Books like The Theosophical Enlightenment — picked by fans

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) remains understudied and misunderstood. His colorful and often scandalous biography still occludes his intellectual and spiritual brilliance. Crowley robustly argued a deep commonality between Western ritual magick and Indian Yoga.

This book is his magnum opus; the first part, “Mysticism,” deals with the “eight limbs of Yoga.” Crowley’s argument is that a pursuit of magic and meditation, which he sees as two sides of the same coin, should manifest one’s inner genius and lead to a purposeful life aligned with one’s true will.   

Urban was among the first scholars who took seriously connections between Indian Tantra and some strands of Western occultism, even while remaining critical of the latter’s take on the former.

This book is a study of Western fascinations with (often amounting to a series of misunderstandings about) Tantra and its conflation with sex, in the process of which it is misconstrued as “the cult of ecstasy.” Urban applies to the Victorian discovery and captivation with Tantra, the well-known Foucault’s contention about sexuality–that, far from being repressed by a scandalized silence, it is, in fact, incessantly and obsessively talked about. 

To say that Kenneth Grant’s (1924-2011) writing style is idiosyncratic would be a huge understatement, for to read him often equals entering into a dream state shot through with sinister overtones and illumined by the morbid light of witch’s Moon. Grant is mostly known for his “Typhonian Trilogies”–nine volumes that explore Crowley’s Thelema in connection with Lovecraftian mythos, Haitian Vodou, Austin Osman Spare’s art and sigil magic, Asian Tantra, and a number of related subjects.

Grant casts a wide conceptual net over the topics he explores by integrating them as aspects of a putative “Typhonian” or “Draconian” tradition, with its roots in pre-dynastic Egypt, that focuses on the mysteries of sexual magic and gives preeminence to the mystical power of female sexual vibrations. His argument is that this tradition often glossed over as the “left-hand path” sans negative moral connotations in its nomenclature, suffered historical repercussions by the representatives of… show more.

This book is based on the series of articles that Dion Fortune (1890-1946) originally published in The Inner Light Magazine in 1939-1940. It was published in a book format with an added contribution by Gareth Knight (1930-2022), who continued and made more widely known Fortune’s work and ideas.

Fortune is mostly associated with championing the “Western Esoteric Tradition,” and she was critical of those Westerners practicing foreign spiritual systems, such as Indian Yoga, arguing that cultures should not mix. Nevertheless, this particular series of essays on “the circuit of force" displays her deep familiarity with Yoga, in particular as it concerns subjects such as the kuṇḍalinī and prāṇa. “I have tried both methods,” wrote she somewhat surprisingly, “and in my opinion, the Eastern method is incomparably the more efficacious.”

Knight’s comments benefit the book, as is usual, because they are based on his deeply personal experience with the subject matter… show more.

Weighing in at somewhere over 300,00 words across over 700 pages, this is the most comprehensive Crowley biography. Stylistically is it no great treat for the reader, but it was obviously a staggering amount of work and demands respect: assembling this much material is an achievement. The effect—with generous backup detail on minor figures—is often like a gigantic Wikipedia entry. Kaczynski is one of the Crowley faithful, and he tends to look on the bright side. Consequently the book can be rather pious, as well as occasionally naive (Kaczynski quotes Freud’s supposed lauding of occult artist Austin Osman Spare, for example—one of Spare’s tall tales—as if he really said it, to which you can only say “As if…”). Still a very useful work of reference. 

Although there is no longer a shortage of scholarship on the occult or supernatural before 1945, Monica Black’s Demon Haunted Land is the first major history in English to investigate the afterlife of these cultural and intellectual traditions in the early years of the West German Federal Republic.

Beautifully written and based on extensive archival research, a Demon Haunted Land shows how witchcraft, the occult, and a belief in miracles played an important role, alongside democratic stabilization and the so-called “Economic Miracle”, in helping Germans work through the trauma of defeat and legacies of the Third Reich in a new postwar reality.

Montague Summers was a really unusual fellow for the early twentieth century. He was a closeted gay man (closeted because homosexuality was brutally repressed at the time) who was obsessed with the occult and liked to present himself as a religious witch hunter/demonologist. Reportedly he was often seen leaving libraries with a big black file that read “Vampires” across the front where everyone could see it.

Despite being a colorful character, Summers is one of the best early scholars of vampire lore. His work is even more interesting because it reflects the occult revival underway at the end of the nineteenth century. Occult groups such as the Theosophical Society and the Order of the Golden Dawn were reimagining what vampires could be. They hypothesized that vampires could be real but are perhaps more akin to invisible ghosts that feed on human life force. Summers also discusses things like… show more.

One of the reasons I read this genre is because so many of these stories include strong, fierce heroines and Calla Tor from Nightshade is one of the strongest. In a society and culture that imposes rules and oppression on their people, Calla is forced to test the limits and figure out who she really is and what she’s made of while still being a strong leader to her pack. This story is on my top 5 list because Calla is an unforgettable character, but so much of why you’ll love her is thanks to the world this author creates. Nightshade is another unique, fresh take on werewolves that you won’t want to put down.

This novel takes a more serious tone from the outset, though there are humorous situations in the later books. This is one that will keep you up at night, reading and biting your fingernails as the characters struggle to survive. It begins somewhat slowly, but quickly gains steam and keeps you wanting more. The action is fast-paced and realistic and the military aspects are spot on. There is a character for everyone in this series, and it was the idea of Sky that loosely inspired a character in my own series.

The way that Campbell wrote this heroine and followed her progress from a young and naïve college girl to powerful and able to face down every threat thrown her way was so engaging and powerful that I bought the entire series as soon as it was released. The male characters were so diverse and far-ranging that none of them… show more.

I’ve read this book as a child, I was probably around 10 years old. I loved that a regular person was able to conquer the world given the right tools. I was also intrigued by the occult and mystical elements in this book. I found all the geographical and cultural references fascinating and I loved that it had a happy ending.