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The Occult Underground
James WebbJust when it seemed that Science and Reason had scored their greatest triumphs, the mid-nineteenth century witnessed an astonishing rebirth of occultism and anti-rationalism: the beginnings of the movement we now call New Age. A secret tradition of knowledge rejected by the Christian or Scientific establishments suddenly became emboldened to seek publicity and converts.
James Webb's painstaking research carry him into the undergrowth inhabited by such illuminated personages as Madame Blavatsky, the Reverend Leadbeater, the Bortherhood of Luxor, Annie Besant, Krishnamurti, Swami Vivekananda, Spiritualists, Rosicrucians, Vegetarians, Mithraic cults, and all manner of occult propagandists.
"fascinating detail . . . particularly good in tracing the obscure and subterranean spiritual affiliations through which these pilgrims of eternity were bound together . . . as relevant to our own time as it is to the nineteenth century."
--Goronwy Rees, ENCOUNTER
This is a stunning history of "occult" thought and practice in the 19th Century, pursuing the thesis that times of intellectual and material stress -- Darwin, war, etc. -- produce a flight from reason and the embrace of other realities. Webb is always neutral on the question of the actuality of belief, sticking strictly to historical and material evidence and touching on occult or religious dogma only as matters of influence, which makes him a perfect chronicler from either a materialist or a Fortean viewpoint.
I am far more familiar now with much of the history touched on in this encyclopedic volume than I was in 1974, but Webb's perspective presents many surprises. For example, the chapter on the French Symbolists as occultists and the chapter on the occult movements that arose in Poland after its dissolution by the Congress of Vienna, produce the effect of viewing familiar history in a magic mirror, a truly unique perspective on the personalities and events of the period.
This is an essential book for anyone who wants an overview of the stranger beliefs of the 19th Century and an understanding of how they fed into the nationalist, reformist, and progressive movements that shaped the 20th Century. Webb's sequel, The Occult Establishment, carries that theme forward
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