Name: The Dedalus Book of the Occult
ISBN: 9781909232440

Gary Lachman

'The Dedalus Book of the Occult' celebrates the influence of occult thought on some of the central poets and writers of the last two centuries, beginning with the Enlightenment obsession with occult politics and leading through to the deep occult roots of the modernist movement.

A Dark Muse

The Dedalus Book of the Occult

Tim Pendry

This is one of Gary Lachman's lighter weight excursions into the history of the esoteric but it is well worth having in the Library. In effect, it is a series of suggestive and rather entertaining biographies from the Enlightenment world of Swedenborg, Mesmer and Cagliostro to the modernist occultism of the much less well known Daumal, Milosz and Lowry. There are just over 40 of these pen portraits under five occultist headings (Enlightenment, Romantic, Satanic, Fin de Siecle and Modernist), with good short introductions to each section. It is a book that can be usefully 'dipped into' whenever one of the 40 pops up somewhere else. The last quarter or so is a smattering of original texts, perhaps somewhat hard to fathom out of their full context and in an order that may have its own occult meaning but which passed me by, but useful to have available nonetheless. Certainly, for all its lack of depth, this is well recommended as an enjoyable reference source and the starting point for further study into a cultural phenomenon that still acts as a strong undercurrent in European life and literature.

The Dedalus Book of the Occult A Dark Muse

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