claims to contain some 1200 author entries and 1600 book entries arranged by topic. Useful as it is, it rarely cites both publisher and date for books, and its Anthroposophical bias is apparent. Manly P. Hals Great Books on Religion and Esoteric Philosophy (Los Angeles: *Philosophical Research Society, 1966) is a slightly larger compilation (85 pages) by another occultist. Its usefulness is impaired by the authors lengthy reflections and tiresome discourses on the art of book-collecting. It is not without interest, however, and it does contain references to occult fiction, but its primary value lies in its list of the authors own writings. Hereward Carringtons The Occult Readers Guide, Fate, 4 (May-June 1951), 54-61, is not essential as a bibliography, but the author -a noted psychical researcher-offers a useful typology of occultism. One of the most promising bibliographical ventures in the occult field failed after three years for lack of funds. David Techters A Bibliography and Index of Psychic Research and Related Topics for the Year 1962, . . . 1963, . . . 1964 ( 3 vols.; Chicago: *Privately printed, 1963-1965)catalogues all English-language books, articles, reviews, and reports, both scientific and popular, which were published within a single calendar year. Items are listed in full by author and briefly indexed by subject. Price Guide to the Occult and Related Subjects, compiled by K. M. Hyre and Eli Goodman (Los Angeles: Reference Guides, 1967), is an alphabetically-by-author listing of 8243 used books, many of them multiple copies or variant editions, drawn from the catalogues of thirtynine dealers. It is the single largest source of titles for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but as it is limited t o used books (for which it gives place and date of publication, condition, and price), there can be no pretense of comprehensiveness, the compilers claims notwithstanding. Of more immediate use, although now difficult to obtain, is Catalog 80 0ccultissued by *Samuel Weiser, Inc., of New York in 1966. This was apparently the last comprehensive catalogue issued by the firm; monthly flyers are now sent out instead. It lists 2373 separate works, classified by subject and author; bibliographical data include everything essential except publishers. Among specialized bibliographies, both S. R. Morgan, Index to Psychic

7301102 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE Science (Swarthmore, Pa.: Privately printed, 1950), and George Zorab, Bibliography of Parapsychology (Parapsychology Foundation, 1957) are by now too dated to be reliable guides to the current state of the science. Zorab, however, lists titles on bibliography, history, and the relationship of parapsychology to philosophy, psychology, religious experience, and ethnology which retain value. Morgan provides a detailed classification of somatic and spiritual types of psi phenomena which are keyed to a bibliography of 513 items. Harry Prices catalogue of his own collection describes itself: Short-Title Catalogue of Works on Psychical Research, Spiritualism, Magic, Psychology, Legerdemain and Other Methods of Deception, Charlatanism, Witchcraft and Technical Works for the Scientific Investigation of Alleged Abnormal Phenomena (London: *Proceedings of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Vol. 1;Pt. 2, April 1929) and Short-Title Catalogue of the Research Library . . . Supplement (Bulletin 1, *University of London Council for Psychical Investigation, 1935). Together the two catalogues list some 10,000 titles by author, but a very large proportion is concerned with conjuring and legerdemain. A model bibliography in every respect is Lynn E. Catoes thorough UFOs and Related Subjects: An Annotated Bibliography (Washington: *Government Printing Office, 1969), which classifies, annotates, and indexes more than 1600 items. The relationship of Ufology to hollow earth theory, Atlantis, the New Age, Fortean phenomena, and other occult topics is fully covered by Miss Catoe. David E. Smiths Millenarian Scholarship in America, American Quarterly, 17 (Fall 1965), 535-549, explores another current of thought which is often related to occultism. On a much larger and richer scale, Weston La Barre, Materials for a History of Studies of Crisis Cults: A Bibliographic Essay, Current Anthropology, 12 (February 1971), 3-44, with appended critiques by other scholars, traces the scholarly treatment of crisis cults-also known as chiliasm, revitalization movements, millenialism, messianic movements-not only as they are found in primitive and pre-industrial societies but also in European history and the modern United States. There is no source for bibliographical information in the occult field which is complete, nor perhaps can there ever be. The best source currently available is, in my opinion, the book review section edited by David Techter for Fate magazine. Techters own columns are always informative and often insightful; the reviews contributed by others (of whom I am one) are frequently critical in tone. In the twelve issues for 1971, Techter reviewed 34 books and discussed 19 different periodicals, organizations, and meetings; a further 6 3 books were reviewed by other persons; and there were brief notes on 42 books judged to be of less significance.
11. Reference Works

The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings (13 vols., 1908-1926, reissued 1955) remains the standard work in its field and one which is well worth consulting on all aspects of the occult and mysticism. G. R. S. Meads article on Occultism is still the best short statement of the technical

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 731/lo3 meaning of the term. R. R. Maretts Magic (Introductory) is a convenient survey of conflicting anthropological theories. It is followed by fifteen specialized articles, totalling nearly 60 pages, on magic in specific national traditions from Arabian to Vedic. The occult field does not have its Hastings, but there is the ambitious Man, Myth G Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural, ed. Richard Cavendish (24 vols.; Marshall Cavendish, 1970- ), with a distinguished editorial board consisting of C. A. Burland, Glyn Daniel, E. R. Dodds, Mircea Eliade, William Sargant, John Symonds, R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, and R. C. Zaehner. In addition to the editors, the contributors also include Norman Cohn, Kathleen Raine, E l k Howe, Kenneth Grant, S. G. F. Brandon, and J. C. Baroja. Although on the whole the quality of the articles is good, it is not as high as these names would lead one t o expect. Some articles are not signed and others are without bibliographies. Nevertheless, such articles as E l k Howes on Astrology, Zwi Werblowskys on the Cabala, and Richard H. Robinsons on Buddhism are models of compression. The illustrations are numerous, usually apt, occasionally garish. Unfortunately, the American publisher has run into difficulties and only three volumes were available by the autumn of 1971. The English edition was published serially in more than a hundred magazine-size issues. Single-volume encyclopedias of distinction number precisely two. Lewis Spence, An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (London: Routledge, 1920; University Books, 1960) is an intelligent and reasonably thorough compendium of 2500 entries from the pen of one of the most prolific English occult scholars. Few articles have bibliographies, however, and the whole work calls for revision. Nandor Fodors Encyclopaedia of Psychic Sciences (London: Arthurs Press, 1934; rev. ed., University Books, 1966) is more specifically addressed to Spiritualism and psychical research. It is particularly valuable in its treatment of organizations and journals, even to the point of listing the complete contents of certain periodicals. Fodor may be usefully supplemented with the Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology, ed. Helene Pleasants (Garrett Publications/Helix Press, 1964); a number of occultists, prophets, and clairvoyants are included, with bibliographies and addresses. Together Cavendish, Spence, Fodor, and Pleasants supply a considerable body of information. Among more specialized reference works, the following are of value: H. P. Blavatksy, A Theosophical Glossary (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1892; numerous reprints); Norman Blunsdon, A Popular Dictionary of Spiritualism (*Citadel, 1963); J. A. S. Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire infernal (2 vols., 1818), from which a trivial selection has been translated by Wade Baskin as Dictionary of Demonology (Philosophical Library, 1965); Gustav Davidsons delightful A Dictionary of Angels (Free Press, 1967); Frank Gaynor, ed., Dictionary ofMysticism (Philosophical Library, 1953); and Arthur Edward Waite, A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry (2 vols., rev. ed., n.d.; University Books, 1970). Practicing occultists often publish compendia of occult lore and techniques which normally contain more information than do the brief encyclopedia entries The earliest such compendium for our period is Francis Barrett, The Magus, or

7321104

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Celestial Intelligencer; Being a Complete System of Occult Philosophy (2 vols., 1801; reprinted in one volume with an important introduction by Timothy &Arch Smith, University Books, 1967). Barrett was prominent in the Romantic revival of magjc and one of the first to extend the popularity of Cabalism to a wider audience; his influential book is replete with details on natural magic, talismans, alchemy, numerology, magnetism, witchcraft, Cabalism, angelology, and demonology. Sepharial (Walter R. Old, a former Theosophist), A Manual of Occultism (London: Rider, 1910) is now difficult to obtain; Zolar (Bruce King), The Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Knowledge (Los Angeles: Nash, 1970) is the most recent addition to this tradition. In 1972 University Books will publish Arthur Edward Waites Complete Manual of Occult Dioination (2 vols., reprinting pseudonymous works of 1889 and 1912). Walter B. and Litzka R. Gibson have written an explicitly simplified and modernized introduction in The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences (Doubleday, 1966; *Pocket Books, 1968). Separate chapters describe the basic procedures, principles of interpretation, and in some cases more than anyone could wish to know about Astrology, Cartomancy, Colorology , Dice Divination, Domino Divination, Dreams, Graphology, Molesophy (moles), Numerology, Palmistry, Phrenology, Physiognomy, Radiesthesia (divining rods, pendulums, etc.), Superstitions, Tasseography (teacup reading), Telepathy, and Yoga. A fascinating initial chapter guides one through more outmoded forms of divination. My favorite is Phyllorhodomancy, which judges the success of ventures from the sound of rose petals being slapped against the palm of the hand. More critical analyses of the occult arts can be found in Arthur Edward Waites The Occult Sciences (1891; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, n.d. (1923); Dutton, 1923); and Richard Cavendishs The Black Arts (Putnam, 1967; *Capricorn, 1968). Waite examines the principles underlying black and white magic, the composition of talismans, the divining rod, and the Cabala, as well as the claims of mystics, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, and Theosophy. Cavendish has a good initial chapter on the principles of magic. Subsequent chapters outline the essentials of numerology, the Cabala, alchemy, astrology, ritual magic, and witchcraft and Satanism, with some attention being given to historical development as well. The bibliography while not large is useful. Finally, attention must be called to The Aquarian Guide to Occult, Mystical, Religious, Magical London and Around, ed. Francoise Strachan (London: *Aquarian Press, 1970), which lists and describes some 345 groups, teachers, institutions, publishers, bookstores, and magazines, mostly in the London area, with complete addresses. Brief articles on various occult societies, among them the Druid Order and the Golden Dawn, and examples of talismans and magic spells conclude this fascinating volume.
111. General Histories of Magic and Occultism

