Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation
Mitch Horowitz is the editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin and responsible for the publication of such seminal esoterica books as Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages: Reader's Edition, The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort, and a slew of other contemporary and classic works of high weirdness. Mitch is also a great writer on the occult himself. His own new book, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, went on sale today. I haven't read it yet, but Mitch wrote an overview of the book for Graham Hancock's site and it's terrific. I'm delighted that Mitch is going to guestblog on Boing Boing a few weeks from now too! I'm sure every post will be a gem from the equinox. From Mitch's essay, also titled Occult America:
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"Occult America" at the Official Graham Hancock WebsiteBy the 1830s and 40s, a region of central New York State called "the Burned-Over District" (so-named for its religious passions) became the magnetic center for the religious radicalism sweeping the young nation. Stretching from Albany to Buffalo, it was the Mt. Sinai of American mysticism, giving birth to new religions such as Mormonism and Seventh-Day Adventism, and also to the spread of Spiritualism, Mesmerism, mediumship, table-rapping, séances, and other occult sensations - many of which mirrored, and aided, the rise of Suffragism and related progressive movements.
The nation's occult culture gave women their first opportunity to openly serve as religious leaders - in this case as spirit mediums, seers, and channlers. America's social and spiritual radicals were becoming joined, and the partnership would never fade.
The robust growth of occult and mystical movements in nineteenth-century America was aided by the influence of three mighty social and spiritual movements: Freemasonry, Transcendentalism, and Spiritualism. Each helped transform the young nation into a laboratory for religious experiment and a springboard for the revolutions in nontraditional and therapeutic spirituality that eventually swept the globe. Consider:
• Freemasonry is, perhaps, a direct remnant of the most radical thought movement to emerge from the Reformation, and it instilled a strong anti-authoritarian streak in America's early religious culture. Masonry's penchant for occult and pagan symbolism suggests how some of the nation's Founders - many of whom were Masons - understood religious truth as emanating from a common source that could be found in different cultures throughout history, including those of a mystical and pre-Christian past. American Masonry emphasized religious tolerance, which its highly placed members, including George Washington (pictured in Masonic garb at left) and Benjamin Franklin, modeled and interwove throughout American life. Early in his presidency, Washington took matters a step further. In a letter to the congregation of a Rhode Island synagogue, the first president wrote: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts." In other words, minority religions were no longer guests of the new republic, but full members. Whatever Freemasonry's airs of secrecy and images of skulls, pyramids, and all-seeing eyes, it is in this principle where one finds the order's truly most radical, even dangerous, idea: the encouragement of different faiths within a single nation.
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Is that a good thing?
I guess the "Age of Reason" had its share of snake oil too.
For those who might like to know more about this topic.
I suggest a series of Documentaries
Secret Mysteries of America's Beginnings Volume 1-3
While it may have been beneficial to advance tolerance of differing faiths, Freemasons must, I'm told, swear to a belief in a (I assume singular) higher being or some such supernatural éminence grise. It is perhaps too much to ask of the times that non-belief be accorded a similar tolerance, but one has to wonder why this was (and continues to be) so.
I have always loved the eye surveying from the pyramid. This is proof JRR Tolkein was a freemason.
Walter,
Or (if going on no other evidence, at all) that he really wasn't.
@#4
Traditional Masonic lodges are male only, and require belief in a higher being, but there are lodges, at least here in Europe, that have dropped both requirements. Still, I wouldn't want to join. I might end up spending my free nights talking shop with middle aged businessfolk when all I joined for was the satanic abuse and world domination.
@#4, yeah, it does seem it was too much to ask. Although it seems the "higher being" in many cases was just the benign but non-interfering clockmaker of Deism. These were children of the Enlightenment who "worshipped" by promoting humanism and the exploration of natural laws, and would probably be smeared as atheists in today's political discourse.
Considering all the offensive nonsense this guy has written about the Maya, how can I take anything he writes seriously?
While I'm sure there is an interesting history to the subject matter of American occultism, past performance of this author gives me *no* faith that he can write without massive sensationalistic distortions of the truth.
I recommend people do their own research elsewhere.
I should be clear that I'm talking about Hancock.
@#4, #8, the concept of a supreme being is so central to the rituals and obligations of mainstream Freemasonry that dropping it as a requirement would sort of defeat the purpose of the fraternity's existence.
That is not to say that those who believe in a supreme being are necessarily better people than atheists; I totally understand the frustration expressed by so many atheists over the supreme being requirement. But it's not just a checkbox on the application form, so to speak; it's really central to everything, and removing it would fundamentally change the character of things.
All that being said, I don't want to give the impression that Freemasonry is all about worship, because it's not; it's about trying to live up to an absolute truth. The completely vague and nonspecific requirement of belief in a supreme being leaves it up to the individual, but fosters a common understanding that Masons should try to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
According to their FAQ, the Grand Orient de France espouses freedom of conscience, which allows atheists to join. I don't know how their degrees differ, but they must be fairly different in some places as a result.
I think I need Dr. (eu)Gene Scott to read this book to me a paragraph at a time while urging me to "Git onna phones!"
Scholarly readers with serious coin in their pockets will also want to read Arthur Versluis' Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance
http://tinyurl.com/nvayuo
What about the requirement to be 'whole'? Only the able-bodied need apply. Only men, only believers. It's a trifecta of anti-equality violations!
Still, the American new-age mysticism that is so widespread is a fascinating artifact in a country that has a dominant belief in Christianity. Heck, some denominations outright decry mysticism as 'the devil's work'!
MARKFREI, My post has nothing to do with Hancock. Hancock didn't write the book about the occult history of America or the piece I excerpt. Maybe you didn't read my post before commenting?
Many jurisdictions don't have the requirement to be "whole". I've read about it historically, but I've never encountered it. Probably a holdover from "operative" times, when Masons really were stonemasons.
@markfrei -do you have some examples of his "offensive nonsense"?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/09/homeland.security.headquarters/index.html
A researcher recently investigated the many occult symbols build into the Manitoba Legislature:
http://www.sric-canada.org/Legislature.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitoba_Legislative_Building
I was asked to join a Masonic lodge once but when I told them I was Catholic I was told I wasn't qualified and sent on my way.