These notes are intended to supplement attributions that appear in individual chapters. When a source is already cited within a chapter, it is not generally repeated here.
Introduction: What Is the Occult?
(And What Is It Doing in America?)
Sources on the Kelpius and Ephrata communes include The Diarium of Magister Johannes Kelpius, with annotations by Julius Friedrich Sachse (Publications of the Pennsylvania German Society; v. 25, 1917), The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania by Sachse (privately printed, 1895), Wisdom’s Children by Arthur Versluis (State University of New York Press, 1999), The American Soul by Jacob Needleman (Tarcher/Penguin, 2002), and The Woman in the Wilderness by Jona than D. Scott (Middleton Books, 2005), a rigorously researched historical novel.
Éliphas Lévi is quoted from his 1855 Transcendental Magic, as translated by Arthur Edward Waite in 1896. Aleister Crowley is quoted from The Book of the Law (Weiser, 1926, 1938, 2004).
The works of Frances A. Yates form an extraordinary guide to the intellectual history of Renaissance and Elizabethan occultism, particularly The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age(Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), and Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (The University of Chicago Press, 1964), from which the epigraph from the Hermetic dialogue Asclepius is translated.
Articles on Zolar include “Dean of Astrologers” by John Updike, The New Yorker, 10/31/59; “In the Stars,” Time magazine, 8/24/62; “Publishing Enters the Age of Aquarius” by Marcia Seligson, The New York Times, 9/28/69; “Tells Fortunes, Makes a Fortune” by George C. Harlan, San Mateo Times, 2/3/60; and “Zodiac Provides Signs of the Times” by Richard Blystone, Associated Press, 3/1/70.
Chapter One: The Psychic Highway
General sources on Ann Lee and the Shakers include The Shaker Experience in America by Stephen J. Stein (Yale University Press, 1994), Spirit Possession and Popular Religion by Clarke Garrett (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), The People Called Shakers by Edward Deming Andrews (Dover, 1963), Mother Ann Lee by Nardi Reeder Campion (University Press of New England, 1976, 1990), and Ann the Word by Richard Francis (Arcade, 2000). The legend of Mother Ann Lee and the averted shipwreck appears in A Summary View of the Millennial Church, or United Society of Believers, (Commonly Called the Shakers) by Calvin Green and Seth Y. Wells (Packard & Van Benthuysen, 1823). The stories of Mother Ann’s maternal and marital woes, the mob violence against her, and the winter travelers reaching the Shaker colony at Niskayuna (now called Watervliet) appear in Shakerism by Anna White and Leila S. Taylor (Press of Fred J. Heer, 1905) and in Testimonies of the Life, Character, Revelations, and Doctrines of Mother Ann Lee, and the Elders with Her by Rufus Bishop and Seth Y. Wells (privately printed 1816 and reissued 1888). The story of Mother Ann Lee’s “psychometric portrait” appears in The New York Folklore Quarterly, autumn 1960. The events of the “Dark Day” are reported in Historic Storms of New England by Sidney Perley (The Salem Press, 1891). Henry Steel Olcott’s People from the Other World (American Publishing Company, 1875) is a useful window on how the Shakers considered their order a forerunner of Spiritualism.
Carl Carmer’s phrase is from Listen For a Lonesome Drum: A York State Chronicle (Farrar & Rinehart, 1936, 1950). The history of Millerism draws on accounts by historian Whitney R. Cross in his indispensable The Burned-over District (Cornell University Press, 1950), Francis D. Nichol in his sympathetic but responsible The Midnight Cry (Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1944), and The Memoirs of William Miller by Sylvester Bliss (J. V. Himes, 1853).
The most reliable sources I have found on the life of Jemima Wilkinson include History and Directory of Yates County by Stafford C. Cleveland (1873), “Jemima Wilkinson” by Robert P. St. John, The Quarterly Journal of the New York State Historical Association (April 1930), and Pioneer Prophetess by Herbert A. Wisbey, Jr. (Cornell University Press, 1964). Also helpful on the movements of the Burned-Over District are The Crucible of Ferment by Emerson Klees (Cameo Press, 2001) and the online bookSaints, Sinners, and Reformers by John H. Martin (www.crookedlakereview.com, 2005).
Invaluable research into the occult and folkloric beliefs that ran in the family of Joseph Smith appears in Early Mormonism and the Magic World View by D. Michael Quinn (Signature Books, 1998). The folklore of the Central New York region and Mormonism is considered in Whitney R. Cross’s The Burned-over District (Cornell University Press, 1950) and “Mormonism in the ‘Burned-Over District,’ ” by Cross, New York History, July 1944. Governor DeWitt Clinton’s remarks appear in his Discourse Delivered before the New-York Historical Society (James Eastburn, 1812). Dan Vogel’s Indian Origins and the Book for Mormon (Signature Books, 1986) provided the initial Clinton reference. An analysis of Mormonism and Freemasonry appears in The Refiner’s Fire by John L. Brooke (Cambridge University Press, 1994), No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie (Knopf, 1945), and Mormonism and Masonry by E. Cecil McGavin (Stevens & Wallis, Inc., 1947). A useful study of Mormonism’s esoteric influences appears in Lance S. Owen’s “Joseph Smith: America’s Hermetic Prophet,” Gnosis magazine, spring 1995. Other articles include: “What Is It about Mormonism?” by Noah Feldman, The New York Times, 1/6/08, and “As Mormon Church Grows, So Does Dissent from Feminists and Scholars” by Dirk Johnson, The New York Times, 10/2/93. Helpful passages on Smith are also found in Harold Bloom’s The American Religion (Simon & Schuster, 1993) and Omens of the Millennium (Riverhead, 1996).