Lynn Thorndikes A History of Magic and Experimental Science ( 8 vols.; Columbia, 1923-1958), the only large-scale history of magic, is an exhaustive account, a storehouse of bibliographical and biographical detail, which stresses

7331105 THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM the often stimulating impact of magic on the rise of experimental science. The basic impulse behind both disciplines, Thorndike contends, is the desire to manipulate nature. Thorndike ends his account with the seventeenth century victory of modern science, but it is essential reading for the background of modern occultism. Unfortunately, Thorndike does very little with the analysis of ideas. His earlier work, The Place of Magic in the Intellectual History of Europe (*Columbia, 1905), is somewhat more analytical, but in spite of its promising title, it is almost wholly confined to the period of Late Antiquity. Of short histories there is no end. Those which were published during the first half of the nineteenth century mostly fell under the twin spells of Mesmerism and positivism, explaining or reducing magical and psychical phenomena to the operations of animal magnetism. See, for example, J. C. Colquhoun, A n History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animd Magnetism (2 vols.; London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1851), and Joseph Ennemoser, The History ofMagic, trans. from the German ed. (1843) by William Howitt (2 vols.; 1854; University Books, 1970). Ennemoser emphasizes that his book is entirely occupied with those mesmeric appearances which formerly were called magical, and now magnetic. As a history, it extends past the Middle Ages only sketchily to deal with Boehme and Swedenborg. Mary Howitt has added to the English edition some 150 pages of documented cases of apparitions, vampirism, second sight, and witchcraft. Strictly speaking, Eusgbe Salverte, The Philosophy of Magic, Prodigies, and Apparent Miracles, trans. Anthony Todd Thomson (2 vols.; Harper, 1847), is not a history, but it adopts an historical viewpoint nonetheless which echoes some of the more extreme contentions of the French Enlightenment:. Magical effects were created by priests on the basis of their highly developed but secret scientific knowledge to maintain control over the populace. In the middle of the nineteenth century, two French histories were published which are still in print today in English translations. Eliphas LZvi (pseudonym of the Abbg Alphonse Louis Constant) published his Histoire de la magie in 1860; Arthur Edward Waite translated it as The History of Magic (London: Rider, 1913; numerous reprints, most recently *Rider and *Samuel Weiser, 1969). Waites analytical preface traces L6vis strange shift in loyalties from an earlier belief in the reality of the magical arts to his utter condemnation of all such practices in this book. L6vi does believe, however, that magic as the science of achieving equilibrium (as distinct from the practice of rites) may ultimately lead to the reconciliation of science and religion. Gvishistory is frequently unreliable, but it has been influential and it is still useful as a guide to the numerous French occult groups of the time. Paul Christian (pseudonym of Chritien Pitois), Histoire de la magie, appeared in 1870; the English edition, under the general editorship of Ross Nichols, was published as The History and Practice of Magic (2 vols.; London: Forge Press, 1952; Citadel, 1963, in both one-volume and two-volume eds.; *Citadel, 1969). The original French text has been somewhat abridged, revised, and augmented with new material by Lewis Spence, Gerald Yorke, and other authorities, and a biography of Christian by the editor. The new material is of value, but the book is not well integrated; each occult art is treated separately, with some duplication of historical material, and the principles

7341106 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE of organization are not always apparent. Most brief twentieth-century histories are marred by amateurishness and unfamiliarity with scholarly procedures. Of the better ones, the best by far is Kurt Seligmann, The History ofMagic (Pantheon, 1948; also published as The Mirror of Magic; reprinted as Magic, Supernaturalism, and Religion, *Universal Library, 1968). This is a detailed and thoughtful survey from Mesopotamia to the eighteenth century which wisely foregoes any forays into Asian practices. The section on alchemy, a particularly difficult subject, is handled very ably. The bibliography and index are serviceable, and the text is illustrated with 255 pictures selected by the author, a Surrealist painter. Other worthwhile short treatments are C. A. Burlands intelligent, sympathetic, and usefully illustrated The Magical Arts: A Short History (Horizon, 1966), by a former member of the British Museum staff; L. de GCrin-Ricard, Histoire de loccultisme (Payot, 1947), from Mesopotamia to the present, with brief bibliographies; and W. B. Crow, A History ofMugic, Witchcraft and Occultism (London: Aquarian Press, 1968; No. Hollywood, Calif.: *Wilshire, 1971), overly ambitious and conceptually confused but packed with detail including dates for nearly a l l persons discussed. Both Maurice Bouisson, Magic: Its Rites and History, trans. G . Almayrac (London: Rider, 1960) and Jkrbme-Antoine Rony, A History ofMagic, trans. Bernard Denvir (Walker, 1962; *Tower, 1971) analyze the principles of magic. Ronys very brief volume also considers the relationship of magic to religion, science, and art, while Bouissons, over 300 pages in length, is rich in illustrative details and offers a comparative viewpoint. Robert Somerlott, (Here,Mr. Splitfoot: An Informal Exploration into Modern Occultism (Viking, 1971) manages to be informal without being sensationalistic; it is informative but covers only Spiritualism, psychical research, and prophecy. Spirits, Stars and Spells: The Profits andPeri2s ofMagic, by L.Sprague de Camp and Catherine C. de Camp (Canaveral, 1966) traces its subject from prehistory to the present in a debunking and frequently irritating manner; its details are not always accurate, but there is an excellent bibliography.
IV. Occult Sciences and Themes Of the occult sciences, only magic and alchemy have been treated extensively by scholars. The magic of preliterate peoples has been of particular concern to anthropologists, who since the days of Tylor and Frazer have debated the merits of the term, the existence of the phenomenon, and its function in relation to religion, cultural and intellectual evolution, social cohesion, and technology. A general summary of the debate, with a not very persuasive interpretation of magic as a world view, is given by Murray and Rosalie Wax, The Notion of Magic, Current Anthropology, 4 (December 1963), 495-518, with appended critiques by other scholars. More recently, see Dorothy Hammond, Magic: A Problem in Semantics, American Anthropologist, 72 (December 1970), 13491356. On Western magic, two excellent studies by E.M. Butler should be consulted. Ritual Magic (Cambridge, 1949; *Noonday, 1959; *Newcastle, 1971) traces the ceremonial element in magic from ancient times through Medieval

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 7351107 gimoires and Faustian adepts to Barretts The Magus and nineteenth-century Satanism. Butler contends that the Faustus story was a mutation of the figure of the magician with his diabolical pact into the persona of the lost soul aspiring to power and forbidden knowledge. Her earlier The Myth of the M a p s (Cambridge and Mamillan, 1948) places the Faust figure within the tradition of the magus, from its likely origins in seasonal rituals and resurrected gods to Zoroaster and Christ, Merlin and Faust, Mme. Blavatsky and Rasputin. Alchemical scholarship can be followed through the pages of Ambix and in two bibliographical surveys by Allen G. Debus: The Significance of the History of Early Chemistry, Cahiers dHistoire Mondide, 9 (1965), 39-58, and his introduction to the reprint edition of Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652) (Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967), pp. dv-xlix. The best introductory history of alchemy is, in my opinion, F. Sherwood Taylors The Alchemists (Henry Schuman, 1949; *Collier, 1962), which is written by an expert who, like Debus, ends his account in the early modern period. Mircea Eliades The Forge and the Crucible, trans. Stephen Corrin, (Harper, 1962), and the bibliographical supplement, The Forge and the Crucible: A Postscript, History of Religions, 8 (August 1968), 74-88 (reprinted as an appendix t o the *Harper Torchbook edition of the book, 1971), do specifically relate the uniuers imaginaire of alchemy to modern thought and also to folklore, the development of metal-working, and initiation in early civilizations. Ronald D. Gray, Goethe the Alchemist (Cambridge, 1952) indicates something of alchemical thought from the late seventeenth to the late eighteenth century. The influence of alchemy on the thought of C. G. Jung, who more than anyone else has been responsible for the academic respectability of the subject, is carefully examined by the Jungian Aniela Jaffg, From the Life and Work of C . G .l u n g , trans. R. F. C. Hull (*Harper Colophon, 1971) and by the historian of science Walter Pagel, Jungs Views on Alchemy,Isis, 39, Pt. 1-2 (1948), 44-48. A brief but reliable history of Western astrology from ancient times to the present is P. I. H. Naylor, Astrology: An Historical Examination (London: Robert Maxwell, 1967). See also Lynn Thorndike, The Place of Astrology in the History of Science,Isis, 46 (1955), 273-278. There are many scholarly works on the astrology of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and seventeenth century, but until recently there was nothing of substance on the modern period. Now there is Ellic Howes authoritative Astrology: A Recent History Including the Untold StoTy o f I t s Role in World WarII (Walker, 1968), originally published in England as UraniasChildren: The Strange World of the Astrologers (London: William Kimber, 1967). The first half is a compact history of British, German, and French astrology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the second half focuses on K $ Ernst Krafft, long erroneously assumed to be Hiders personal astrologer. Ake V. Strom, Scandinavian Belief in Fate: A Comparison between Pre-Christian and Post-Christian Times, in Helmer Ringgren, ed., Fatalistic Beliefs in Religion, Folklore, and Literature (Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis, 11; Stockholm: *Almqvist & Wiksell, 1967), 63-88, with references t o German scholarship on astrological history, uses belief in astrology as a form of modern fatalism and finds that fatalism, although of different kinds, played a greater

