Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped our Nation by Mitch Horowitz (book review)

Mitch Horowitz rescues many colorful characters from obscurity in this entertaining tour through the byways of American religious history. My favorite sections of the book were those describing individuals whose teachings flourished in the early twentieth century but are almost forgotten today. Psychiana was a successful mail-order religion that did not long survive the death of its founder Frank Robinson. Baird Spaulding concocted tall tales about encounters with Oriental spiritual Masters in books that were widely read in the 1930s and 40s. The Moorish Science Temple is a fascinating amalgamation of occult doctrines with black nationalism, whose founder Noble Drew Ali has been little studied by historians. Manly P. Hall authored an occult classic, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, in his twenties and led an organization that epitomized southern California eclecticism through most of the twentieth century. Benjamin Williams popularized astrology and Tarot under his pen name C.C. Zain, but like Hall was famous mainly in the Los Angeles area. All these individuals are given their place in the American religious landscape as pioneers of a movement Horowitz calls occultism or “the occult” which he concludes “resulted in a vast reworking of arcane practices and beliefs from the Old World and the creation of a new spiritual culture.” The obscure characters are placed into historical context with exploration of occult ideas in better known movements like Mormonism and New Thought, which contributed to a new spiritual culture. Familiar but little-understood topics like Hoodoo and the history of the Ouija board are illuminated in new ways by Horowitz’s groundbreaking research.

While amusing and entertaining, Occult America is grounded in years of scholarship and depicts its subjects with a mixture of respect and detachment that might be called “sympathetic objectivity.” The final chapter about Edgar Cayce is the most thoughtful, balanced account of the “sleeping prophet” seen in years, appreciative without being credulous. On Theosophy, Horowitz is well-informed and wise, recognizing its contribution to religious pluralism along with its penchant for fantastic claims and scandal. Andrew Jackson Davis was far more the founder of Spiritualism than the Fox sisters, and Horowitz gives him the attention he deserves as an American original. Having written on those subjects I can endorse the author’s scholarship as thorough and his commentary as insightful; in areas less familiar to me the book gives every indication of consistent reliability. I have been reading books on what might be called “occult history” for thirty years, and cannot recall one that is more enjoyable to read, or more informative about a diverse cast of characters, than Occult America.