Andrew Jackson Davis is quoted from The Magic Staff (J. S. Brown & Co., 1857), The Principles of Nature (S. S. Lyon and Wm. Fishbough, 1847), and The Harmonial Philosophy (Advanced Thought Publishing Company, 1917). His accounts of being Mesmerized appeared in The Great Harmonia, Vol. II (Crown, 1851) and The Magic Staff.
The Marquis de Lafayette’s letter to Washington is from Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena, Vol. 4: The United States of America by Allan Angoff, edited by Eric Dingwall (J. & A. Churchill, 1968). Washington’s reply to Mesmer appears in Franklin in France, Volume II, by Edward Everett Hale (Roberts Brothers, 1888). The marquis’s visit with the Shakers is described in Spirit Possession and Popular Religion by Clarke Garrett (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987) and The Shakers and the World’s People by Flo Morse (University Press of New England, 1987). The role of Mesmerism in Poyen’s aversion to slavery is noted in “Charles Poyen Brings Mesmerism to America” by Eric T. Carlson, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (April 1960), and “How Southern New England Became Magnetic North” by Sheila O’Brien Quinn, History of Psychology (August 2007). Poyen’s relationship to the mayor of Lowell is noted in The Heyday of Spiritualism by Slater Brown (Hawthorn Books, 1970).
The credulity that greeted Poe’s fictional accounts of Mesmerism is noted by historian Michael Gomes in his pamphlet “Colonel Olcott and the Healing Arts” (Theosophical Publishing House, 2007). John B. Buescher’s The Other Side of Salvation (Skinner House, 2004) notes Poe reading in a trancelike state. Frank Podmore is quoted from Mesmerism and Christian Science (George W. Jacobs and Co., 1909).
Chapter Two: Mystic Americans
Olcott left a vast record of his affairs, most usefully his six-volume Old Diary Leaves (G. P. Putnam’s Sons/Theosophical Publishing Company, issued 1895–1935). His encounter with Andrew Jackson Davis is recounted in a prefatory note to an article by Anna Kingsford in The Theosophist magazine in May 1890. Biographies of Olcott are Yankee Beacon of Buddhist Light by Howard Murphet (Theosophical Publishing House, 1972, 1988) and The White Buddhist by Stephen R. Prothero (Indiana University Press, 1996). Olcott’s Civil War career is noted in The Web of Conspiracy by Theodore Roscoe (Prentice-Hall, 1959). Edison’s psychical experiments are described in Old Diary Leaves, Vol. I and “Edison Working on How to Communicate with the Next World” by B. C. Forbes, The American Magazine (October 1920). Abner Doubleday’s translation of Éliphas Lévi’s Dogma and Ritual of High Magic (or Transcendental Magic) appeared in serial form for several years beginning in 1912 in the occult journal The Word. Olcott’s travels in the East are noted in Buddhism by Edward Conze (Bruno Cassirer, 1951) and The Buddhist Bible edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Beacon, 2002).
Bronson Alcott is quoted on Hermes in Arthur Christy’s rare and important 1932 study, The Orient in American Transcendentalism (Columbia University Press; reprinted by Octagon Books, 1963). Alvin Boyd Kuhn’s Theosophy (Henry Holt, 1930) helpfully tracks the arc of metaphysical subjects in Emerson’s journals. K. Paul Johnson is quoted from his significant study The Masters Revealed (State University of New York Press, 1994).
In the vast literature on Spiritualism, a variety of ages are attributed to the Fox sisters, and historical records are inconclusive. The ages used here—Kate, 11, and Margaret, 14—are from John Patrick Deveney’s article in the Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism (Brill, 2006). Survey numbers on Spiritualism are from Whitney R. Cross’s The Burned-over District (Cornell University Press, 1950). E. W. Capron is quoted from Modern Spiritualism (Partridge and Brittan, 1855). The quotation from the Religio-Philosophical Journal is from August 26, 1865. Quotes from The Carrier Dove are taken from The Psychic World of California by David St. Clair (Doubleday, 1972). For summaries of the differing statistics of practicing Spiritualists, see The Other Side of Salvation by John B. Buescher (Skinner House, 2004), The Dawning of the Theosophical Movement by Michael Gomes (Quest, 1987), and The History of the Supernatural, Vol. II, by William Howitt (Longman, 1853). Also helpful is Radical Spirits by Ann Braude (Indiana University Press, 1989, 2001).
Lincoln is quoted on his son’s death from Behind the Scenes: or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley (G. W. Carleton & Co., 1868). Mary Todd Lincoln is quoted from Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, 1939). Mary Todd’s struggles with her son Robert appear in Mary Todd Lincoln by Jean H. Baker (Norton, 1987).
Mary Fenn Love is quoted from Radical Spirits by Ann Braude (Indiana University Press, 1989, 2001), an invaluable resource on women’s rights and Spiritualism. Frederick Douglass is quoted from Barbara Goldsmith’s Other Powers (Knopf, 1998), a monumental study of Victoria Woodhull. Also helpful is Mary Gabriel’s Notorious Victoria (Algonquin Books, 1998). For a Spiritualist view of Woodhull, see the pamphlet “Victoria C. Woodhull, A Biographical Sketch” by Theodore Tilton (The Golden Age, 1871).
The Shields episode in the Senate was on April 17, 1854 (the full transcript ran the following day in The New York Times). Total signatures on his petition are fuzzy: Shields testified to 15,000, while the document itself reports 13,000. Upon counting them, the industrious historian John B. Buescher found slightly fewer than 12,000 (see www.spirithistory.com/petnote.html).
