Occult America

electronic resource

English language

Published Nov. 10, 2009 by Random House Publishing Group.

ISBN:
978-0-553-90698-1
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
466771226

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3 stars (1 review)

It touched lives as disparate as those of Frederick Douglass, Franklin Roosevelt, and Mary Todd Lincoln--who once convinced her husband, Abe, to host a seance in the White House. Americans all, they were among the famous figures whose paths intertwined with the mystical and esoteric movement broadly known as the occult. Brought over from the Old World and spread throughout the New by some of the most obscure but gifted men and women of early U.S. history, this "hidden wisdom" transformed the spiritual life of the still-young nation and, through it, much of the Western world.Yet the story of the American occult has remained largely untold. Now a leading writer on the subject of alternative spirituality brings it out of the shadows. Here is a rich, fascinating, and colorful history of a religious revolution and an epic of offbeat history.From the meaning of the symbols on the one-dollar bill to …

2 editions

Entertaining, but dated already and lacks some important depth

3 stars

I mean, I wish I could do half stars. Honestly, this book is fine, Horowitz's style is extremely readable and it's well researched for the most part. But it feels dated already and I think it's important to discuss the "occult" without also tackling definitions of religion, magic, spirituality, philosophy, and science. Which, yeah, is a lot. But it's important imho.