“Treats esoteric ideas and movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in today’s raised-voice discussions.”
Uncertain Places
Essays on Occult and Outsider Experiences
Description
An exploration of our extraordinary shift away from materialism toward renewal of the numinous, mysterious, and uncertain
• Examines topics that evoke widespread misunderstanding, including the real history of secret societies, the wisdom of the Satanic, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, out-of-body experience, and the contemporary war on witches
• Looks at the influence of the founding lights of modern occultism, including mystic Neville Goddard, occult scholar Manly P. Hall, and surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, and debunks famous pseudo-skeptics such as the Amazing Randi
• Explores magickal practices, including Anarchic Magick, mind metaphysics, the Law of Attraction, and Ouija boards, and upends hallowed spiritual concepts like forgiveness
All of us today dwell in uncertain places--realities in which thoughts make things happen, ESP is provable by the scientific methods once used to debunk it, UFOs are mainstream, and magick no longer requires rite and ritual but is as near as your own mind.
Today’s leading voice of esotericism and the occult, Mitch Horowitz explores topics that evoke widespread misunderstanding, including the real history of secret societies, the wisdom of the Satanic, the relevance of Gnosticism, and the slender but authentic connection between today’s spiritual culture and antiquity, including in areas of Hermeticism, deity worship, out-of-body experience, and magick. He demonstrates the occult roots of wide-ranging facets of modern culture, including politics, abstract art, mind-body healing, self-help, and breakthrough scientific fields such as quantum physics and neuroplasticity. He looks at the influence of the founding lights of modern occultism, including mystic Neville Goddard, occult scholar Manly P. Hall, and surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, and provides a magnificent take-down of famous debunkers and pseudo-skeptics such as the Amazing Randi. He explores magickal practices, including Anarchic Magick, mind metaphysics, the Law of Attraction, and the history of Ouija boards and questions time-honored spiritual values like forgiveness. Mitch also examines the contemporary war on witches around the world and what it is like to be blacklisted.
Offering a thought-provoking investigation of the spiritual, the occult, the magickal, and the extra-physical, Mitch lays the groundwork for readers to continue their own journeys into these esoteric streams of consciousness.
Reviews
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”