Anna Blackwell is quoted from The History of Spiritualism, Volume II, by Arthur Conan Doyle (1926). Historical information on Caodaism can be found in Ralph B. Smith’s two-part study, “An Introduction to Caodaism,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, Vol. XXXIII (1970). Other sources include “Cultural Intrusions and Religious Syncretism: The Case of Caodaism in Vietnam” by Graeme Lang, Working Papers Series No. 65, Southeast Asia Research Centre (July 2004); and “Vietnam’s Cao Dai Sect Flourishing Amid Hollywood Endorsement,” Agence France-Presse, 6/3/01.
Chapter Three: Don’t Try This at Home
The story of Ouija and the three teens is based on an episode reported in the “True Mystic Experiences” column of Fate magazine (July 2006). Special thanks are due to historians/curators Robert Murch and Eugene Orlando for their insights into Ouija and their intellectual doggedness in tracking down its history. Murch has tirelessly traced relations among Ouija’s investors. Orlando and historian John B. Buescher provided references to the “lost link” article from the New York Daily Tribune. Fuld is quoted from “William Fuld Made $1,000,000 on Ouija but Has No Faith in It,” Baltimore Sun, 7/4/20. Thomas Mann is quoted from The Perfect Medium by Clément Chéroux (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005). The recollections about Truman Capote and about Merrill and Jackson’s sexual relations are from Alison Lurie’s Familiar Spirits: A Memoir of James Merrill and David Jackson (Viking, 2001). Merrill is quoted from James Merrill by Judith Moffett (Columbia University Press, 1984) and “The Channeled Myths of James Merrill” by John Chambers, The Anomalist (summer 1997).
Chapter Four: The Science of Right Thinking
The recollections of Florence Wattles appear in a letter that publisher Elizabeth Towne included in a reprint edition of Wallace D. Wattles’s The Science of Being Great (1911), which Towne retitled How to Be a Genius. Thanks to Tony Mase for help tracking down the source. Emerson’s 1841 quote is from “Spiritual Laws.” John B. Anderson is quoted from New Thought, Its Lights and Shadows (Sherman, French & Company, 1911). Elbert Hubbard is quoted from Stefan Kanfer’s “Love and Glory in East Aurory,”City Journal (spring 2007). The career of Ralph Waldo Trine is explored in The Positive Thinkers by Donald Meyer (Pantheon, 1965, 1980, 1988) and History and Philosophy of Metaphysical Movements in America by J. Stillson Judah (The Westminster Press, 1967). Articles on Wattles include the following from the Fort Wayne Sentinel: “Leaves the Methodists,” 6/27/00; “News Paragraphs,” 6/13/08; “Totals on District Vote,” 11/15/08; “Trouble at Elwood,” 7/12/09; and “Indiana Socialist Dies,” 2/8/11. Also, “Hoosier Writer Is Dead,” Indianapolis Star, 2/9/11. Florence Wattles appears in “Says Even Dead Voted in Recent Elwood Election,” 1/29/11, Indianapolis Star; and “Woman Socialist Speaks to Kendallville Audience,” 7/12/11, Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette.
Quimby’s initial encounter with Mesmerism is variously attributed to his attendance at lectures by Poyen and Collyer; lecture dates of 1836 and 1838 are cited, as are different Maine locales. The Quimby Manuscripts, edited by Horatio Dresser (Crowell, 1921), places Quimby at a Belfast, Maine, lecture in 1838 but names no lecturer. The same author cites Collyer as the speaker in his History of the New Thought Movement (Crowell, 1919). Poyen had probably left America by that time, as noted by Eric T. Carlson in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Science (April 1960). Poyen had appeared in Bangor, Maine, earlier, and the likelihood is that both influences—Poyen’s 1836 demonstration and Collyer’s 1838 lecture—aroused Quimby’s interest. Further details on Collyer’s career appear in Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena, Vol. 4: The United States of America, by Allan Angoff, edited by Eric Dingwall (J. & A. Churchill, 1968). Quotes by Quimby are taken from The Quimby Manuscripts. Warren Felt Evans’s and Mary Baker Eddy’s relations with Quimby are variously described in: History and Philosophy of Metaphysical Movements in America by J. Stillson Judah (The Westminster Press, 1967), Each Mind a Kingdom by Beryl Satter (University of California Press, 1999), Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial by Robert Peel (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971), and A Republic of Mind and Spirit by Catherine L. Albanese (Yale University Press, 2007). Eddy’s eulogy of Quimby appears in The True History of Mental Scienceby Julius A. Dresser (Alfred Mudge & Son, 1887). Her comment about the “illiterate” Quimby is from the June 1887 Christian Science Journal. Eddy’s relationship with Emma Curtis Hopkins is described in Satter (1999).
Sources on Ernest Holmes include Open at the Top by Neal Vahle (Open View Press, 1993) and Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times by Fenwicke L. Holmes (Dodd, Mead, 1970). Norman Vincent Peale discusses Holmes in “The Pathway to Positive Thinking” by Elaine St. Johns, Science of Mind magazine (June 1987).
Helpful overviews of many of the figures in this chapter appear in Spirits in Rebellion by Charles S. Braden (Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, 1987), The American Myth of Success by Richard Weiss (University of Illinois Press, 1969, 1988), andHistory and Philosophy of Metaphysical Movements in America by J. Stillson Judah (The Westminster Press, 1967).
