Revolutionaries of the Soul: Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers, and Occultists by Gary Lachman

A collection of biographical essays

Gary Lachman’s collection of biographical essays, Revolutionaries of the Soul: Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers, and Occultists (2014) gathers together short pieces that he’s written over the course of 20 years of as a professional writer in the field of (for lack of a better term) “alternative thinking.” One might wonder about the connecting thread between the subjects of these essays (and Lachman’s project as a whole), but if you have any doubt, he provides an enlightening self-description in his introduction:

What the reader of this collection, and perhaps of my other books, will discover is that I am in love and obsessed with ideas. I like to think. It is, admittedly, an occupation not as popular as in some earlier times and one that requires the increasingly elusive necessities of peace and quiet, along with the more accessible ingredients of a book, notebook, table, and pen, or, more frequently today, laptop. . .. Thinkers are rather like those people at the head of a jungle expedition, hacking into a thick tangle of roots and vines in order to make a path. It is demanding, unpleasant work, but it needs to be done, and it must be admitted that the people further back on the trail have a relatively easier time of it.

Lachman, Gary. Revolutionaries of the Soul: Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers, and Occultists (Kindle Locations 111-119). Quest Books. Kindle Edition.

Lachman, following the example of his friend and mentor, Colin Wilson (the subject of the first essay in the collection), excels at capturing and relaying the ideas and stories of the varied cast represented here. After introducing us to Wilson’s thought (or at least a slice of it, for Wilson was a prolific writer), Lachman takes us back in time to look at the work of Emanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg, as I read about him here, reminded me of other multi-talented geniuses of the early modern era, like Leibniz and Newton, to name two the most famous of that era’s genius polymaths. (Although Swedenborg, so far as I know, had no hand in inventing the calculus.) And Newton’s interest in alchemy notwithstanding, Swedenborg had a unique talent: he saw complex visions of heaven and hell. Regardless of what one thinks about the ontological basis of these visions (more on this topic later), his visions and ideas had some far-reaching influence. Included among those affected by his works were Blake, Emerson, and the father of William and Henry James.

Another scientist-turned visionary discussed by Lachman is Rudolf Steiner. To the extent Steiner is known today, it’s probably as the founder of Steiner (a/k/a Waldorf) schools. But before becoming a visionary of other worlds and realms, as well as a practical purveyor of ideas about philosophy, education, and agriculture, Steiner was a biologist and a Goethe scholar. As with Swedenborg, I find the combination of a high degree of scientific training and practice an intriguing and puzzling contrast—or compliment? —to their etheric visions. The same could be said of Carl Jung, another subject here, who was a trained physician as well as one exposed to the occult (spirit world) at a young age and who tried to understand humanity through depth psychology. But he seems to have kept hidden a predilection for the occult for most of his career that affected his beliefs and judgments.

A wide array of figures included here are those who delved into occult visions and magic. From little-known figures (to me anyway) to rather famous ones like Madame Blavatsky and Manly Palmer Hall (American), this group can be seen as a whole to have mined past traditions (e.g., Ancient Egypt, and the “mysterious East”) to shape into ideas and practices that reach far outside everyday reality. Hidden “masters,” incantations, fantastic visions, and ancient doctrines and practices mark this group. Taken as a whole, this group provides the most colorful life stories, some appearing as charlatans and at other times having been duped by charlatans. But in other contexts, they are (literally) revolutionaries (Madame B for example). But whether we consider them simply as a rogue’s gallery or as perhaps a combination of extraordinary talents blessed with a sense of showmanship, many of them were quite personally adventuresome and amazing in the experiences. Whatever we may think of their work as passed down to posterity (all of these figures published works), they provide fascinating lives and works upon which to reflect further. (Lachman has published biographies of several of the individuals that I look forward to reading.)

