Quest Magazine

Revolutionaries of the Soul: Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers, and Occultists

GARY LACHMAN
Wheaton: Quest, 2014. x + 214 pp., paper, $19.95.

Compilations of essays don’t always make for satisfying reading. Linked together in book form, the content can seem inconsistent, patchy, or repetitive. However, this book is a triumph, with a strong identity of its own, even though the essays were all individual articles, written for different publications over a period of fifteen years or so. Lachman brings them together in a coherent whole, creating a kind of portrait gallery for us, like a sequence of stained glass windows in a dignified old manor house. Each window tells a story, and Lachman makes sure that there is a story to tell, as he leads us from one luminary to another. The range is wide, within the esoteric field: Dion Fortune, P.D. Ouspensky, C.G. Jung, and Éliphas Lévi, to name some of the better-known figures, and Jean Gebser, Jan Potocki, and Owen Barfield as examples of those less well-known, but—as Lachman points out—deserving a more prominent place in history. Take the gallery tour; you’ll enjoy it.

Each chapter left me eager to start another encounter with these “revolutionaries of the soul.” It’s also a book that you can dip into, one that you can read in any order you want to, or enjoy making your way through steadily, from start to finish. On nights when I couldn’t sleep, it was my favorite reading—although I did avoid chapters involving black magic and suicides at those times!

Lachman’s great strength is that he gives us the person as well as his or her lofty or spiritual ideas. His aim is not to debunk when he reveals that Manly Palmer Hall was addicted to doughnuts and Ouspensky to alcohol, or that James Webb, author of The Occult Underground and other works, was arguably psychotic; he shows us that great teachers and thinkers struggle as we do with the pressures of life, and sometimes do remarkable things against the odds of their background, their constitution, or the difficulties that confront them. If we fail to accept that great teachers have foibles, we risk deifying them—and that can be very dangerous, for all concerned. I therefore appreciated the author’s way of describing his subjects with humor and affection, as well as paying tribute to their achievements. Sometimes his style is a little light or casual, but it is always engaging and genuine.

He also discerns the remarkable influence that some of these characters have had on mainstream culture, which is not always acknowledged. Ouspensky, he points out, directly helped to shape ideas in the poems of T.S. Eliot and the writings of J.B. Priestley. Manly P. Hall’s admirers included astronaut Edgar Mitchell and politician Harry S. Truman—along with Elvis Presley! I have a keen interest on how the esoteric meets the outside world, and influences the course of everyday life. (In my book Explore Alchemy, I have written about how alchemy influenced the composer Monteverdi, changing the course of music in the Western world.) Lachman helps to bring esoteric teaching out of the shadows, where it has often been considered unacceptable territory for academics to enter.

I can’t say for sure whether Lachman has included much new research. I had just finished reading Joyce Collin-
Smith’s autobiography, Call No Man Master, which talks in detail about James Webb, and I couldn’t find much additional material in Lachman’s essay “The Strange Death of James Webb.” I didn’t find that a problem, though, as he has the gift of bringing the person to life, and through his eyes I could see Webb more clearly. The only essay where he fails to do that, in my view, is the one on Julius Evola, a figure who comes across as more remote and less interesting. And, inevitably, some research will have moved on since Lachman wrote his original articles. “Colin Wilson and Faculty X” was published in 1995, and ideas on brain function and consciousness, as expounded by Wilson, surely need reevaluating in the light of current research.

But these are slight drawbacks, and the way in which Lachman includes his personal experiences (wryly describing a time when he considered Aleister Crowley “cool”) and face-to-face interviews (as with Owen Barfield) ensure that the studies are fresh and intriguing.

Lachman’s book is a welcome addition to my shelf, and one that I shall be dipping into for years to come, when I want a digestible approach to Swedenborg, an anecdote about Mme. Blavatsky, or a crystalline portrait of Rudolf Steiner. He has done a good job, benefiting all of us.

Cherry Gilchrist

Cherry Gilchrist is the author of a number of books including Explore Alchemy and The Tree of Life Oracle. Her article “The Open Secret of the Esoteric Orders” appeared in the Summer 2013 issue of Quest.

Restoring the Soul of the World: Our Living Bond with Nature's Intelligence

David Fideler
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2014. 310 pp., $18.95.

The chance to read Restoring the Soul of the World has been quite a gift to me. This book is exquisitely researched, and at times uses deeply poetic language to drive home its main point: our reality is far more complex and interconnected than the dry, dead, and purely mechanistic worldview promoted by modernity.

For someone whose formal education ended several decades ago, Fideler's rich and comprehensive content was a convenient way to update my knowledge in many fields. On the scientific front, I learned that since my school days, many discoveries have been made in cosmology. Readers of "a certain age," still mainly picturing the universe as a stable entity — a single solar system surrounded by eight planets — and only vaguely aware of its position within the Milky Way galaxy, are in for an exciting revelation. And though I have read many explanations of quantum physics, Fideler's rendition of what he calls this "spooky" world allowed me to finally glimpse some astonishing implications if what occurs at the micro level can in any way suggest forces that determine our reality at the macro level.