Chapter Five: The Mail-Order Prophet
The preeminent works on Frank B. Robinson are These Also Believe by Charles S. Braden (Macmillan, 1949), They Have Found a Faith by Marcus Bach (Bobbs–Merrill, 1946), and the pamphlet “Psychiana: The Psychological Religion” by Keith P. Petersen (Latah County Historical Society, 1991). Also helpful is Bach’s Strange Sects and Curious Cults (Dodd, Mead, 1961). For Robinson’s conversion experience, I have relied chiefly on the works of Bach and The Strange Autobiography of Frank B. Robinson(Psychiana, 1941). I have benefited from a wide range of Psychiana papers, correspondence, and meeting transcripts, including those of the Holmes–Robinson speaking appearances, archived at the University of Idaho Library Special Collections. Key news articles include: “ ‘Money-Back’ Religion,” UPI, 3/30/36; “Moscow, Idaho, Once Home to a Booming Religion Known as Psychiana” by Rich Roesler, [Spokane] Spokesman-Review, 9/3/96; “Money-Back Religion,” Time magazine, 1/17/38; “Death of Psychiana,” Newsweek, 3/24/52; “Mail-Order Messiah” by Fred Colvig, Sunday Oregonian, 12/26/37; “A Visit to the Man Who Talked with God” by Herman Edwards, Sunday Oregonian, 12/24/39; and “Idaho Publisher Offers Finns Plan to Beat Reds,” UPI, 12/5/39. On the career of Arthur Bell, see California Cult by H. T. Dohrman (Beacon Press, 1958) and “Mankind United,” 9/20/37, and “Profit’s Prophet,” 5/21/45, both from Time magazine. The recollections of Alfred Robinson are from Bach’s Report to Protestants (The Parthenon Press, 1948). The columnist who attended the Holmes–Robinson talks was Sidney P. Dones writing in the 9/25/41 Neighborhood News. The closing quote is from Braden (1963, 1987). Thanks to John Black (www.johnblack.com/psychiana) and to the Northwoods Spiritual Resource Center (www.angelfire.com/wi2/ULCds/) for compiling a wide range of Psychiana resources online.
Chapter Six: Go Tell Pharaoh
Quotations of Frederick Douglass are from Autobiographies (Library of America, 1994), which encompasses Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1893).
The invaluable historical resource on hoodoo is a five-volume oral history, Hoodoo-Conjuration-Witchcraft-Rootwork, by Episcopal priest and folklorist Harry Middleton Hyatt, who began assembling his material in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He privately published his volumes, based on interviews with more than 1,600 devotees of hoodoo, between 1970 and 1978, and he died before a projected sixth volume, an index, was completed. Where Hyatt’s volumes can be found (there exist fewer than 600 complete sets), they are the most remarkable records of African-influenced magic in America. Hyatt’s finest written interpreter and a hoodoo master scholar in her own right is Catherine Yronwode, whose resources include an extensive Web site (www.luckymojo.com), her online and print books (Hoodoo in Theory and Practice and Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic), and her indispensable Hoodoo Rootwork Correspondence Course. Carolyn Morrow Long’s Spiritual Merchants (The University of Tennessee Press, 2001) is a masterly record of the hoodoo supply dealers of the twentieth century, as well as a history of African-influenced magic. Important texts on religious and folk beliefs among African slaves and their descendants are Slave Religion by Albert J. Raboteau (Oxford University Press, 1978, 2004)—from which I drew the Georgia Writers’ Project quote—and Black Magic by Yvonne P. Chireau (University of California Press, 2003). Also helpful are: Voodoo & Hoodoo by Jim Haskins (Scarborough House, 1978, 1990) andFolk Beliefs of the Southern Negro by Newbell Niles Puckett (H. Milford, 1926).
Jim Magus’s delightful history, Magical Heroes (Magus Enterprises, 1995), has been a very helpful source on the career of Black Herman, particularly for the dialogue of Herman’s stage act. Other quotes are from Herman’s memoirs. Articles on Black Herman from the Chicago Defender include: “Harlem Healer Given Setback by Woman Cop,” 6/18/27; “ ‘Black’ Herman Given Penitentiary Sentence,” 10/22/27; “Black Herman,” 10/18/30; and “Black Herman, Noted Magician, Dies,” 4/21/34. Articles from the New York Amsterdam News include: “ ‘Black Herman,’ Magician, Held for Trial in Special Sessions as ‘Quack,’ ” 9/7/27, and “ ‘Black Herman’ Given Sentence in Penitentiary,” 10/19/27. Black Herman’s death certificate (April 17, 1934) lists the cause of death as chronic myocarditis, a viral inflammation of the heart, which led to cardiac failure.
The pioneering work of UCLA historian Robert A. Hill has highlighted the connections between Marcus Garvey and New Thought. Hill has meticulously assembled and annotated The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers for the University of California Press. Volumes I (1983) and VII (1990), in particular, explore Garvey and New Thought. Hill’s volume with Barbara Bair, Marcus Garvey Life and Lessons (University of California Press, 1987), is similarly valuable. I am grateful for Hill’s work and advice. For biographical background on Garvey, I have benefited from the documentary Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind (American Experience, 2001) and Black Moses by E. David Cronon (University of Wisconsin Press, 1955, 1969).
Sources on L. W. de Laurence include: “William Lauron DeLaurence and Jamaican Folk Religion” by W. F. Elkins, Folklore, vol. 97:ii (1986); “Academic Freedom: Manley’s Heritage,” The Sunday Gleaner (Kingston), 2/18/73; and Carolyn Morrow Long’sSpiritual Merchants (The University of Tennessee Press, 2001).
