Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions
By Richard Smoley and Jay Kinne
New York: Penguin/Arkana, 1999, Paperback, xxvi + 389 pages.
This book is a travel guide to the realms of contemporary esoteric thought and practice. In twelve chapters it covers the following territories: Jungian psychology; Gnosticism: esoteric Christianity and the Course in Miracles with a brief nod to the Liberal Catholic Church; Kabbalah; magic in the line of Eliphas Levi, the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and Dion Fortune; Wicca, Neopaganism, Voodoo (Santeria or Macumba), and Satanism; shamanism, including Amerindian practice and Carlos Castaneda; Hermetic alchemy and the Tarot; the Gurdjieff Work and the enneagram; Sufism; Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and the Templars, Theosophy, Krishnamurti, and Anthroposophy; and the New Age, Alice Bailey, Edgar Cayce, the human potential movement, and transpersonal psychology.
With such scope, inevitably the tour has about it an if-today-is-Tuesday-this-must be- Belgium quality. Yet, despite the breathless rush past so many metaphysical sites, the authors, who were both editors of the now defunct Gnosis magazine, do a commendable job of outlining the essentials of present-day movements. For many of the movements, they present basic ideas and practices, history, historical antecedents, and current status. Some are given short shrift: Krishnamurti is treated only as a transition from Theosophy to Anthroposophy, and Co-Freemasonry receives only a passing mention and docs not even get into the index although, at least in its Anglo version, it is the most esoteric of Masonic organizations. The editors also have, perhaps not surprisingly, a slight Gnostic bias.
The virtue of the book is that the authors approach their subjects with sympathetic objectivity and factualness. For readers interested in learning something about present-day esoteric movements and their variety, this book is a good place to start.