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE role in both pre-Christian Norse religion and the secular twentieth century than in Christian times. Christopher Butler, Number Symbolism (Barnes & Noble, 1970)examines the development of number symbolism and aspects of numerology with particular reference t o literature. On the general history of prophecy, two popular works are of interest: H. J. Forman, The Story o f Prophecy (Farrar & Rinehart, 1936)and Justine Glass, They Foresaw the Future: The Story of Fuffilled Prophecy (Putnam, 1969;*Berkley, 1970). Martin Ebons Prophecy in Our Time (New American Library and *Signet Mystic, 1968),intelligently discusses the subject from a broad perspective, giving consideration to Edgar Cayce and Jeane Dixon, Freud and Jung, precognition and futurology; there is a good bibliography. Modern occultism draws upon a multitude of themes and doctrines from both Western and Eastern civilizations. The influence of India, Egypt, Tibet, China, and Japan are omitted here, however, as the bibliography is too large to be covered in a short essay; it is also difficult to distinguish purely occult influences from the East in contrast to religious and mystical ones. Gnosticism, Hermetism, Cabalism, and lost Biblical gospels, however, cannot be omitted. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (2nd rev. ed.; Boston: *Beacon, 1963)is a reliable introduction to the profound difficulties of characterizing Gnosticism. Jonas surveys sources, teachings, history, and symbolism, and also considers Gnosticisms connections with modern thought. Cabalism has been the subject of many publications by Gershom Scholem; see in particular his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3rd rev. ed.; Schocken, 1954,*1961). Scholem himself is the subject of one chapter in Herbert Weiners 9% Mystics: The Kabbafa Today (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969;*Collier, 1971). The stories behind The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, Oahspe, and other lost Gospels and new Bibles, some of them hoaxes, others created through automatic writing, are told by the Biblical scholar Edgar J. Goodspeed, Modern Apocrypha (Boston: Beacon, 1956). The Hermetic doctrines ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, the Greek name for the Egyptian scribe deity Thoth, are traced superbly in Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (University of Chicago Press, 1964;*Vintage, 1969). Dr. Yates follows the story past Brunos death into the seventeenth century when the Hermetic writings were first authoritatively dated as post-Christian. The question of historical tradition is an important one for modern occultists who frequently write on the evolution of man and the cosmos through earlier cycles and forgotten civilizations. Atlantis plays a role in these works. See L. Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature (Gnome Press, 1954; rev. ed., *Dover, 1970),which again is caustic and debunking in tone, especially in dealing with the occultists. It contains a massive bibliography. On occult theories of time, there is J. B. Priestleys popular work, Man and Time (London: Aldus, 1964;*Dell, 1968),which devotes considerable space to precognition and dreams, Dunnes theory of the serial universe, and an entire chapter to The Esoteric School of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, and J. G. Bennett.

7361108

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 7371109 The historian Gerald J. Gruman has published A History ofldeas about the Prolongation of Life: The Evolution of Prolongevity Hypotheses to 1800 (*Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 56, Pt. 9, December 1966). The idea is explored in the myths of Methuselah and the Fountain of Youth, Taoism, alchemy, and Enlightenment advocates of progress. A volume on the period since 1800 is promised. More generally, see Jacques Choron, Death and Western Thought (*Collier, 1963). John Passmore, The Perfectability of Man (Scribner, 1970) is a massive history of sacred and secular ideas in the West, including Joachimite hopes of a Third Kingdom, teachings of the Neoplatonists and mystics, and the current new mysticism. Part of the latter chapter was published as Paradise Now: The Logic of the New Mysticism, Encounter, 35 (November 1970), 3-21; whether what he discusses qualifies as mysticism is highly debatable. Reincarnation has so far received little attention from scholars. E. D. Walker, Reincarnation: A Study of Forgotten Truth (1888;rev. ed., Pasadena, Calif.: Theosophical University Press, 1923; University Books, 1965) is by an ardent Theosophist who argues vigorously in favor of the concept and traces it through ancient, Oriental, and Western civilizations. Popular works of distinction include Gina Cerminara, Many Mansions (William Sloane, 1950; *Signet Mystic, 1967), based on the Edgar Cayce readings, and Susy Smith, Reincarnation for the Millions (Los Angeles: Sherbourne, 1967; *Dell, 1969), which surveys various teachings on the subject, including Mme. Blavatsky, Swedenborg, and M a n Kardec. The Zeitschrift f i r Religions-und Geistesgeschichte, 9:2 (1957) is entirely devoted to reincarnation, with articles on its role in Biblical and early Christian tradition, Sri Aurobindo, Islam, Anthroposophy , parapsychology, and (by Ernst Benz) in the philosophy and literature of German Classicism and Romanticism. Probably of greater significance are three outstanding anthologies. The oldest is Eva Martin, The Ring of Return (London: Philip Allan, n.d. (1927); University Books, 1963), which takes a strict view of reincarnation as pre-existence on earth. She has arranged her texts in chronological chapters from ancient times to 1927, but the dates of individual selections are not given and the bibliographical data are incomplete. Joseph Head and S. L. Cranston together have edited two excellent anthologies, Reincamation, An Eust-West Anthology (Julian Press, 1961; *Quest, 1968) and Reincarnation in World Thought Uulian Press, 1967). Both take texts from all periods and cultures, including opinions pro and con, and interpret reincarnation very broadly. Of the two, the second is preferable as being larger, reprinting the more significant selections from the former, and providing more complete bibliographical information. On the occult constitution of man, which has a bearing on reincarnation, there are two works for earlier periods. G. R. S. Mead, The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition (London: John M. Watkins, 1919, 1967; *Quest, 1967) is a short study by the former Theosophical scholar who presents the spirit-body and radiant-body concepts of Late Platonic thinkers and Christian notions regarding the resurrection-body . For the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there is now Ernst Wilhelm Kammerer, DQS Leib-Seele-Gist Problem bei Parucelsus und einigen Autoren des 17. Jahrhunderts (Kosmosophie, 111; Wies-

7381110 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE baden: *Franz Steiner, 1971), a thoroughly documented analysis of the threefold distinction between body, soul, and spirit which is also basic t o the twentiethcentury occultist Rudolf Steiner. The concept of initiation and rebirth, central to both mysticism and occultism, is explored with insight and vast learning by Mircea Eliade, Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in Human Culture, trans. Willard R. Trask (Harper, 1958), reprinted as Rites and Symbols oflnitiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth (*Harper Torchbooks, 1965); see also his Initian Religion tion in the Modern World, in his The Quest: History and Meaning i (University of Chicago Press, 1969), 112-126. The general literature on secret societies (see La Barres crisis cults bibliography for specific studies) is by contrast extremely superficial. Arkon Daraul, A History of Secret Societies (Citadel, 1962; *Pocket Books, 1969) is indifferently researched and oddly organized; Charles W. Heckethorn, The Secret Societies of All Ages (2 vols., rev. ed., 1897; University Books, 1965) is seriously outdated; Secret Societies, ed. Norman MacKenzie (London: Aldus, 1967; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968; *Collier, 1971), discusses only three groups of occult interest: the Mysteries, Rosicrucianism, and Freemasonry. Arthur Edward Waite, The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross (London: Rider, 1924; University Books, 1961) is still the only comprehensive scholarly history in English. It is indispensable for its analysis of symbolism and ritual (Waites forte), and it is helpful on matters of organizational history and twentieth century developments. If utterly fails, however, to consider its subject contextually. By contrast, a model study is Klaus Epsteins The Genesis of German Conseruatism (Princeton, 1966), ch. 2, Masons, Illuminati, and Rosicrucians, which places these organizations fully into the religious and political contexts of late eighteenth century Germany and indicates their political orientations. Epsteins notes and bibliography constitute the most useful guide to German scholarship on Masonry and Rosicrucianism. On the Masons, Heinrich Schneider, Quest for Mysteries: The Masonic Background for Literature i n Eighteenth-Century Germany (Ithaca: Cornell, 1947), should be consulted for its details and bibliography. Schneider attempts to assess the role of Masonic societies in the drift from the Enlightenment but fails t o arrive at any significant conclusions or to take the social context sufficiently into account. A final class of thematic studies is concerned with the relationship between occultism and literature. Whether in fact the occult has had a greater appeal t o literary figures than t o other artists and thinkers is not yet established, nor is the nature of that appeal. Is it an aesthetic concern with the literary possibilities of relatively unexplored symbol-systems, a matter of personal belief, an expression of disorientation, or some combination of these and other factors? Whatever the answer literary studies of the occult interests of modern writers are plentiful; these will be listed in the appropriate chronological sections of Part V below. Surveys and general explorations of the theme, which qualify for comment here, vary wildly in quality and reliability. DCsiree Hirst, Hidden Riches: Traditional Symbolism from the Renaissance to Blake (Barnes & Noble, 1964), which has been well-received on the whole, and Constantin Bila, La croyance ic la magie au XVIIIe sihcle en France dans les contes, romans et trait& (J. Gamber, 1925),