On the career of Noble Drew Ali, two sources merit special mention: “Shoot-Out at the Circle 7 Koran” by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Gnosis magazine (summer 1989), and “Mystery of the Moorish Science Temple” by Susan Nance, Religion and American Culture(2002). Wilson’s work, including his Sacred Drift (City Lights, 1993), has been groundbreaking, and Nance has written with unprecedented thoroughness. Also helpful are: “Black Gods of the Inner City” by Prince-A-Cuba, Gnosis magazine (fall 1992); “Who Was Noble Drew Ali?” by Isa al-Mahdi (Ansaaru Allah Publications, 1988); “Man of Myth and Fact,” The New York Times, 6/29/64; The Black Muslims in America by C. Eric Lincoln (Beacon, 1961); Islam in the African-American Experience by Richard Brent Turner (Indiana University Press, 1997, 2003); African American Islam by Aminah Beverly McCloud (Routledge, 1995); Black Pilgrimage to Islam by Robert Dannin (Oxford University Press, 2002); and Robert Hill, The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. VII (University of California Press, 1990).
In addition to the efforts of historian Christopher Paul Moore, the career of Robert T. Browne has been elucidated by Robert Fikes, Jr., in his article and postscript, “The Triumph of Robert T. Browne,” in the January–April 1998 issue of The Negro Educational Review. Arthur A. Schomburg is quoted from Arthur Alfonso Schomburg: Black Bibliophile and Collector by Elinor Des Verney Sinnette (Wayne State University Press, 1989). I am grateful to Thelma Calvo for information on Browne’s Hermetic Society.
Chapter Seven: The Return of the “Secret Teachings”
Details of Manly P. Hall’s early life appear in A History of the Occult Tarot, 1870–1970, by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett (Duckworth, 2002). Hall offered his own reflections in “Recollections of M.P.H.” from the Winter 1959 edition of the PRS Journal, “Manly P. Hall and the Secret Teachings of All Ages” in the December 1978 PRS Contributors’ Bulletin, “Reflections of M.P.H.” in the Winter 1986 PRS Journal, and in a talk transcribed in the Autumn 1955 edition of the PRS magazine Horizon. Additional details were provided by Obadiah Harris, president of PRS, and Hall’s longtime friend Colonel Clarke Johnston. Hall’s sermon on crime is from “Buddha Quoted on Crime,” Los Angeles Times, 11/1/23. For the conversion of Hall’s Secret Teachingsinto a new edition, see “Bringing the Secret Teachings into the 21st Century” by Mitch Horowitz, at www.LapisMagazine.org. Articles about the interests of Marie Bauer Hall appeared in the Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch: “New Age Christian Mystic Sure Group Will Unearth Bacon Chest,” 8/30/92; “Pair Seeking Vault Fined for Trespassing,” 9/25/92; and “Mystics Seek New Dig; Say Church Site Holds Secret Keys to Peace,” 3/19/03. For Hall’s participation in Black Friday, see The Lima News (Ohio), 6/27/40. Bob Pool of the Los Angeles Times provided useful accounts of PRS’s legal issues in “Search for Peace Leads to Court Brawl Estate,” 5/3/93, and “A Materialistic Fate for a Philosophical Legacy,” 12/23/94. Other Los Angeles Times articles include: “Research Center Pursues Ideas Most Won’t Consider” by Alan Citron, 10/31/82; “ ‘Last Western Mystic’ Thrives in Los Feliz” by Santiago O’Donnell, 7/6/89; and Hall’s obituary by Louis Sahagun, 9/3/90. The most meticulously detailed account of Hall’s death, as well as much other material elucidating Hall’s life, appears in Louis Sahagun’s well-researched biography, Master of the Mysteries (Process Media, 2008). Also useful on the controversies around Hall’s death is Stephan A. Hoeller’s 2003 interview inParanoia magazine, conducted by Robert Guffey. The quote about the unduly influential Fritz appeared in Cliff Johnson’s 1/10/95 letter in the Los Angeles Times. Irving Howe is quoted from The Portable Kipling (Penguin, 1982). Hall’s encounter with Bragdon appeared in “America’s Timeless Philosopher” by Basanta Koomar Roy from Wynn’s Astrology Magazine, as reprinted in the Nov.–Dec. 1941 edition of Horizon. For an example of recent scholarship verifying the esoteric accounts of Delphi, see “For Delphic Oracle, Fumes and Vision” by William J. Broad, The New York Times, 3/19/02.
Chapter Eight: New Deal of the Ages
Accounts of Truman Capote’s appearance on The Tonight Show and the reaction to it appeared in Time magazine: “The Assassination According to Capote,” 5/10/68; “Ray’s Odd Odyssey,” 6/21/68; and “Cult of the Occult,” 7/19/68. No taping of the live appearance has been found to exist. The New York Times reported Sirhan’s reading material in “Suspect Requests Theosophic Works and Newspapers,” 6/7/68. The Fresno Bee reported the John Birch controversy in “Fresnan Backs Author of Book Sirhan Reads in Jail,” 6/28/68. I am indebted to Michael Gomes’s Theosophy in the Nineteenth Century: An Annotated Bibliography (Garland, 1994) for first directing me to the incident.
