Table of Contents

REINTRODUCTION
POWER AND UNCERTAINTY

PART I
Strange Fire

1 RECLAIMING THE DAMNED
2 CHOOSE YOUR OWN REALITY
3 “MY WILL BE DONE”
4 IS YOUR MIND A TECHNOLOGY FOR UTOPIA?

PART II
Magickal Operations

5 ANARCHIC MAGICK
6 GOD OF THE OUTSIDERS
7 “DOWN WITH THE BLUE BLOODS”
8 SUFFERING AND THE LIMITS OF MAGICK
9 AGAINST TRADITION
10 YOU ARE YOUR MASK
11 IS MAGICK NECESSARY?

PART III
“Up, Up O Ye Gods!”

12 THE NEW AGE AND GNOSTICISM
13 HERMES RESURRECTED
14 THE DEVIL AND MR. JONES

PART IV
Incarnations
15 OCCULT AMERICAN
16 SEEING IN THE DARK: DAVID LYNCH UNCUT
17 THE MAN WHO DESTROYED SKEPTICISM

PART V
Damned History

18 THE WAR ON WITCHES
19 HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE ILLUMINATI
20 A DIABOLICAL DEVICE
21 VISIONS FROM SOMEWHERE
22 THE MAGIC STAFF
23 THE PREFACE THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT BANNED

AFTERWORD
HOW IT FEELS TO BE BLACKLISTED

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INDEX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the Author

Mitch Horowitz is a PEN Award–winning historian and widely known voice of esoteric ideas with bylines in the New York Times, Time, Politico, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of many books, including Occult America, One Simple Idea, Daydream Believer, and The Miracle Club. His work is censored in China.

Reviews

“Treats esoteric ideas and movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in today’s raised-voice discussions.”
*Washington Post*

“This book is nothing less than a masterpiece. It introduces, informs, inspires, and ignites critical thinking in a way that is unique to Horowitz’s creative mind. He is a constant source of infectious curiosity and openmindedness; no esoteric stone, small or big, is left unturned in his pursuit of new perspectives and connections. His mind and work are those of a restless rebel who provokes the stagnant and causally dull with sparks and nuggets of great wisdom. In many ways, Horowitz is the perfect mix of Manly P. Hall, Joseph Campbell, and Prometheus, eloquently carrying the torch of mythic and spiritual illumination into the twenty-first century.”
*Carl Abrahamsson, author of Source Magic and Occulture*

“In Uncertain Places, Mitch Horowitz achieves the impossible. He provides a crystal-clear look at topics that are drenched in the murkiest of ambiguities yet continue to fascinate every living soul. Horowitz aims a brilliantly lucid lens toward the great unwashed domain of the occult, and he magically manages to bring into view shocking truths about a realm that has always been hiding in plain sight.”
*Dean Radin, Ph.D., author of Real Magic*

“Mitch Horowitz is at his best when he throws new light on the hidden subtext of accepted dogma. From ‘anarchic magick’ to ‘reclaiming the damned,’ Uncertain Places stands as a sweeping reinterpretation of major themes at the sharp edge of American imagination.”
*Jacques Vallée, coauthor of TRINITY: The Best-Kept Secret*

“I admire Mitch Horowitz enormously. He has struggled virtually singlehandedly to get the American intelligentsia to give occult and esoteric currents the serious attention they deserve. This collection exemplifies the intelligence, sincerity, and integrity Mitch has always brought to his inquiry. He has fearlessly faced some of the most awkward subjects in his field and cast his own unique light on them. Fascinating and erudite.”
*Richard Smoley, author of A Theology of Love: Reimagining Christianity through A Course in Miracles*

“What a welcome guide in these uncertain times! Mitch Horowitz continues his program for bringing esoteric ideas out of the closet and into the public forum. Here he reveals the New Age for what it really is: the exoteric face of the Hermetic philosophy. Once we realize that the human mind is the extension of the divine creative power, the rest follows, like a flood sweeping away the debris of religions and anti-religions alike. To paraphrase: Mind is the ultimate arbiter of reality. All self-expression is sacred. The only evil is to prevent other beings from reaching their highest potential. We are all gods in the making, but more than gods, being forged in the crucible of the world. Even those familiar with this line of thought will relish the parade of characters, charlatans, and sages that emerge from Uncertain Places.”
*Joscelyn Godwin, author of The Greater and Lesser Worlds of Robert Fludd*

“Who are we? What are we? Have we ever really been entirely human? Whether or not we have or have not, if we want to make any advancement in this respect, we will have to delve into certain quagmires such as the occult and the paranormal to discover ourselves. This work is dangerous, but Mitch Horowitz has the courage to undertake it. As a bonus, his writing is very amusing.”
*Peter Lamborn Wilson, author of Peacock Angel*

“Here is a learned yet accessible book about the shaping power of will and intention, about the reality of an extraphysical world (or worlds), about just how wrong and stupid the debunkers and conspiracy theorists have been, and about religious belief as dissociation—the still unknown mirror in which we will someday come to recognize ourselves. Here are the ‘uncertain places’ that many of us have not yet gone but will.”
*Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Reali*

“To make the density of countless esoteric teachings and life-changing mind metaphysics accessible to nearly anyone is a gift Mitch Horowitz is currently in the practice of leaving us all with.”
*Jesse Draxler, American visual artist and author of Misophonia*

"A fast-paced collection of essays covering a wide range of controversial topics--among them: the creative agency of the mind, the dynamic interplay of inner and outer realities, paranormal research, causality of thought, the metaphysical dimension of the human experience, and alternative spirituality. This book serves as a compass to navigate the tricky maze of occulture's house of mirrors, with its seductive dead-ends, alluring distorted images, and misinformation galore. Horowitz's essays are erudite yet accessible, persuasive and pragmatic, full of striking observation casting a new light on how we see and interpret the world."
*Ferdinando Buscema, BoingBoing.nt*