Boing Boing guestblogger Mitch Horowitz is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation and editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin publishers.
Friends, It has been a pleasure to be a part of the Boing Boing nation as a guest blogger these past two weeks. I hope to stay in contact online and to meet some of you at various gigs around the country, including at the Esalen Institute, where Erik Davis and I will be delivering a weekend workshop on February 19-21 titled "The Occult in America: An Adventure in Arcane History." You can also see me next Friday at 9 p.m. EST on a Dateline NBC special about Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.While I was writing Occult America, the figure I came to most admire was Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965), Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of agriculture and second vice president. Wallace was not only a successful businessman (founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred) and an innovative politician (his policies saved thousands of family farms during the Great Depression), but he was also a genuine searcher into cosmic realms, freely exploring Theosophy, Tibetan Buddhism, astrology, Native American shamanism, and various strands of mysticism. His name may be largely forgotten, but he was a model of how to live with purpose.
I wish you farewell with two of Wallace's statements:
Selected Works of Henry A. WallaceReligion is a method whereby man reaches out toward God in an effort to find the spiritual power to express here on earth in a practical way the divine potentialities in himself and his fellow beings.
Karma means that while things may not balance out in a given lifetime, they balance out in the long run in terms of justice between individuals, between man and whole. It seems to me one of the most profound of all religious concepts.
Henry A. Wallace Country Life Center
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Thank you so much, Mitch, for your excellent coverage of the 'non-linear' realms. BoingBoing is a treasure trove for analytical discussion, but it disappoints me that there are so few readers who have even the slightest spiritual bent.
I just finished sending links to everyone I know regarding the finest documentary I've ever seen. I urge anyone to take the two-minute acid test and see if the full 20 minutes will hold your interest.
The first part contains nothing that is even controversial. Yet, I stopped posting here because nobody else seems to leave even the tiniest portion of their psyche open to the great "What If?"
The Awakening
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7346dFnkE
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzVEUWNU4JM
"We're not in the end days, or even in the end hours. WE ARE IN THE FINAL MINUTES! And the choice of what the final outcome will be, the very key to winning, lies within each of you. All I can ask is that you each look within yourself, because when you look deep enough, you will find that the words I have spoken are true. Realize your inner power and embrace your true potential because the truth will set you free. My friends, stop complying with the system, it's time to wake up!"
P.S. Mighty thanks to the chap who posted a link to VigilantCitizen on the "Occult in Hip Hop" thread. A definite Eye-opener!
I love you Mitch Horowitz
Thanks for the great posts! I love boingboing already but the past two weeks on here have been a great source of info thanks to you. Its hard to find level-headed discussion of occult topics. I've been reading tarot since I was a teenager. Most people think, "Oh, so you can tell my future, right?" But it is so much more than that. Hopefully you've opened some eyes to the depth of modern mysticism and how it can enrich the lives of everyone and anyone.
Big thanks for refreshing a subject way up there on the list of Wonderful Things. I'll be readin' up your stuff shortly.
Thanks for your contributions Mitch! I thoroughly enjoyed your entries, and I am neither a credulous woo wackjob nor an anti-spiritual harpy. I'm just a normal guy who knows "wonderful things" when he sees it.