Details on the life and career of Henry A. Wallace are from American Dreamer by John C. Culver and John Hyde (Norton, 2001), Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order by Graham J. White and John R. Maze (University of North Carolina Press, 1995), Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia by Karl Ernest Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac (Basic Books, 2006), and “Who Was Henry A. Wallace?” by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Los Angeles Times, 3/12/00. Jim Farley’s criticisms of Wallace and Roosevelt’s responses are from Jim Farley’s Story (Whittlesey House, 1948). Useful information on the Liberal Catholic Church appears in These Also Believe by Charles S. Braden (Macmillan, 1949). Wallace’s interest in the Great Seal is explored in The Eagle and the Shield: A History of the Great Seal of the United States by Richard S. Patterson and Richardson Dougall (University Press of the Pacific, 1976). Roosevelt’s handwriting on the designs of the dollar bill can be seen in the pamphlet “The Great Seal of the United States,” published by the U.S. State Department in 2003. The quotes from Henry M. Morgenthau, Jr., are from “The Morgenthau Diaries,” part V, in Collier’s magazine of 10/25/47. In the same article, Morgenthau quotes Roosevelt asking, “What’s the matter with Wallace?” Westbrook Pegler’s writing on Wallace includes syndicated columns of 5/18/47, 8/27/47, 3/11/48, and 7/26/48.
Sources on William Dudley Pelley include William Dudley Pelley by Scott Beekman (Syracuse University Press, 2005), The Old Christian Right by Leo P. Ribuffo (Temple University Press, 1983), “The Great Anti-Cult Scare 1935–1945” by Philip Jenkins (a paper presented at the 1999 conference of the Center for Studies of New Religions), and “New Age Nazi” by Jon Elliston, Mountain Xpress (North Carolina), 1/28/04. Useful biographical information and images are found in the William Dudley Pelley Collection at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Pelley’s extended version of “Seven Minutes in Eternity” appeared in 1932 from his Galahad Press. Quotations from Pelley’s memoirs are from a copy of his hand-typed manuscript, The Door to Revelation: An Intimate Biography, produced between April 1934 and April 1935, in the holdings of the Humanities Center of the New York Public Library. The Humanities Center also holds bound editions of Pelley’s magazine, Liberation. The federal government’s case against Pelley is summarized in 132 F.2d 170 United States v. Pelley, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, 12/17/42.
Sources on the nationalist conceptions of Aryanism include The Aryan Myth by Leon Poliakov (Basic Books, 1974), Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival by Joscelyn Godwin (Phanes Press, 1993), and probably the finest study on Nazism and the occult, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s The Occult Roots of Nazism (New York University Press, 1992). An excellent analysis of Theosophy and fascism appears in Robert S. Ellwood, Jr.’s notes to “The American Theosophical Synthesis,” from The Occult in America, edited by Howard Kerr and Charles L. Crow (University of Illinois Press, 1986). A clear-minded look at the Third Reich and religion appears in David Sutton’s “How the Nazis Stole Christmas,” Fortean Times, No. 218. Hitler’s remarks about Alfred Rosenberg are from Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer (Simon & Schuster, 1970). The career of Karl Ernst Krafft is considered in Astrology: A Recent History Including the Untold Story of Its Role in World War II by Ellic Howe (Walker and Company, 1967) and to a lesser degree in Astrology: An Historical Examination by P. I. H. Naylor (Robert Maxwell, 1967). Sources on Karl Germer include Sexuality, Magic, and Perversion by Francis King (Citadel, 1972) and Bill Heidrick’s essay, “Ordo Templi Orientis, A Brief Historical Review,” at www.hermetic.com.
Accounts of Gandhi’s experiences with Theosophy appear in his Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Public Affairs Press, 1948), Gandhi in London by James D. Hunt (Nataraj Books, 1993), and The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer (Harper & Brothers, 1950). Gandhi’s relations with Annie Besant are explored in Annie Besant: A Biography by Anne Taylor (Oxford, 1992) and Gandhi: A Life by Yogesh Chadha (John Wiley & Sons, 1997). Gandhi is quoted from those sources and from his Collected Works, Vols. 36, 41, and 44. A. O. Hume’s encounter with “advanced initiates” is considered in Edward C. Moulton’s introduction to Allan Octavian Hume: ‘Father of the Indian National Congress’ 1829–1912 by Sir William Wedderburn (Oxford University Press, 1913, 2002).
Chapter Nine: The Masters Among Us
Spalding’s engagements in Helena, Montana, are reported in the Helena Daily Independent: “Free Lenten Talks Given by Miss Chew,” 3/1/31, and “Church Notes,” 5/16/37 and 5/23/37. Ruth E. Chew’s career is noted in “Shine, Shimmer & Scintillate,” Timemagazine, 7/16/56. Paul Brunton is quoted from Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Category 16: The Sensitives, “Chapter 13: The Occult” (www.wisdomsgoldenrod.org). A. W. Chadwick is quoted from A Sadhu’s Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi (Sri Ramana Ashram, 1961). Chadwick misstates Spalding’s name as “Bierce Spaulding.” Stella Spalding’s divorce from her husband appears in the legal notices of the Los Angeles Times, 7/21/37. Articles about Spalding’s tussles with the law include the following from theLos Angeles Times: “Mine-Fraud Charged,” 9/8/28; “Occultist Bound Over in New York,” 12/11/29; “Daughter Allowance Asked from Author,” 7/12/31; and “Lawyer-Beating Charge Dropped,” 12/23/34. Also, “Bay Area Lecturer Arrested for Failure to Provide,” 8/7/35, The Fresno Bee. The murder of Douglas DeVorss is reported in “Rich Publisher Slain at Desk,” 9/25/53, San Mateo Times, and “Publisher Murdered; Suspect Held,” 9/25/53, Los Angeles Times. Also helpful is John Chambers’s “The Strange and Brilliant Life of Baird T. Spalding,” Atlantis Rising, No. 46. The sole record I have been able to locate of David Bruton’s death is a notice for a memorial service, which identifies his passing on March 11, 1955, and announces a service on March 27, 1955, at the Calicinto Retreat near San Jacinto, California. I am grateful to historian John B. Buescher for directing me to the census information on Spalding and to the current president and publisher of DeVorss & Company, Gary Peattie, for discussions about Spalding and Douglas DeVorss.