Fideler also provides a historical perspective few of us ever learned in school. He recounts how early peoples had perceived the world as animated by divine presences, but the Enlightenment ushered in a purely scientific and mechanistic worldview that separated us from nature. Incorporating numerous philosophical, spiritual, and existential perspectives into recent scientific findings, Fideler challenges readers to expand our perceptions outward. He asks us also to accept an interconnected view of ourselves as part of a resacralized universe that we now know is not only alive, but constantly expanding. Amid all this, he manages to include a wonderful primer in depth psychology, some meaningful observations about alchemy, art, beauty, and gardening — and even gave me to understand why a person born and educated in the U.S. would choose to live in Sarajevo.

What becomes evident in reading this book is that we are living in a transitional time. Thanks to recent scientific findings, and global connections that allow us to easily incorporate information from all different fields and cultures into our understandings, modernity's mechanistic view of reality is clearly giving way to something new. Sadly, much of the conventional world either has yet to explicitly catch on to this fact, or else reactively fights against it. Because of this, most of us are living a myth in decline.

Fideler describes the experience Edgar Mitchell and a few other astronauts had when given the opportunity to look back and view the earth from outer space. While most of us may tend to think of earth as an entity divided up by strict geographical and arbitrary political boundaries, these men were able to recognize the fragile and beautiful nature of the living earth as an organic unity. Fideler proposes that this inspiring perspective from the astronauts was a symbolic and historical turning point in human evolution. For those of us who will never have the opportunity to travel in space, Restoring the Soul of the World introduces us to the expanded perspective such activity can inspire, and predicts the type of consciousness that will follow modernity's limited perceptions.

Fideler challenges us to abandon the myth in decline that still dominates the conventional world and begin to incorporate postmodern scientific, cultural, philosophical, historical, psychological, spiritual, and artistic perspectives into our worldview. Though I have read other books on related topics, Restoring the Soul of the World finally drove home for me how connections among the various disciplines can bring us to the exciting perspective of a postmodern reality.

I am greatly looking forward to finding the time to reread this book to cement the new education I gained from it. I especially want to ruminate on how Fideler derived his ambitious conclusion that "according to the new cosmology life is a natural stage in the self-organization and community-building power of matter" (my emphasis).

I wish could assign Fideler's work as required reading for anyone in a position to influence public policy and the lives of others: politicians, executives of large corporations, educators, all clergy (especially fundamentalists), and even parents. Perhaps a watered-down version could be incorporated into the curriculum for school children, and cosmology could become a required high school course!

David Fideler is one of the clearest and most authoritative voices yet for a connected, unitive worldview. The perspective he shares could truly move our society forward in a positive direction. Inquiring minds will want to summon the energy to read and digest this ambitious content for themselves — perhaps multiple times.

Margaret Placentra Johnston

The reviewer is the author of Faith beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind (Quest Books).

David Fideler
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2014. 310 pp., $18.95.

The chance to read Restoring the Soul of the World has been quite a gift to me. This book is exquisitely researched, and at times uses deeply poetic language to drive home its main point: our reality is far more complex and interconnected than the dry, dead, and purely mechanistic worldview promoted by modernity.

For someone whose formal education ended several decades ago, Fideler's rich and comprehensive content was a convenient way to update my knowledge in many fields. On the scientific front, I learned that since my school days, many discoveries have been made in cosmology. Readers of "a certain age," still mainly picturing the universe as a stable entity — a single solar system surrounded by eight planets — and only vaguely aware of its position within the Milky Way galaxy, are in for an exciting revelation. And though I have read many explanations of quantum physics, Fideler's rendition of what he calls this "spooky" world allowed me to finally glimpse some astonishing implications if what occurs at the micro level can in any way suggest forces that determine our reality at the macro level.

Fideler also provides a historical perspective few of us ever learned in school. He recounts how early peoples had perceived the world as animated by divine presences, but the Enlightenment ushered in a purely scientific and mechanistic worldview that separated us from nature. Incorporating numerous philosophical, spiritual, and existential perspectives into recent scientific findings, Fideler challenges readers to expand our perceptions outward. He asks us also to accept an interconnected view of ourselves as part of a resacralized universe that we now know is not only alive, but constantly expanding. Amid all this, he manages to include a wonderful primer in depth psychology, some meaningful observations about alchemy, art, beauty, and gardening — and even gave me to understand why a person born and educated in the U.S. would choose to live in Sarajevo.

What becomes evident in reading this book is that we are living in a transitional time. Thanks to recent scientific findings, and global connections that allow us to easily incorporate information from all different fields and cultures into our understandings, modernity's mechanistic view of reality is clearly giving way to something new. Sadly, much of the conventional world either has yet to explicitly catch on to this fact, or else reactively fights against it. Because of this, most of us are living a myth in decline.

Fideler describes the experience Edgar Mitchell and a few other astronauts had when given the opportunity to look back and view the earth from outer space. While most of us may tend to think of earth as an entity divided up by strict geographical and arbitrary political boundaries, these men were able to recognize the fragile and beautiful nature of the living earth as an organic unity. Fideler proposes that this inspiring perspective from the astronauts was a symbolic and historical turning point in human evolution. For those of us who will never have the opportunity to travel in space, Restoring the Soul of the World introduces us to the expanded perspective such activity can inspire, and predicts the type of consciousness that will follow modernity's limited perceptions.

