Reviews for Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation

The average rating for Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-13 00:00:00 Benjamin Suit Having studied esoteric and occult culture for well over half my life, this book doesn't contain anything that I hadn't already read about. However, the author's treatment of his subject matter is a refreshing change from either the condescending manner of skeptical writers or the credulous tone of New Age proselytizers. While the book itself is a slim volume, its pages are full of characters and their exploits, woven together quite skillfully into a concise history of the main esoteric belief systems and trends from the earliest days of America down to the Aquarian revolution of the late '60's and 70's. As this is the author's first book, I'm willing to overlook its brevity and somewhat superficial treatment of the individual subjects contained therein. Hopefully Occult America will be a basic introduction in a series of works that explores American esoteric practices with more depth. The author's top notch research along with his sensitivity, passion and respect for the subject makes this a fantastic stepping off point and leaves me wanting more.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-03-25 00:00:00 Dan Belvin I just couldn't bring myself to finish this. The title gives the impression that mysticisim and the occult actually played a big role in American history, and that the author will be revealing fascinating secrets. Nope. Instead, it's just a simple history of the various weird things that people have believed in (for a certain value of weird, of course). It's actually very dry, which is a shame. Probably overresearched and overwritten. Top that off with a complete and total lack of critical reasoning applied to some of this stuff, and it's both dull and overly credulous. Couldn't even make it past theosophy.