Swami Vivekananda is quoted from Stephan F. Walker’s delightful essay, “Vivekananda and American Occultism,” from Kerr and Crow (1986).
Sources on I AM include These Also Believe by Charles S. Braden (Macmillan, 1949); “The Great Anti-Cult Scare 1935–1945” by Philip Jenkins (1999); “The ‘I AM’ Sect Today: An Unobituary” by David Stupple, Journal of Popular Culture, Spring 1975; “Mighty I AM,” Time magazine, 2/28/38; and Psychic Dictatorship in America by Gerald B. Bryan (Truth Research Publications, 1940). The last is a controversial work by a former student of I AM who later sought to expose the organization; its basic premises and facts are affirmed by historian Braden, who knew the author and considers the book in These Also Believe. Frank B. Robinson’s comments on I AM appeared in Westbrook Pegler’s syndicated column of 12/5/39. Guy Ballard’s initial encounter with Saint Germain is described in Unveiled Mysteries, written under his pseudonym Godfré Ray King (Saint Germain Foundation, 1934, 1939, 1982). For Justice Robert H. Jackson’s landmark dissent, see United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944). Key issues in the I AM case are summarized in Ballard v. United States, 138 F. 2d 540 (9th Cir., 1943) and Ballard v. United States, 329 U.S. 187 (1946).
Chapter Ten: Secrets for Sale
The timeline and events of Case’s life are drawn from federal census data, B.O.T.A. publications, and A History of the Occult Tarot, 1870–1970, by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett (Duckworth, 2002). Though some of our dates and references diverge, Lee Moffitt’s Paul Foster Case timeline (www.kcbventures.com/pfc/documents/timeline.pdf) has been a helpful resource. The story of Case encountering the “stranger” is told by Ann Davies in Adytum News-Notes (July–September 1963). Case is quoted on Tarot meditation from his 1927 pamphlet, “A Brief Analysis of the Tarot.” The Case–Mathers–Geise correspondence appears in Mary K. Greer’s Women of the Golden Dawn (Park Street Press, 1996), one of the finest works on the occult milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The International Brotherhood of Magicians meeting at which Case performed with Davies is reported in The Linking Ring magazine, Vol. 26 (1946). The Linking Ring noted Case’s cards-up-the-sleeve routine in Vol. 25 (1945). I am grateful to historian Jim Steinmeyer for providing references and material on Case’s stage career.
On the career of Benjamin Williams/Elbert Benjamine, I have greatly benefited from Christopher Gibson’s “The Religion of the Stars,” Gnosis magazine, Winter 1996, and from Decker and Dummett (2002), who trace the sources of Benjamine’s Tarot. I have also found assistance in correspondence with historian K. Paul Johnson. For the “hidden hand” theory, see: The Theosophical Enlightenment by Joscelyn Godwin (State University of New York Press, 1994); Godwin’s four-part series in Theosophical History(April, July, October 1990, and January 1991); and Christopher Bamford’s introduction to The Transcendental Universe by C. G. Harrison (Lindisfarne Press, 1993). The career of the H.B. of L. is covered in The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor by Joscelyn Godwin, Christian Chanel, John Patrick Deveney (Weiser, 1995) and Paschal Beverly Randolph by John Patrick Deveney (State University of New York Press, 1997). Paul Christian’s theories on the Egyptian origins of Tarot appear in his The History and Practice of Magic (Forge Press, 1870, 1952).
Jeane Dixon’s career is explored in Marcia Seligson’s “Dixon mania,” The New York Times Book Review, 10/19/69. Evangeline Adams is considered in Karen Christino’s biography, Foreseeing the Future (Reed Publications, 2000). An overview of Ronald Reagan and astrology appeared in “All the President’s Astrologers,” People magazine, 5/23/88. Also helpful is “Nancy Reagan’s Astrologer,” Time magazine, 5/16/88. Sydney Omarr is quoted from “In the Stars,” Time magazine 8/24/62; Omarr: Astrology and the Man by Norma Lee Browning (Doubleday, 1977); Answer in the Sky … Almost by Sydney Omarr (Hampton Roads, 1995); “Blind Seer Is Still Stargazing” by Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times, 12/13/02; “Sydney Omarr, 76; Astrologer to Stars Wrote World’s Best-Read Horoscopes,” by Sahagun, Los Angeles Times, 1/2/03; and “The Signs Are Right for Astrology,” by Tom Buckley, The New York Times, 12/15/68. Damon Runyon wrote about Professor A. F. Seward in his syndicated column, “As I See It,” of 1/9/37. Seward’s “land cruiser” was the subject of articles in The Lima News (Ohio) of 1/21/30 and 7/25/55.
Historical material on modern numerology appears in Numerology, or What Hath Pythagoras Wrought by Underwood Dudley (Mathematical Association of America, 1997). The terms numerology and scientology first appeared in Stephen Pearl Andrews’s 1871The Primary Synopsis of Universology and Alwato. He expanded on his use of numerology the following year in The Basic Outline of Universology. Julia Seton’s 1929 Western Symbology is the work that helped popularize the occult use of the term and linked it to the Balliett system.
A useful history of newspaper astrology appears in Penelope McMillan’s “Horoscopes: Fans Bask in Sun Signs,” Los Angeles Times, 6/5/85, and in Geoffrey Dean and Arthur Mather’s “Sun Sign Columns,” Astrological Journal (May–June 1996).