Fideler challenges us to abandon the myth in decline that still dominates the conventional world and begin to incorporate postmodern scientific, cultural, philosophical, historical, psychological, spiritual, and artistic perspectives into our worldview. Though I have read other books on related topics, Restoring the Soul of the World finally drove home for me how connections among the various disciplines can bring us to the exciting perspective of a postmodern reality.

I am greatly looking forward to finding the time to reread this book to cement the new education I gained from it. I especially want to ruminate on how Fideler derived his ambitious conclusion that "according to the new cosmology life is a natural stage in the self-organization and community-building power of matter" (my emphasis).

I wish could assign Fideler's work as required reading for anyone in a position to influence public policy and the lives of others: politicians, executives of large corporations, educators, all clergy (especially fundamentalists), and even parents. Perhaps a watered-down version could be incorporated into the curriculum for school children, and cosmology could become a required high school course!

David Fideler is one of the clearest and most authoritative voices yet for a connected, unitive worldview. The perspective he shares could truly move our society forward in a positive direction. Inquiring minds will want to summon the energy to read and digest this ambitious content for themselves — perhaps multiple times.

Margaret Placentra Johnston

The reviewer is the author of Faith beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind (Quest Books).

Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll

Peter Bebergal
New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2014. 252 pp., hardcover, $27.95.

Peter Bebergal's Season of the Witch seems organized in a way resembling certain occult texts: in a fashion elusive and slippery, with elisions and leaps in the narrative which follow a certain internal logic not readily quantified. Nonetheless, the book is an interesting though incomplete survey of the topic of how the occult "saved" rock and roll — even though "grounded" might be the more accurate term.

Bebergal devotes a great deal of space — rightfully — to ethnomusicological discussions of what we might call "proto-rock"—the work songs, shouts, and ring chants of African-American slaves who were influenced by a syncretic blend of pagan and Christian influences. Anyone familiar with Eileen Southern's work on the music of black Americans will find much in this section which is familiar. (But Lucille Bogan's admittedly notorious lyrics to "Shave 'Em Dry" may not be the most obvious examplar of the blues' rejection of the sacred in favor of the purely sensual; surely Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey would have provided earlier and more characteristic examples.)

The author states from the outset that certain favorites of inveterate rock aficionados will be slighted, but I can't help being mildly dismayed that The Incredible String Band doesn't make the cut; that there is a fair amount about the heliocentric cosmology of jazz great Sun Ra but no mention of the maleficent "Eulogy and Light" by the equally cosmic Parliament-Funkadelic; and that XTC's crowning achievement "The Wheel and the Maypole" is cited not at all.

It sounds as though I am losing no opportunity to find fault with the book, but Bebergal is usually remarkably astute in selecting his examples, and one would not necessarily wish his book to be encyclopedic; in any case this was not the author's intention. When he talks about how 1950s anti-rock criticism overtook the form and threatened to strangle it in its cradle, he correctly notes that "rock's detractors were even more sensitive to the music's occult wellspring than the young fans," though one may take issue with his view that "intentions to stop the music in its tracks instead started a conflagration that has never gone out." Bebergal perhaps overstates the notion that rock was a "pagan virus" and understates the virulent racism which also played a significant role in early anti-rock rhetoric.

The book becomes of compelling interest when the author allows his subjective impressions to steer the narrative, notably in the last five chapters. He intelligently discusses seminal rock figures whose whole shtick (let alone lasting fame) must seem inexplicable to those unfamiliar with the vagaries of popular music: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (though not Screamin' Jay Hawkins); Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett (but not the devil-haunted Roky Erikson); and George Harrison and the Beatles (who are given coverage commensurate with their status). The discussion of the Rolling Stones and their abortive collaboration with avant-garde filmmaker (and Aleister Crowley devotee) Kenneth Anger is excellent. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, and (following the hierarchy further down) Kiss are not slighted. The satanic panic of the 1980s is mentioned in passing. In chapter four, the author manages to (partially) explain the mind-set of David Bowie in an interesting essay which in some sense forms the core of the book. From Bowie onwards, the author leads us on a spelunking expedition through the likes of Throbbing Gristle, the Goth movement, Hawkwind, Robert Moog, King Crimson, New Age music, and — leaping into the twenty-first century — Death Metal, Jay Z, and Madonna at the 2012 Superbowl half-time show.

The final chapter gives us the thesis of the book in a nutshell: "Rock's essential rebellious spirit is a spiritual rebellion at its core, and this, like all forms of occult and Gnostic practices, is a threat to the establishment, be it religious, political, or social."

Bebergal has set himself to the task of giving us an impressionistic and idiosyncratic account of where rock and roll and the occult actually do intersect, and, in this limited aim, he has succeeded.

Francis DiMenno

Francis DiMenno is a humorist, historian, and long-time music journalist based in Providence, Rhode Island.