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 739/111 mostly fall before our period. A work of considerable insight for both French and German Romantic literature is Gwendolyn Bays, The Orphic Vision: Seer Poets from Novdis to Rimbaud (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964). The first half is a general study, the second focuses on Rimbaud. The occult bearings on the concept of poet as priest-seer is clearly demonstrated by Professor Bays. The writings of Denis Saurat are more idiosyncratic. Both Literature and the Occult Tradition: Studies in Philosophical Poetry, trans. Dorothy Bolton (Did Press, 1930; Port Washington, N. Y.: Kennikat Press, 1966)and Gods o f t h e People (London: John Westhouse, 1947)reflect the mind of a true believer and should be used with caution. The former work is the more general, with several essays on philosophical poetry, another on Spenser, and one on Occultism and Literature which considers Mme. Blavatsky, Cabalism, and Hermetism. The second volume concentrates on several aspects of the theme of reintegration as found especially in Spenser, Milton, Blake, and Hugo. A special issue ofpapers on Language and Literature, 4 (Fall 1968)was devoted to The Arts and Esoteric Lore, with essays on Horace Wdpole, Blake, Coleridge, Kaflca, and Hofmannsthal, among others. In several, however, the connection with esoteric lore is not apparent. The extreme pole of occult interpretation was reached in John Seniors The Way Down and Out: The Occult in Symbolist Literature (Ithaca: Cornell, 1959;Greenwood Press, 1968),a wildly inaccurate work in its first five chapters which purport to trace the history of occultism. Nor is it very reliable-especially in its quotation and translation of French texts-in the succeeding chapters on occultism and the symbol; Blake and Hugo; N e r d , Baudelaire, and Rimbaud; Huysmans, Villiers, and Mallarm:; Yeats; and Eliot. It is hardly surprising that such excesses have prompted an at times violent reaction from hostile critics. Harold Bloom, Myth, Vision, Allegory, Yale Review, 54 (Autumn 1964),143149,a review essay, denies that there is any occultism in Blake at all, asserts that Yeats was a delighted charlatan who at least half-believed his own charlatanry, and professes to find no value in books by DesireeHirst, Kathleen Raine, and others (Senior is not mentioned), and only a little in The Orphic Vision. A more balanced assessment in the form of a review of Kathleen Raines Defending Ancient Springs (Oxford, 1968)is Unreasonable Gods, Times Literary Supplement, No. 3,463(July 11, 1968),717-719, which probes the whole question of surrogate religions and new myths in relation to Miss Raines own methods and values.

V. Occultism from Romanticism to the Present

There are no comprehensive histories of occultism for any significant period in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. The nearest equivalent happens to concern the earliest period in our survey, the Romantic. Auguste Viatte, Les sources occultes du romantisme: Illuminisme-Thbsophieosophie I 770-1820 (2 vols., Champion, 1928,reissued 1965)is restricted primarily to France and to the relationship of illuminism and theosophy to the origins of literary Romanticism. The occultism 800 pre-Romantic period (Martinism, Swedenborgianism, secret of the 1770-1 societies, magnetism, Lavater, Cagliostro, Saint-Martin) is seen as a reaction

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE against the dessicating spirit of Enlightenment rationalism in the form of a revitalization of such traditional themes as millenarianism, interior Christianity, metempsychosis, spirits of the dead, and an emanationist theory of creation. The occultism of the Empire generation of 1800-1820(de Maistre, Mme. de Stakl and her circle, Fabre dOlivet, Mme. de Kriidener, Ballanche, et al.) represents a reworking of these themes into personal visions-often of political or religious restoration-which as aesthetic creations inspired authors such as Nodier and Sinancourt. Nothing comparable to Viattes study exists in English. A brief survey which overlaps with Viattes but approaches the subject from a different perspective is in D. G. Charltons Secular Religions in France 1815-1870 (Oxford, 1963). A rather extensive literature is accumulating about the figures of Swedenborg, Mesmer, Cagliostro, and Saint-Martin, the renovators of eighteenth-century occultism. On Swedenborg the best work in English is now Inge Jonsson, Emanuel Swedenborg, trans. Catherine Djurkou (Twayne, 1971),an admirable exposition and analysis from the viewpoint of the history of ideas by a non-Swedenborgian. The authors annotated bibliography gives detailed guidance to the Swedish, German, French, and English secondary sources and to English translations of Swedenborgs writings. Among specialized works, Ernst Benz, Swedenborg in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1947) should be mentioned for its detailed account of Swedenborgs impact on Kant. For many years, w. R. H. Trowbridge, Cagliostro: The Splendour and Misery of a Master of Magic (Dutton, 1910) was the standard work; now, however, there is Francois Ribadeau Dumas, Cagliostro, trans. Elisabeth Abbot (Orion Press, 1967). The most recent work of substance on Saint-Martin is Robert Amadou, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin e t le Martinisme (Editions du Griffon dor, 1946). In English, there are two books by Arthur Edward Waite which should be consulted: the lengthy The Life of Louis Claude de Sain t-Martin, the Unknown Philosopher (London: Philip Wellby, 1901),reprinted as The Unknown Philosopher (Blauvelt, N. Y . : *Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1970), and the brief account Saint-Martin the French Mystic and the Story of Modern Martinism (London: Rider, 1922). Mesmer has been written about most recently by D. M. Walmsley, Anton Mesmer (London: Robert Hale, 1967). Walmsleys documented biography denies that Mesmer was in any sense a charlatan; the author is a doctor. Robert Darntons groundbreaking Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1968: *Schocken, 1970)is a study in the popular culture of the 1780s. Darnton contends that Mesmer was ranked in public opinion of the decade almost on a level with Turgot, Franklin, and Cagliostro as one of the most talked about individuals. Darnton demonstrates that Mesmers staunchest defenders saw a scientific cosmology in his theories. A few even viewed it as a means of combatting establishment scientific and literary bodies, and derived from it a radical political theory by which virtue and vice were linked to the mechanism of the universe. In his final chapter, From Mesmer to Hugo, Darnton goes over some of the same ground as Viatte and indicates in his fashion how Mesmerism worked in the transition from the Enlightenment

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THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 741/113 to Romanticism. Two lesser figures who appear in Viatte have also been studied in the last few years. Antoine Faivre, Kirchberger et lilluminisme du XVIZIe si&le (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966) is a full treatment of the illuminist whose correspondence with Saint-Martin is a major source for the period. Hoene Wronski: h e philosophie de la crgation, ed. Philippe dArcy (Editions Seghers, 1970), is an anthology and brief study of the French-Polish occult philosopher. German Romantic occultism can best be studied through the writings of Ernst Benz. In addition to the book on Swedenborg and the article on reincarnation, his Die Mystik in der Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, in his Schelling Werden und Wirken seines Denkens (Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1955), 7-27, is particularly noteworthy for indicating the essential connections between mysticism and German idealism. It surveys five sources of mystical influence on the idealists: the Medieval German mystics, Boehme and his rediscoverers (especially Saint-Martin), Naturphilosophie (the occultist Paracelsus), Swedenborg, and Indian mysticism. Recently Benz has published Les sources mystiques de fa philosophie romantique allemande (J. Vrin, 1968) which incorporates some of the earlier essay and adds detailed studies of the Cabala and Saint-Martin; the notes are valuable bibliographical sources. Information on English Romantic occultism (as distinct from mysticism) mostly has t o be gleaned from previously cited thematic studies, the introduction to Barretts The Magus, works on individual authors, and histories of hypnotism and Spiritualism, to be cited below. Peter L. Thorslev, Jr., The Byronic Hero: Types and Prototypes (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962) is a good introduction to the Gothic villain, Satan, Faust, and other symbolic Romantic personages whose relationship to the occult is obvious. Thorslev does not limit himself to English literature, nor does Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony, trans. Angus Davidson (2nd ed.; London and New York: Oxford, 1951; *Meridian, 1956; *Galaxy, 1970), whose second chapter, The Metamorphoses of Satan, is informative. For America the first fifty pages of J. Stillson Judah, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967) deal with the impact of Swedenborg, European occultism, Transcendentalism, and the seer of Poughkeepsie, Andrew Jackson Davis, on the development of essentially post-Romantic currents of Spiritualism, Theosophy, and New Thought. The profusion of cults and utopian experiments in the period before the Civil War is described in Alice Felt Tylers classic Freedoms Ferment (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1944; *Harper Torchbooks, 1962); for further references, see Smiths bibliographical article on millenarianism. On the whole, scholarship on Romantic occultism has concentrated on individual literary figures. The following works are representative; Geoffroy Atkinson, Les idees de Balzac daphs La comedie humaine (5 vols.; Genthe: Droz, 1949-1950), a composite of extracts arranged by topic, with Sciences occultes in vol. 3; Henri Evans, Louis Lambert et laphilosophie de Bakac (JoseCorti, 1951);Jean Pommier, La mystique de Baudelaire (1932; Genhe: Slatkine Reprints, 1967); Kathleen Raine, Blake and Tradition (2 vols.; Princeton 1968); Enid Starkie, Petrus Bore1 the Lycanthrope (Norfolk, Conn.: New Direc-