Chapter Eleven: “The Greatest Mystic Who Ever Lived in America”
The Cayce literature is vast and of widely varying quality. Three works merit special mention: Edgar Cayce: An American Prophet by Sidney D. Kirkpatrick (Riverhead, 2000), Edgar Cayce In Context by K. Paul Johnson (State University of New York Press, 1998), and Edgar Cayce’s Bookshelf by David Bell (California Institute of Integral Studies, unpublished dissertation, 1998). Also helpful are: The Lost Memoirs of Edgar Cayce, compiled and edited by A. Robert Smith (A.R.E. Press, 1997), Hugh Lynn Cayce: About My Father’s Business by Smith (Donning Company, 1988), A Seer Out of Season by Harmon Hartzell Bro, Ph.D. (New American Library, 1989), and The Charisma of the Seer by Bro (University of Chicago Divinity School, unpublished dissertation, 1955). David Kahn is quoted from his memoir, My Life with Edgar Cayce (Doubleday, 1970).
The organization Cayce founded, the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.), is now an active New Age center in Virginia Beach, encompassing a school of massage in the old hospital building and a reconstituted Atlantic University. A.R.E. maintains an electronic archive of readings and follow-up files that document Cayce’s diagnoses and treatments (though only occasionally from the perspective of medical doctors). The organization categorizes the readings by hyphenated numbers, the first representing the subject and the second representing the sequence. Cayce’s reading for the ex–Silver Shirt official is 2449–1. The subject of 2449–1 is also quoted from Psychic Dictatorship in America by Gerald B. Bryan (Truth Research Publications, 1940). The June 18, 1923, reading is 3744–1. Cayce’s reversal is from June 16, 1939, 3976–24. The so-called Hitler Reading of November 4, 1933, is 378–17. It is further analyzed in Rabbi Yonassan Gershom’s From Ashes to Healing (A.R.E. Press, 1996). Martin Ebon is quoted from Prophecy in Our Time (New American Library, 1968). The extended quote from the October 18, 1923, reading for Arthur Lammers (5717–2) is from a revised but faithful adaptation of the original by Thomas Sugrue in his Cayce biography,There Is a River (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1942). Quotes from Lammers are also taken from Sugrue, who did not observe the events recorded but was an intimate of the Cayce circle. J. Gordon Melton made a comprehensive study of Cayce’s past-life readings in “Edgar Cayce and Reincarnation,” Journal of Cayce Studies (February 1999). The Elder Brother by Gregory Tillett (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982) is a helpful source on Charles Webster Leadbeater, who is also written about in Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening by Mary Lutyens (Shambhala, 1975) and Star in the East: Krishnamurti and the Invention of a Messiah by Roland Vernon (Palgrave, 2000). William Sloane is quoted from “Publishing Prophets for Profit” by Nora Ephron, The New York Times, 8/11/68. Margueritte Harmon Bro’s articles are “Explain It As You Will,” The Christian Century, 6/2/43, and “Miracle Man of Virginia Beach,” Coronet, September 1943. Life magazine’s coverage of the Bridey Murphy phenomenon is from 3/19/56. Cayce’s statements on patience and visualization are from reading 705–2. His correspondence with his cousin appears in the supplementary material to reading 1089–2, dated 12/26/35; 1/5/36; and 1/9/36. I am grateful to K. Paul Johnson’s excellent Edgar Cayce in Context for initially directing me to that material.
Epilogue: Aquarius Rising
Sources on Ray Palmer and Richard Shaver include Bruce Lanier Wright’s outstanding article, Fear Down Below, initially posted in 2000 on www.softcom.net (and presently off-line). Also helpful is Walter Kafton-Minkel’s chapter on Palmer from Subterranean Worlds (Loompanics, 1989) and Jerome Clark’s “UFO Report” column from Fate magazine (August 1991). Palmer is quoted from Mystic magazine, November 1953 and April 1956. Clark wrote a singularly excellent history of Fate in Fortean Times No. 237. Jacob Needleman is quoted from The New Religions (Doubleday, 1970). Sources on the career of Eden Gray include A History of the Occult Tarot, 1870–1970, by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett (Duckworth, 2002); Gray’s obituary from the Chicago Tribune, 1/25/99; Mary K. Greer’s “Tarot Blog” of 3/27/08; federal census data; and Gray’s books, A Complete Guide to the Tarot (Crown, 1970) and Mastering the Tarot (Crown, 1971). She is quoted from the latter. Sources on the career of Gerald Gardner include Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton (Oxford University Press, 2001), Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler (Penguin/Arkana, 1997), An ABC of Witchcraft by Doreen Valiente (Phoenix Publishing, 1973), Gerald Gardner: Witch by J. L. Bracelin (Octagon Press, 1960), and an annotated edition of Gardner’s 1954 Witchcraft Today (Citadel Press, 2004). Useful details on the artistic influences the Beatles found on their trip to Rishikesh appear in With the Beatles by Lewis Lapham (Melville House, 2005). On the growth of Zen, I have benefited from Needleman (1970). For the holes in Castaneda’s background story, see “Don Juan and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Time magazine, 3/5/73. Seligson’s account of Linda Goodman is from The New York Times, 9/28/69. Ben Bradlee is quoted from Penelope McMillan, Los Angeles Times, 6/5/85. On A Course in Miracles, I have benefited from D. Patrick Miller’s pamphlet, “A Different Kind of Miracle” (Fearless Books, 2005). Jeffrey J. Kripal’s outstanding Esalen (University of Chicago Press, 2007) explores the history of this influential growth center in a manner that exceeds my scope here. Material on the U.S. Army is from “Spiritual Concepts Drawing a Different Breed of Adherent” by Robert Lindsey, The New York Times, 9/29/86.