I picked up this book looking for a very basic primer on the history of Western occultism, and I got what I wanted in about half a book’s worth.
The opening chapter gives an introduction to the precursors of the Western tradition: Kabbalah, Alchemy and Tarot (later linked by Eliphas Levi, etc). These are two subjects that I could probably read about forever and never feel as if I’d gotten a real grasp of the entire subject. These are included in the book less as a comprehensive overview and more as a setup for some of the practices of later, household-name occultists, but still provide a pretty good baseline. Not something I’d ever reference again probably, but a good stepping off point to know what I ought to read about later.
The second chapter is similar to the first: setting up some of the motifs of Freemasonry and the Rose Cross to be found in the western occult tradition without really going into too much depth. I guess I’ve never been the sort of person who was too much interested in “secret societies,” and reading briefly about them makes me even less interested, considering that, at least per this book, the original Rosicrucian documents may be the work of a couple of anonymous randoms and not constitute any real confraternity at all. Still, the Golden Dawn and the French Belle Époque Rose Croix groups are based heavily off of the symbolism and tradition of these two groups.
Chapters three and four deal with The Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley, which were the two most interesting chapters for me — not because I find either the original Golden Dawn or it’s Crowleyan branches to be super interesting, but because they are names I’ve heard repetitively for years and wanted a way to situate them historically in broad brushstrokes. This book 100% did the trick and I got exactly what I needed out of these two chapters, with some pleasant spotlights on the women of the Golden Dawn, which the group famously and kindly allowed to participate. Crowley is of course…I would say unpleasantly portrayed here. I want to avoid spending a lot of time on him, because he seems to attract a lot of cringelords, and maybe to be a prototypical cringelord himself, though I think that may be a bit unfair. I’ll probably read another book about him at some point, but he’s not really my style.
The fifth chapter was unexpectedly nice, and dealt with Dion Fortune, Austin Osman Spare and Rosaleen Norton. I’m not familiar with Norton, and I’m not particularly sure if I find her method and practice compelling, though her personality runs directly counter to whatever Capricornian impulse I have to stay within the lines at all cost. I find Spare to be very compelling, and his art style is almost the most interesting thing about him, though Norton’s style is sort of lackluster so I think that’s why I’m also not as interested in her work.
The sixth chapter is about Wiccanism and other goddess religions as originally fostered by Garner and later Buckland, though I’ve been clear before about finding these practices to be perfectly good for the people who like them, but not necessarily for me. Gardner comes off as a bit dodgy to me, though you could say the same for a lot of occultists generally, and a bit of a self promoter at the expense of any authenticity. I remember of course reading that groups which fracture and splinter and are beset by a bunch of infighting generally have a specific sort of malady that could be remedied by some common garden wisdom, but of course never is. This rings true for both Crowley and Gardner at certain points.
Seventh was sort of interesting to me as I’ve always been curious about whatever the hell Anton Lavey was up to. Turns out it’s more post-psychedelic 60s riffing on organized religion, presumably without much substance. Of course, this book is less kind to Lavey than it is to Crowley, so of course my judgement may be skewed, but Lavey always seemed to me to split the balance between a Donald Trump and a Marilyn Manson figure; some mixture of freak-em-out and soulless showmanship. Like Elvira but not funny or cool. Of course, Temple of Set seems more rigorous, and is a direct offshoot of the Church of Satan, but then again, I’m not sure what kind of mark it leaves or what it is intending to really do. Temple of Satan being a whole different gig entirely, just to make things more confusing.
Chapter 8 treats Jung, Carlos Casteneda (who seems to go down some kind of rabbithole way to esoteric for me to follow, though his acolytes seem to like him), another post Castaneda white shaman named Dr. Michael Harner, and a practitioner of a Scandinavian shamanism called Seidr. Then there’s this bizarre romp through the life of yet another white guy, practicing Voudon, who apparently lived/lives not too far from me in Chicago. Some more research into this Michael Bertiaux, who I’m assuming is not alive, brought me to a blog where one of his former students accuses him of what essentially amounts to sexual assault and plain creepiness, which again, welcome to Western occultism.
There’s a last gasp of a chapter which treats Terrence McKenna, and then a dated section about what it would be like if in the future, pagans can hang out in internet chat rooms. Well, we all see how that turned out.
All in all, a solid book that gave me what I wanted: a very brief, broad introduction to some of the names I’ve been hearing forever, with a good setup of Medieval precursors. Again, I don’t know if I’d use it, or need it for reference, but it’s a great jumping off point to read about some of the figures he mentions.
sigilhouse 