742/114 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE tions, 1954), brings out the interest in Satanism among French writers of the 1830s; Katharine H. Porter, Spiritualism in the Browning Circle (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1958); S. B. Liljegren, Bulwer-Lyttons Novels and Isis Unveiled (Lund, Sweden: Carl Blom, 1957), suggests that Mme. Blavatskys Isis Unveiled shows considerable indebtedness t o this authors occult novels; Antoine Faivre, Eckartshausen et la Thtosophie Chietienne (C. Klincksieck, 1969), good also for the general background of illuminism and alchemy; Kenneth Walter Cameron, Young Emersons Transcendental Vision (Hartford, Conn.: Transcendental Books, 1971); Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, The Teaching of Charles Fourier (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969), the first study to do justice to the occult themes in the utopian socialists writings; Ronald D. Gray, Goethe the Alchemist (cited earlier); Alice Raphael, Goethe and the Philosophers Stone (Helix Press/Garrett Publications, 1965); Denis Saurat, Victor Hugo et Les dieux du peuple (La Colombe, 1948), two studies in one, the first devoted to Hugo as an occult thinker, the latter the French text of the previously mentioned Gods of the People; Auguste Viatte, Victor Hugo et les illumines de son temps (Montreal: Les Editions de lArbre, 1942), outlines in its first 100 pages the general occult milieu of the 1840s and the 1850s; Heinrich Straumann, Justinus Kerner und der Okkultismus in der deutschen Romantik (Horgen-Z&ich and Leipzig: Verlag der Munsterpresse, 1928);Jean Richer, Gerard de N e r d e t les doctrines isotiriques (Editions du Griffon &or, 1947); Barton Levi St. Armand, Poes Sober Mystification: The Uses of Alchemy in The Gold-Bug, Poe Studies, 4 (June 1971), 1-7; Coleman 0. Parsons, Witchcraft and Demonology in Scotts Fiction (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1964); Louis Guinet, De la Franc-maconnerie mystique au sacerdoce: ou la vie romantique de Friedrich-Ludwig-Zacharias Werner ( I 768-1823) (Caen: Universite de Caen, 1964). The major path from Romantic occultism to that of the mid-century is marked by the gradual replacement of Mesmerism by Spiritualism. Mesmerism was at first popularly associated more with psychic phenomena (frequently reported in the early literature on hypnotic trances) than with therapeutic utility. Only when psi became the stock in trade of Spiritualistic mediums did Mesmerism tend more in the direction of hypnosis as a form of medical therapy. Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena: A Survey of Nineteenthcentury Cases, ed. Eric J. Dingwdl(4 vols.; London: J. & A. Churchill, 1967-1968;Barnes & Noble, 1968), exhaustively traces this development within specific national contexts, Volume 1 on France, Volume 2 on Belgium and The Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia, Volume 3 Russia and Poland, Italy, and Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, and Volume 4 United States and Great Britain. Mental healing or mind cure continued long after Mesmerism peaked in popularity. An excellent older history is Frank Podmore, From Mesmer to Christian Science: A Short History of Mental Healing (University Books, 1963), originally published as Mesmerism and Christian Science (London: Methuen; Philadelphia: G. W. Jacobs, 1909). Judahs volume on the metaphysical movements treats a number of such groups, including New Thought, Unity, Religious Science, and Christian Science, as does Charles S. Braden, These Also Believe: A Survey of Modern American Cults and Minority

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 7431115 Religious Movements (Macmdlan, 1949); both also discuss Spiritualism and Theosophy. In addition, Braden has written Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963) in which he examines the global impact of New Thought. Supplementing these volumes is Donald Meyer, The Positive Thinkers: A Study of the American Quest for Health, Wealth and Personal Powerfiom Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale (Doubleday, 1965; *Anchor, 1966). Although the story has been told many times. no single account of the history of Spiritualism is entirely satisfactory. Slater Brown, The Heyday of Spiritualism (Hawthorn, 1970), the most recent effort, is a clearly written account for the general reader, with a useful bibliography. Brown treats the pre1848 background in detail, but confines his account of Spiritualism per se to nineteenth-century America. Geoffrey K. Nelson, Spiritualism and Society (Schocken, 1969) is an uneven effort to combine sociology and history. It contains an unoriginal history of early American Spiritualism, a more valuable history of the less familiar British Spiritualism to the present, and a sociological analysis which becomes bogged down in church-sect dichotomies and unclear discussions of anomie and charisma. It fails t o shed much light on the absence of traditional religious structure in the movement, but its statistical tables and bibliography are important sources. Emma Hardinge (Britten), Modern American Spiritualism (1870; University Books, 1970), an early history and one of the most detailed, is written by a confirmed Spiritualist who was not above tampering with her sources. Frank Podmores Mediums of the 19th Century (2 vols.; University Books, 1963), first published as Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism (London: Methuen, 1902), remains the most comprehensive treatment for the past century, with attention afforded American, English, French, and German developments. The author shows a notable reluctance t o accept the validity of mediumistic phenomena. Earl Wesley Fornell, The Unhappy Medium: Spiritualism and the Life ofMargaret Fox (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), is a brief documented biography of the woman, who with her sister was the focus (or source) of the Hydesville rappings in 1848 which sparked the rise of American Spiritualism. There appears to be no substantial work on Allan Kardec, the founder of French Spiritualism (or Spiritism), who combined it with reincarnationist teachings; the resulting mixture was later assimilated by Cao-Dakm in Indochina and has become a dominant form of Brazilian Spiritualism. A brief account of Kardec is contained in Yvonne CastelIan, Le spiritisme (Que-sais-je No. 641; Presses Universitaires de France, 1959). Psychical research as an organized movement of scholars and scientists originated in England as a means for assessing the genuineness of Spiritualistic phenomena. An admirable history of The Founders of Psychical Research has been written by Alan Gauld (Schocken, 1968). Henry Sidgwick, F. W. H. Myers, and Edmund Gurney are examined within the context of materialism, skepticism, and religious longings of the Victorian age. Many of these same pioneers have come under attack within the last decade for credulity, unreliable reporting, and even collusion in fraud. Some of the attacks seem open to the same charges, and the controversy has been a bitter one. For a sample, see Trevor H. Halls attack,

7441116 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE The Spiritualists: f i e Story of Sir William Crookes and Florence Cook (London: Duckworth, 1962) and the defense by R. G. Medhurst and K. M. Goldney, William Crookes and the Physical Phenomena of Mediumship, Proceedings of the Society for Psychid Research, 54 (March 1964), 25-157. Extrusensory Perception after Sixty Years by J. G. Pratt, J. B. Rhine, M. Burke Smith, and Charles E. Stuart (Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1940, 1966) contains a review of ESP experimental investigations from 1882 to 1940. A brief, up-to-date survey is Louisa E. Rhine, The Establishment of Basic Concepts and Terminology in Parapsychology, Journal of Parapsychology, 35 (March 1971), 34-56. The formation of the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875 marked a rebirth of occultism in the technical sense of the term. Although the Society attracted many articulate members, some of them Fabians and members of Parliament, scholars have paid little attention to it. One exception is Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Theosophy: A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom (Henry Holt, 1930), a non-Theosophical history which underlines those elements which are most closely connected to the American religious experience, a difficult task since there is nothing distinctively American about Theosophy except its birthplace. It is nevertheless a fairminded and reliable guide to nineteenth-century Theosophical history and doctrine. Josephine Ransoms A Short History of the Theosophical Society (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938) can be recommended as a Theosophical history which takes the story to 1937. Judahs treatment of Theosophy in his volume on the metaphysical movements is not on a par with his other chapters or with Bradens in These Also Believe, but it is still notable for its information on two Theosophical offshoots, Alice A. Baileys Arcane School and the Astara Foundation. Biographies of Mme. Blavatsky, the founder of modern Theosophy, are mostly by non-Theosophists and hostile. Of these, the most readily accessible is Gertrude Marvin Williams,Priestess of the Occult (Knopf, 1946), reprinted as Madame Blavatsky: Priestess of the Occult (*Lancer, n.d. (1970) ). The Hall of Magic Mirrors: A Portrait of Madame Blavatsky, by Victor A. Endersby (Carlton Press, 1969), is so far the only non-Theosophical defense of her. From the Theosophical side, Personal Memoirs of H. P. Bkzvatsky, comp. Mary K. Neff (London: Hutchinson, 1937; Dutton, 1937; *Quest, 1967), constructs an autobiography from H. P. B.s various writings and the memoirs of others. Virginia Hanson has edited H. P. Bluvatsky and the Secret Doctrine: Commentaries on Her Contributions to World Thought (Quest, 1971), a collection of eighteen brief evaluations of The Secret Doctrine by Christmas Humphreys, F. L. Kunz, and other prominent Theosophists, several of them scientists. The second decisive personality in Theosophical history was Annie Besant, free-thinker, womens rights advocate, Fabian socialist, and supporter of Indian Home Rule. Theodore Besterman, himself an erstwhile Theosophist, compiled A Bibliography of Annie Besant (London: The Theosophical Society in England, 1924), which lists only her book publications through 1923. Besterman also wrote a biography, Mrs. Annie Besant: A Modem Prophet (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1934). Gertrude Marvin Williams The Passionate Pilgrim (Coward-McCann, 1931) is not reliable. The standard biography is Arthur H. Nethercot, The First Five Lives of Annie Besant and

