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 "Fascinating...Occult America is a
serious, wide-ranging study of all the magical, mystical, and
spiritual movements that have arisen and influenced American
history in often-surprising ways." --Washington Post Book
World Podcast "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 s ance
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
"Exhaustively researched and written in a very accessible
style...Occult America fills a gap in the knowledge of
religion for most people." --Huntington News, VA
"Excellent." --Library Journal
"One of the best recent books on patterns of belief." --Fortean
Times "A fantastic tour guide to the fringes of reason, high
weirdness, deep esoterica, secret societies, and mystery
religions." --Boing Boing "Employing extensive research
while writing with an authoritative tone, Horowitz succeeds in
showing how a 'new spiritual culture' developed in
America."--Publishers Weekly
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