Mitch Horowitz is the editor in chief of Tarcher/Penguin. He has written for Esopus, Parabola, Fortean Times, and Science of Mind. A well-known voice for occult and esoteric ideas, Horowitz lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
“What a fascinating book. So it happens that another equally
compelling take on our complicated national narrative lies just
beneath the surface of things; not the grand procession of
presidents, generals, and wars, but something more hidden, more
mysterious, but often no less revealing.”—Ken Burns
“Invisible and mysterious forces have shaped and guided the destiny
of individuals and nations throughout history. From Moses to
Gandhi, Jesus to Muhammad, Lincoln to Obama, hidden dimensions, in
both our personal and collective consciousness, were conceiving,
constructing, and shaping the course of civilization. In his
precise and often detailed history of mysticism in America, Mitch
Horowitz, has, in a way, tracked the evolution of our consciousness
over 300 years.”—Deepak Chopra
“A sparkling, down-to-earth and often deeply touching account
of a powerful, much misunderstood force in the formation of
America's cultural and spiritual identity.”—Jacob Needleman, author
of The American Soul and The New Religions."
“Occult America is a truly remarkable achievement. Exhaustively
researched, it takes the reader from the early concepts of the
supernatural, personified by Mother Ann Lee, Joseph Smith, and
Madame Blavatsky, through such modern-day figures as Henry A.
Wallace and Norman Vincent Peale. It opens the eyes of the
relatively uninitiated, in which I include myself, to the effect
the occult has had, is having, and will have on the American
experience.”—John S.D. Eisenhower, author of The Bitter Woods: The
Battle of the Bulge and So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico,
1846-1848
“Religious people tend to be afraid of the word occult. Horowitz
examines this aspect of life and religion in penetrating ways . . .
and revealing its not unsubstantial influence on mainline
Christianity. Truth seekers have always come from the edges.
Religion itself should be glad they do.”—John Shelby Spong, author
of Jesus for the Non-Religious
“This book is a delightfully original tour through American
history, as seen through the lives of men and women devoted to all
manner of mysticism. Across these pages troop spiritualists,
prophets, seers, psychics, numerologists, transcendentalists,
theosophists, and historical figures from Mary Todd Lincoln to
Marcus Garvey to Henry Wallace. Their stories are part of the
deep-seated American tradition of searching for the new—a tradition
that Occult America both explains and enriches.”—Stephen Kinzer,
author of Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii
to Iraq and All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of
Middle East Terror
“Occult America treats esoteric ideas and movements with an
even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in
today's raised-voice discussions about religion and belief
systems.”—Washington Post Express
“One of the most readable histories of American mysticism ever
written. . . . This is historical reporting that is crafted so
well, it holds the reader much like a Voodoo spell.”—Tucson
Citizen
“Horowitz teases out fascinating stories of the ‘dreamers and
planners who flourished along the Psychic Highway’ . . . in showing
how the paths of these figures occasionally intersected with the
likes of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Horowitz argues that the influence of the occult extends
beyond the séance room and into the mainstream of American
thought.”—Washington Post Book World
“A brilliant job of tracking down how positive thinker Norman
Vincent Peale borrowed his core self-help philosophy from a
religious movement called New Thought.” —Washington Times
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