7451117 THE HISTORY O F MODERN OCCULTISM The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant (University of Chicago Press, 1960-1963), an enormously detailed portrait of her complex personality and numerous activities on almost a day-to-day basis; it is less satisfactory as an analysis of her ideas. Both H. P. B. and Annie Besant are depicted in Warren Sylvester Smiths The London Heretics 1870-1914(London: Constable, 1967; Dodd, Mead, 1968) which surveys both non-Christians (secularists, positivists, Freethinkers, Spiritualists, Theosophists) and new Christians (Christian Socialists, Catholic Modernists, Quakers, Unitarians, etc.). France was the center for magical and Satanic activities throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Eliphas Uvi, whose writings were instrumental to the magic revivals in both France and England, is the subject of Paul Chacornac, Eliphas Lbvi: R&ovateur de Ioccultisrne en France (I 81 0-1875) (Chacornac Freres, 1926), a partial analysis at best but the only work of substance. Arthur Edward Waites forty-page biographical and critical introduction to his The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi (2nd ed.; London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1897) is instructive. That the magic revival, Cabalism, and alchemy were beginning to be felt in the late 1860s and 1870s is demonstrated by Enid Starkies portrait of Rimbauds intellectual development: Arthur Rimbaud (new ed.; Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1961). By the 1880s Cabalistic, Rosicrucian, Gnostic, and magical societies were being organized in Paris and some provincial cities. The memoirs of the poet VictorEmile Michelet capture the mood of the times through brief vignettes of the occult luminaries Stanislas de Guaita, Papus, and S%rJosCphin Peladan: Les compagnons de la hikrophanie: Souvenirs du mouvement hermgtiste i i la fin du XIXe skcle (Dorbon, 1937). A more general picture is developed in Richard E. Knowles biography, Victor-Emile Michelet: Po3te 6soterique Vrin, 1954), while Jules Bois, Lespetites religions des Paris (nouv. 5d.; Ernest Flammarion, 1894?),is a fascinating catalogue of Swedenborgians, Buddhists, Theosophists, Satanists, Essenes, Luciferians, Gnostics, and adherents of cults devoted to Humanity, Light, and Isis. A. J. L. Bussts lengthy and heavily documented essay, The Image of the Androgyne in the Nineteenth Century, in Romantic Mythologies, ed. Ian Fletcher (Barnes & Noble, 1967), 1-95, is extremely helpful on French occultism of the Romantic and decadent periods. See also Prazs The Romantic Agony. Undoubtedly the most famous episode in French occultism at the time was the incredible magic duel (1887-1893) between the AbbS Boullan-who was observed at one point by the novelist Huysmans-and his opponents de Guaita, Peladan, and Albert Jounet. James Laver, The First Decadent: Being the Strange Life o f J . K . Huysmans (Citadel, 1955) gives rather a fuller account of the duel and the background of French Satanism than does Robert Baldicks otherwise superior biography, The Life o f J . -K. Huysmans (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). The American edition of Lavers volume, it should be mentioned, omits the general bibliography of more than 100 items from the English edition (London: Faber, 1954). Another brief account is in Richard Griffiths, Le mythe du satanisme au dix-neuvi$me s&cle, in Entretiens sur lhomme et le diabk (Paris and The Hague: Mouton, 1965), 225-233. Equally notorious were the fraudu-

u.

7461118 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE lent expos& by Leb Taxil and his associates of Palladian Freemasonry, a supposedly Satanist or Luciferian branch which purportedly was the secret directorate behind the entire Masonic movement. Taxil played upon both antisemitism and the bitter Catholic-Masonic animosities of the day to achieve wide publicity. Arthur Edward Waite, Devil-Worship in France; or, The Question of Lucifer (London: George Redway, 1896) demonstrated fraud even before Taxil confessed it a year later; for a subsequent account see Waites article on Palladian Freemasonry in his New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry. Eugen Weber, ed., Satan fianc-macon: La mystification de Lgo Taxi1 (Julliard, 1964) is a convenient anthology of the literature engendered by the controversy. On individual occultists, Andre/ Billy, Strmislas de Guaita (Mercure de France, 1971) is the most recent work on that figure. Renk-Georges Aubrun, P6ladun (Sansot, 1904) can also be mentioned. For Papus (Gkrard Encausse), there is a work by his son, Philippe Encausse, Sciences occultes ou 25 unnies doccultisme occidental. Papus: Sa vie, son oeuvre (Editions OCIA, 1949). On literary figures other than Rimbaud and Huysmans, there are A. W. Raitt, Villiers de lls2e Adam et le mouvement symboliste (JoskCorti, 1965), which has a chapter on occultism, and Thomas A. Williams, Mdlarmd and the Language of Mysticism (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1970), which deals briefly with alchemy and Cabalism. An excellent description of British occultism and spiritual interests as of 1912, complete with hopes for new consciousness and spiritual evolution, may be found in G. R. S. Meads essay, The Rising Psychic Tide, The Quest, 3 (April 1912), reprinted in his Quests Old and New (London: G. Bell, 1913), 226-247. The English magic revival is competently treated by Francis King, Ritual Magic in England: 1887 to the Present Day (London: Neville Spearman, 1970), misleadingly retitled for the American edition The Rites of Modern Occult Magic (Macmillan, 1971). Kings history, which is not without its moments of tongue-in-cheek humor, looks back t o earlier Rosicrucian organizations and Lgvis influence, but the real story begins with the founding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1887 to which Yeats, Aleister Crowley, and Waite all belonged. King follows the vicissitudes and schisms of the Order and examines subsequent organizations founded by Crowley, Dion Fortune, and others right up to the 1960s. The most important rituals and teachings of the Golden Dawn were published by Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn (4 vols., Chicago: Aries Press, 1937-1940; 2nd ed., 2 vols., St. Paul, Minn.: Lleweflyn, 1970). R. G. Torrens, The Golden Dawn: Its Inner Teachings (London: Neville Spearman, 1970) is an elementary exposition of portions of Regardies material, together with some new information and numerous errors. Virginia Moores excellent The Unicorn: William Butler Yeats Search for Redity (Macmillan, 1954) examines Yeats passionate interest in the occult and also supplied detailed information on the Golden Dawn. Arthur Edward Waite is a key figure in English occultism, and his autobiography Shadows of Life and Thought (London: Selwyn and Blount, 1938) is consequently of importance. A detailed bibliography of his incredibly voluminous output is being compiled in England by R. A. Gilbert and Kevin Tingay,

7471119 THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM with publication perhaps two years off. In the meantime, my own Arthur Edward Waite, Christian Mystic and Occult Scholar: A Chronological Bibliography, Bulletin ofsibliography (forthcoming, 1972) will serve as a guide t o his more than seventy books. Arthur Machen was Waites closest friend for more than forty years, a relationship which is recorded in Aidan Reynolds and William Charlton, Arthur Machen: A Short Account ofHis Life and Work (Philadelphia: Dufour, 1964). Aleister Crowley, who was originally inspired by Waite, has usually been presented as a monster of depravity, the self-proclaimed Great Beast of the Apocalypse. John Symonds, Crowleys literary executor, is for the most part of this view in his biography, The Great Beast (London: Rider, 1951). Charles Richard Cammell, who also knew Crowley, attempted to be more judicious in his Aleister Crowley, the Man, the Mage, the Poet (London: Richards Press, 1951; University Books, 1962), with a Crowley bibliography by Edward Noel Fitzgerald. Israel Regardie, once Crowleys private secretary and later the butt of his scorn and animosity, has developed the most persuasive interpretation to date-based in part on the authors practice of Reichian therapy-in The Eye in the Triangle: An Interpretation ofAleister Crowley (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1970). Regardie openly examines Crowleys enormous faults of character, but also underlines his real gifts as a poet and ritualist, a major mystic, and a prophet of the new consciousness. One of Crowleys disciples is the subject of a rather superficial biography: Jean Overton Fuller, The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg (London: W. H. Allen, 1965). Occult developments in German-speaking Europe before the First World War are briefly surveyed in Emil Bock (an Anthroposophist), Rudolf Steiner: Studien zu seinem Lebensgang und Lebenswerk (Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1961), chapter 8. There are some comments of interest in Paul Tillich, The Religious Situation (German, 1926), trans. H. Richard Niebuhr (Henry Holt, 1932; *Meridian, 1956). George L. Mosse, The Mystical Origins of National Socialism,Journal ofthe History ofldeas, 22 (January-March 1961), 81-96, explores the context of extremist ideologues and occultists of the turn of the century as an influence or source for Nazi theories. Mosses discussion of extremists such as Guido von List, Alfred Schuler, and Eugen Diederichs is of interest and his bibliography is invaluable; but when he turns t o certain Theosophical groups, his analysis is less reliable. He fails to take into account the rather marginal relationship of his groups to mainstream Theosophy, and he frequently misrepresents Mme. Blavatskys ideas and consistently misspells her name. Fortunately, there were healthier tendencies in German occultism, especially in the work of Count Hermann Keyserling and Rudolf Steiner, who both achieved considerable success before the War and after as well. The postwar context is surveyed by Karl Marbe, Die okkultistische Bewegung in der Gegenwart, PreussischeJahrb;icher, 197 (July 1924), 47-60, which centers on psychical research, and Adolf Faut, Romantik oder Reformation? Eine Wertung der religiosen Krifte der Gegenwart (Gotha: Leopold Klotz, 1925), which numbers Spiritualism, Christian Science, Bahai, Indian religions (their European adherents), Theosophy, and Anthroposophy among contemporary ersatz religions and syncretisms. Whether Keyserling was technically an occultist is debatable, but his School of

