Old School Occult New York Nerdgasm Alert

While I remain completely envious of all the lucky folk hanging in the Catskills for a week of full immersion in America’s esoteric spiritual legacy (and completely bummed that I failed to get my act together in time), the arrival of The Open Center’s new catalog brings renewed hope, giddiness, and - dare I admit it? - squeals of glee.

There’s this…

Esoteric New York City—Madame Blavatsky’s New York
Michael Gomes
In 1875, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky brought together the occultists, kabbalists, esotericists and spiritualists of New York to form the Theosophical Society to recover the mysteries of antiquity. Theosophical historian Michael Gomes will speak on Blavatsky’s New York, identifying the individuals involved, our spiritual ancestors, as well as providing some of Blavatsky’s untranslated Russian writings on life in New York at the time, including her predictions for the potential future of Thomas Edison’s new invention, the phonograph.

And this…

Esoteric New York City—Occult New York
Mitch Horowitz
Join us for a discussion of the esoteric personas and unusual episodes in New York history that shaped the nation’s alternative spiritual culture. Topics include the Russian mage and one-time New Yorker Helena Petrovna Blavatsky; eighteenth-century spirit medium Jemima Wilkinson, who rose to prominence as the nation’s first female religious leader in 1776; the “Poughkeepsie Seer,” Andrew Jackson Davis, who popularized Mesmerism, or hypnotism, in the 1840s; and the enormously influential mystical thinker Mother Ann Lee, who founded the Shakers in upstate New York at the dawn of the American revolution.

Then THIS (!!)…

Esoteric New York City Walking Tour
Mitch Horowitz
Here is a unique opportunity to discover little-known highlights of New York City’s underground spiritual legacy. Sites of interest include: a Swedenborgian church that was a wellspring of mystical ideas in America in the mid-19th century; the Masonic Hall where Civil War colonel Henry Steel Olcott presided over a controversial “pagan funeral”; The Lamasery, which housed the famed salon of the Theosophical Society; Grand Central Station, a virtual temple of occult imagery; and Pershing Square, named after the World War I general who patronized the works of Manly P. Hall. This tour offers a lively and up-close overview of the “secret history” found right in our own neighborhoods.

Leland: “Sweetheart, that’s the weekend you’re at Kendall’s thing.”
Me: “Don’t you DARE harsh my mellow…”

Close call.

Of course, I’d already pre-ordered this:

I think I might pass out.

Also, I’d just like to point out that Mr. Horowitz’s Success Classics series include New Thought entrepreneurial faves Think And Grow Rich, The Science Of Getting Rich and The Master Key System, among others. (See? My worlds collide yet again.)

(I should also probably note that I have NOT pre-ordered the latest Dan Brown…)