Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Preface 1. The Worship of the Generative Powers 2. The Cult of the Sun 3. The Blasphemers 4. The Shoemaker and the Squire 5. Magicians and Revolutionaries 6. Neophytes and Initiates 7. Artists and Astrologers 8. Animal Magnetism 9. Visions in the Crystal 10. Hydesville and After 11. From the Orphic Circle to the Golden Dawn 12. The Way to Christ 13. Rosicrucian Pretenders 14. Enter Madame Blavatsky 15. Wisdom from the East 16. The Hermetic Reaction 17. The Parting of East and West Appendix A Letter from Rammohun Roy to Robert Dale Owen Appendix B Letter from Hargrave Jennings to Bulwer-Lytton Notes Bibliography of Works Cited Index

About the Author

Joscelyn Godwin is a Professor at Colgate University. His previous works include Arktos; Robert Fludd; Athanasius Kircher; Mystery Religions in the Ancient World; Harmonies of Heaven and Earth; The Mystery of the Seven Vowels; and L'Esoterisme musical en France.

Reviews

"As in all his former books, Godwin's style is not only elegant but clear and understandable. It lends itself to a pleasant reading by any person who, though being a layman in the field, has a minimal breadth of culture." - Antoine Faivre, Sorbonne "This is a wonderful work: witty, charming, erudite, profound. It demonstrates on the basis of extraordinary research and scholarship that the theosophical, spiritualist, and esoteric movements of the nineteenth century were significant in many ways we are only now in a position to realize." - Christopher Bamford, Lindisfarne Press