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE Wisdom in Darmstadt became known as a center of spiritual teaching. George E. Cooper, Jr., is currently writing a dissertation on Keyserling at the University of Michigan. Older accounts include Maurice Boucher, Laphilosophie de Hermann Keyserling (Rieder, 1927),Mercedes Gallagher de Parks, Introduction to Keyserling (London: Jonathan Cape, 1934),and Rom Landau, God Is My Adventure: A Book on Modern Mystics, Masters and Teachers (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1935;Faber, 1941;*Unwin, 1964). Landau also includes a sympathetic portrait of Steiner, certainly the most prolific and perhaps the most intellectually demanding of all modern occultists. The indispensable guide to the 340 volumes of the collected German edition of his works is Rudolf Steiner: Das literarischen und khnstlerische Werk. Eine bibliographische Uebersicht (Dornach, Switzerland: Verlag der Rudolf SteinerNachlassverwaltung, 1961). Full information on all separate editions is also included, with complete contents, and a chronological list of his 6000 lectures with cross-references to their published texts. An incomplete and rather carelessly compiled bibliography of English translations is Paul Marshall Allen, The Writings and Lectures of Rudolf Steiner: A Chronological Bibliography (Whittier Books, 1956). The best introduction to Steiner is Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Hamburg: *Rowohlt, 1963), while Emil Bocks book, listed above, presents the results of detailed investigations into Steiners early development. In English, A. P. Shepherd, A Scientist of the Invisible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954)is a clear introduction which can be usefully supplemented by A. C. Harwood, ed., The Faithfirl Thinker: Centenary Essays on the Work and Thought of Rudolf Steiner, 1861-1925 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1961). Hans Pusch, A Guide to a Basic Study of Rudolf Steiners Anthroposophy (*Rudolf Steiner Library, 1966)is an extremely helpful annotated bibliographical guide to four central aspects of Steiners teachings. With the exception of Landau, all these works-and there are scores more, especially in German-are by Anthroposophists. The fullest non-Anthroposophical appraisal is my own unpublished doctoral dissertation, Spiritual Science in an Age of Materialism: Rudolf Steiner and Occultism (University of Michigan, 1970),which also contains a lengthy history of nineteenth-century German occultism. See also my Traditional and Modern Elements in the Occultism of Rudolf Steiner,Journal of Popular Culture, 3 (Winter 1969),451-467. In the 1920s Krishnamurti and Gurdjieff were two new stars in the occult firmament. Krishnamurti is today a mystic, not an occultist; but his early training at the hands of the Theosophists was decidedly occultist. This episode in his career, ending with his renunciation of occultism and Theosophy in 1929,is told sympathetically but not altogether accurately by Landau. Lady Emily Lutyens, Candles in the Sun (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957),who served as Krishnamurtis teacher during much of this time and who followed him out of Theosophy, presents an affectionate and insightful view. Gurdjieff remains an enigma; his protean and very trying personality is amply revealed in the memoirs of Fritz Peters, J. G. Bennett, and many others. His teachings can be followed in P. D. Ouspenskys writings, especially I n Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949;*Harvest, n.d.). Kenneth

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THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 7491121 Walkers A Study of Gurdjieffs Teaching (London: Jonathan Cape, 1957,*1965; *Award, n.d.) is less technical. Two of Gurdjieffs British disciples have been studied: Philip Mairet, A. R . Orage: A Memoir (new ed.; University Books, 1966), with a major new introduction by the author which considers Orages occultism in greater detail, and Beryl Pogson, Maurice Nicolf: A Portrait (London: Vincent Stuart, 1961;Thomas Nelson, 1961). Two fairminded but critical appraisals of Gurdjieff are Yahya Abdullah, New Lamps for Old, Hibbert Journaf, 55 (October 1966),49-56, and C. E. Bechofer, The Forest Philosphers, Century, 108 (n.s. 86)(May 1924),66-78. Landaus chapters on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky are not sympathetic. Other figures of prominence in interwar occultism are Charles Fort, Montague Summers, and James Hewat McKenzie. Fort is an occultist only in the sense that the occult may be said to include the unsolved mysteries of nature. Fort was an indefatigable collector of reports of bizarre phenomena and formulator of unorthodox hypotheses which he published in four collections, the earliest The Book ofthe Damned (1919).Fort has been examined in a sensible and insightful biography by Damon Knight, Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained (Doubleday, 1970). Montague Summers, in addition to his work on Restoration drama and the Gothic novel, was best known for his histories of witchcraft, vampirism, and lycanthropy, and for his staunch support of the Churchs persecution of witches. His life is as strange as his writings; what little is known with some certainty may be found in the intelligent biography by Joseph Jerome (pseudonym of Fr. Brocard Sewell), Montague Summers: A Memoir (London: Cecil and Amelia Woolf, 1965),with a bibliographical checklist by Timothy d h c h Smith, who has also published a fullscale work, A Bibliography of the Works of Montague Summers (London: Nicholas Vane; University Books, 1964). McKenzie, a prominent Spiritualist, was the founder of the College of Psychic Studies which trained many mediums. See Muriel Hankey, James Hewat McKenzie: Pioneer of Psychicaf Research. A Personal Memoir (London: Aquarian Press, 1963). Surveys of occult and spiritual groups were popular during the interwar years, as they are today. Landaus God Is My Adventure, which also discusses Stefan George, Bo Yin Ra, Meher Baba, the evangelist-healer George Jeffreys, and Dr. Frank Buchman (Moral Rearmament), in addition to Steiner, Keyserling, Krishnamurti, Gurdjieff, and Ouspenskp went through fourteen printings with three different publishers. Cyril Scotts An Outfineof Modem Occultism (enl. ed.; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950)first published in 1935 and still popular, is a sound textbook on occult movements and themes written by an occultist-composer. Mariane Kohler, A fkcofede fa sagesse (Le Table Ronde, 1961)is the record of a personal quest in which the author samples Moral Rearmament, Unity, I Am, Quakerism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Vedanta, Gurdjieff, and Krishnamurti. Marcus Bach has published a small library of personal investigations of such movements, each volume written with a light touch. Among his surveys are They Have Found a Faith (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1946),on Spiritualism, Psychiana, Unity, and five other groups; Faith and M y Friends (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1951),on Swedenborgians, Vedantists,

7501122 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE Penitentes, and three others; and Spiritual Breakthroughs for Our Time (Doubleday, 1965), retitled Miracles Do Happen for the reprint edition (*Waymark, 1968), a hasty glance at spiritual healing, glossolalia, Yoga, Zen, reincarnation and karma, psychedelics, and Spiritualism. On the extreme fringes of the occult, H. T. Dohrman, California Cult: The Story of Mankind United (Boston: Beacon, 1958), should be mentioned as a study of a popular Depression cult which had occult overtones. Everyone is bound to be offended by something in Martin Gardners Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (rev. ed.; *Dover, 1957), an entertaining, informative, and often infuriating collection of modern varieties of pseudoscience, many of them occult ( Atlantis, flying saucers, pyramidology, graphology, dowsing, ESP, Dianetics, health and food fads, and much else). Gardner is remarkably hard- or thick-headed, depending on ones own views. The occult, mysticism, and Oriental philosophies have been extraordinarily influential on modern writers and intellectuals. Franklin L. Baumer, Religion and the Rise of Scepticism (Harcourt, Brace, 1960; *Harbinger, n.d.) astutely analyzes the spiritual situation in which these belief-systems have been able t o take root and describes the growing tendency of intellectuals toward a nondogmatic, universalistic, and inner-directed form of religion. For a broad survey of the appeal of the occult to modern thinkers and writers, see Martin Ebons They Knew the Unknown, the first title mentioned in this essay. Representative literary studies are Miguel Serrano, C. G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships, trans. Frank MacShane (Schocken, 1966; *%hocken, n.d.); Theodore Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse (Princeton, 1966; *Princeton, n.d.); Charles M. Holmes, Aldous Huxley and the Way to Reality (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970); Laura Archera Huxley, This Timeless Moment: A Personal View of Aldous Huxky (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1968; *Ballantine, 1971); William York Tindall, James Joyce and the Hermetic Tradition,Journd of the History of Ideas, 15 (January 1954), 23-39; William York Tindall, D. H . Lawrence and Susun His Cow (Columbia, 1939); W. D. Halls, Maurice Maeterlinck: A Study ofHis Life and Thought (New York: Oxford, 1960); August Strindberg, Inferno, Alone and Other Writings, trans. and ed. Evert Sprinchorn (*Anchor, 1968), in which the introduction examines Strindbergs infatuation with Swedenborg and alchemy and gives references to Swedish scholarship; and on the most noted literary occultist, William Butler Yeats: Virginia Moore, The Unicorn, cited earlier; Morton Irving Seiden, William Butler Yeats: The Poet as a Mythmaker 1865-1939 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1962); and Helen Hennessy Vendler, Yeatss Vision and the Later Plays (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1963), the latter two works with reference to A Vision. Rather less has been done to consider the role of occultism in art, psychology,and other disciplines, with the clear exception of Jungian psychology. However, Sixten Ringbom, Art in The Epoch of the Great Spiritual: Occult Elements in the Early Theory of Abstract Painting, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 29 (1966), 386-418, and Peter Lloyd Joness review essay of new books on the Bauhaus, New York Review of Books, 13 (January 1,1970), 26-30, indicate that the possibilities are vast: Klee, Kandinsky, and the early

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 7511123 Bauhaus all felt the influence of Theosophy and Anthrosophy to a marked degree. In psychology, Nandor Fodors posthumous Freud, Jung, and Occuftism (University Books, 1971) has just been published, but too late for critical evaluation here. Several works on Jung have already been cited. David Bakan argues in Sigmund Freud and the Jewish Mystical Tradition (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1958; *%hocken, 1965) that Freuds thought shows clear parallels to Cabalism, Hassidism, and Jewish messianism, all of which pervaded the cultural atmosphere in which Freud developed his ideas. In the preface to the paperback edition, Bakan is able t o offer new and rather convincing evidence that Freud did more than assimilate a cultural atmosphere; it appears now that he owned a number of books on Jewish mysticism and the occult, including an edition of the Zohar. The occult wave of the last few years is still too recent for mature scholarly analyses and reflections to have appeared in any significant quantity. Some of the writings which are available, moreover, concern witchcraft more specifically and are therefore more fittingly discussed in Professor Nugents bibliographical essay. In a broad sense, present-day occultism is quite obviously a part of the youth culture and anti-technology (but not necessarily anti-scientific) sentiment. Theodore Roszaks The Making of a Counter Culture (Doubleday and *Anchor, 1969) is consequently pertinent here not only as an often discerning analysis of youth culture, but in its advocacy of a shamanistic mode of comprehension or consciousness, it is a symptomatic document as well. Rasa Gustaitis, Turning On (Macmdlan, 1969; *Signet, 1970) is a personal report on the quest for new consciousness, of which occultism is a part. Among her topics are Gestalt therapy, sensory awareness, Zen, psychedelics, Transcendental Meditation, and biofeedback training. Sara Davidson, The Rush for Instant Salvation, Harpers, 243 (July 1971), 40-54, is another reporters look at the various spiritual disciplines which young Americans are currently using t o achieve enlightenment. For a collection of varied responses to the most famous prognosis of evolutionary consciousness in our time, see Philip Nobile, ed., The Con I11 Controversy: The Critics Look at The Greening ofAmerica (*Pocket Books, 1971). In general, the popularity of occultism is also connected with the rise of the human potentials movement in psychology and therapy. A useful guide to this current but one which is not always accurate in details is Severin Petersons A Catalog of the Ways People Grow (*Ballantine, 1971), an A-to-Z inventory of forty-two systems from Akido and the Alexander Technique to Yoga and Zen, with Astrology, Dreams, ESP, Hasidism, Mysticism, Shamanism, and Tarot all featured. Each is illustrated through excerpts from basic manuals. Bibliographical information and addresses are plentifully supplied. A concluding classified directory adds information on dozens of other methods. Of all books published to date on todays spiritual revolution, Jacob Needlemans The New Religions (Doubleday, 1970; *Pocket Books, forthcoming, 1972) is clearly superior, a brilliant, probing analysis of the challenges to religion, philosophy, and personal values which imported systems of Asian mysticismZen, Meher Baba, Subud, Krishnamurti, Transcendental Meditation, and Tibetan Buddhism-are posing. Only a few pages are devoted to occultism per se, but the volume is an indispensable and invaluable contextual study of enduring worth.

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Peter Rowleys New Gods in America (David McKay Co., 1971) is still another informal reportorial investigation of the new faiths, including I Ching, Gurdjieff, Scientology, The Process Church, and most of the ones examined by Needleman. John J. Fritschers paper, The Occult in the Pop Culture, prepared for the 1971 Popular Culture Association meeting and scheduled to be published by B o w h g Green University Popular Press as the first chapter of an as yet untitled work on modern witchcraft, is a breezy overview of the extent to which the occult has colored advertising, films, popular music, television, and daily life. The World of the Twilight Believers by Richard M. Garvin and Robert E. Burger (Los Angeles: Sherbourne, 1970) is a journalistic catalogue of cults, practices, and occult beliefs which they think may represent a form of knowledge between the midnight of black magic and the noonday sun of pragmatic, demonstrable truth. William Wolffs Healers, Gurus, and Spiritual Guides (Los Angeles: Sherbourne, 1969) deals in popular style with metaphysical healers of body, mind, and spirit. The movement known as Scientology is beginning to generate a secondary literature all its own. Compare George Mako, Scientology: The Now Re&gion (Delacorte, 1970), Walter Braddeson, Scientology for the Millions (Los Angeles: Sherbourne, 1969; *Award, 1970), and Paulette Cooper, The Scandd ofScientology (*Tower, 1971). A number of recent publications have attempted to devise typologies of occult movements or otherwise to draw needed distinctions. The church historian Martin Marty, The Occult Establishment, Social Research, 37 (Summer 1970), 212-230, sees a significant difference of orientation in todays occult periodicals. The readily available newsstand occult magazines (including the previously mentioned Fate and Psychic) espouse a middle American ethos and constitute an occult Establishment in contrast to the youth cultures occult underground. Douglass McFerran, The New Magic, Commonweal, 94 (September 17, 1971), 477-480, in the course of arguing that youths rediscovery of the occult represents an effort to develop alternative value patterns to complement (not supplant) traditional ones, usefully distinguishes natural psychics from students or cultists, and refers to some of the obvious differences between Yoga, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, and Satanism. Robert S. Ellwood, Notes on a Neopagan Religious Group in America, History of Religions, 11 (August 1971), 125-139, describes the new cult of Feraferia within the framework of a typology of occult movements, a three-stage history of their development, and a list of eleven characteristics of such groups. Although I find some of his distinctions nonexistent or erroneous, his effort is worthy of serious consideration. Perhaps the most impressive attempt at a typology is in Bryan Wilsons Religious Sects: A Sociological Study (*World University Library, 1970), a fine introduction to the general subject. Most of the groups discussed in this essay are classified by Wilson as either Manipulationist (salvation in the world, often through occult means, as in Christian Science, Scientology, New Thought, Theosophy) or Thaumaturgical (salvation as relief from immediate, personal, and local problems, as in Spiritualism). Finally, D. W. T. C. Vessey, The Psychology of Occultism: Some Notes,]oumd of the Society for Psychical Research, 45 (December 19691, 161-165, presents a psychological typology consisting of power-occultists and

THE HISTORY OF MODERN OCCULTISM 7531125 wisdom-occultists which tends to be reductionistic and strives t o distinguish all forms of occultism from scientific parapsychology.

VI. Conclusions
Having commented on nearly three hundred items, some conclusions suggest themselves. In the fust place, although secondary literature o n occultism is fairly extensive-and it should be stressed once again that this essay has been highly selective-the overall level of understanding which this material embodies and engenders is still limited and rather disappointing. The lacunae are colossal. There is no general history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century occultism, no period histories, and only a few histories of specific cccult sciences. Only France can be said to be reasonably well served in the category of national histories. Most histories of occult organizations have been written by members, sometimes by ex-members; both types present difficulties. There are few biographies of modern occultists (although the memoir-literature and autobiographies are plentiful), and with certain exceptions (Nethercot on Annie Besant, Regardie on Crowley), they are rarely probing or detailed enough. Secondly, rather little has been done to study the occult from scholarly perspectives other than those of history, history of ideas, and literature. I have admittedly tended to emphasize such studies here, but even with Marcello Truzzis assistance I have been unable to locate very many social-scientific studies. I wish to deny neither the indispensable need for historical understanding of occultism nor the fact that some social scientists-Truzzi very prominently among them-are turning their attention t o the subject. But in view of the current lack of conceptual sophistication, the absence of serious comparative studies, the limited efforts at developing typologies, and our vast ignorance concerning the factors underlying the appeal of the occult, it is not too much to suggest that historical-literary scholarship can be substantially deepened and complemented through the work of anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, folklorists, and historians of religions. Certainly the recent use of anthropology and sociology by the historians Keith Thomas and A. J. D. Macfarlane in studying sixteenth- and seventeenth-century occultism and witchcraft, as reported in Nugents essay, have led to noteworthy breakthroughs in understanding. For the modern period, however, virtually the only methodological advance which comes to mind is the gradual acceptance by scholars of the need t o study occultism and to do so seriously, without explaining it away o n rationalistic or reductionistic grounds. Even there I suspect that the groundwork laid by such occult scholars as Waite and Mead at the turn of the century has been one of the determining factors, as has the example of scholars specializing in Renaissance and early modern occult currents. In short, the study of modern occultism calls for far more sophistication and interdisciplinary awareness than has so far been the case. As a third and final conclusion, and as a partial remedy for these deficiencies, I suggest that it is now appropriate for a scholarly interdisciplinary journal on the occult to be published in which historical, literary, philosophical, sociological, and other types of analysis could all find a home. Besides the obvious advantages

7541126 JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE of serving as a clearinghouse for bibliograDhicd information and research news, c l u such a journal would automatically stimulate the volume of publication and, with care, the quality of scholarship as well. A further advantage, as I see it, is that a journal could promote the crystallization of opposing methods and viewpoints which so far have been missing in all but witchcraft studies. More important, interdisciplinary awareness could be strengthened. There are, of course, signs that the quality of occult scholarship is improving. Within the last few years there have been solid traditional studies by Gauld on the founders of psychical research and Howe on modern astrology, and more innovative approaches have been employed by Darnton on Mesmerism, Truzzi's sociological studies, and Needleman's examination of the new religions. When these are added to the available reference works and literary studies and to the increasing number of relevant thematic works, the result may be a signal that we are about to witness a quantum jump in our comprehension of the occult.
" I

Robert Galbreath is a specialist in European intellectual history who teaches through the Office of Experimental Studies at Bowling Green University. He has published articles and reviews in many periodicals, includingJournal of Popular Culture, Bulletin of Bibliography, Journal of American Folklore, Fate, Extrapolation, and others.