The last group to cover is one that I label the “philosophers.” None of them are mainstream, but their claims to notoriety come from the ideas that they left us much more than any claim to personal powers or special insights. In this group, I’d include Ouspensky, Julius Evola, Jean Gebser, and Owen Barfield. Evola, dubbed “Mussolini’s Mystic” by Lachman for the chapter devoted to him, is of topical interest now because Steve Bannon, President Trump’s aide, has professed adherence to Evola’s work. It’s worth noting some Italian terrorists in the 1980’s as well as some of Mussolini’s supporters were also admirers. While I reject Evola’s praise of violence (which comes across like that of George Sorel and Frantz Fanon), some have suggested (including Lachman), that Evola nevertheless expresses a serious critique of Modernity. (And Modernity is either the key to our freedom or a hell that we’ve created for ourselves; I’m not sure which—or perhaps both.)  The Russian émigré Ouspensky had many original and challenging ideas published before becoming a student and then master of Gurdjieff’s “Third Way.” Jean Gebser is another fascinating figure with his theory the evolution of consciousness. His work has influenced the likes of William Irwin Thompson, Ken Wilber, and Georg Feuerstein. I’m one of those persons that Lachman refers to that have heard of Gebser but who’ve not plunged into his original work. Reading Lachman’s account reminds me (again) that Gebser's work should be on my list.

The final figure I’ll discuss here is my personal favorite, Owen Barfield. Compared to almost all of the other figures discussed in this book, Barfield’s life might seem the drabbest and his ideas the least spectacular—and perhaps that’s why he’s my favorite among all of these figures. Like me, Barfield was a practicing lawyer most of his adult life, albeit a reluctant one, having been called into the family business by necessity rather than desire. But Barfield’s life, while outwardly prosaic, still was one of extraordinary experiences. After serving in The Great War (WWI), Barfield attended Oxford, where he met C.S. “Jack” Lewis. Lewis credits Barfield for his conversion to Christianity. Through Lewis, Barfield met others at Oxford that would become “The Inklings,” a group that included Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and others. Barfield wrote two books, Poetic Diction and History in English Words before taking up his legal career, and he was a disciple of Steiner’s Anthroposophy from an early age. After about a 30-year hiatus, Barfield returned to full-time writing and thinking with the publication of his Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (1957) and later works. Barfield’s ideas about “original participation” and “final participation” have influenced historian John Lukacs and sparked the admiration of writers such as Saul Bellow, James Hillman, and Harold Bloom, to name but three. It is in this essay that Lachman engages most in his love of ideas and their power.

When we come to the end of this work we are in a better position to reflect upon what Lachman wrote in his introduction about the two predominate themes of his writing career:

One is human consciousness and its evolution, both in the individual and in the culture at large. Another is that mysterious world that seems to strangely parallel our familiar, everyday one, the world of the occult, the magical, the esoteric. As you might suspect, these two themes overlap and are intimately related.

Id. (Kindle Locations 122-124)

The first of his themes is one that I wholeheartedly share. How we have changed as a species and how we change in a lifetime are the two great issues we face in our individual lives and in our collective life as a species. Everything that you and I do is to change our consciousness—from answering a hunger pang with a bite to eat to sleeping to talking to someone—it’s all about changing our state of our consciousness. But over a longer term, it’s about changing what we know explicitly and implicitly—rationally and verbally, intuitively and imaginatively. We all have at some time experienced a metanoia, a change of our heart-mind, as the term is used in the New Testament. My individual path was first laid down through Christianity (Catholic practice and Protestant insights), but then supplemented and surpassed by Buddhism, ancient Western philosophy “as a way of life” (Pierre Hadot), and a variety other sources of wisdom from China and India as well as from more recent thinkers. And how this all plays out collectively is as well as individually is, to me, a fascinating and vital subject.

But I must say that the occult and magic leave me flat. My amalgamation of sources that I listed above tend toward what some might see as the quotidian and cautious, the mainstream. Despite hours of meditation, prayer, and silence, as well as exposure t0 ideas quite beyond the ordinary, I’ve never experienced any bells or whistles. Now I’d be the first to admit that this might be the result of my tone-deafness to such frequencies and that training might make a difference. I’m skeptical and agnostic as to occult realities and practices. I see myself as following the Buddha in taking the position that I don’t have to know who made the arrow or by whom it was shot or from where is was shot in order to act to alleviate the suffering that it causes. I just need to remove the damned arrow.

The other attitude I have I attribute to William James (and thus I demonstrate my American bona fides). I want to know the “cash value” of all of these varieties of seeing and experiencing the world. Of all of these practices and beliefs, which ones have, can, and should change the world? None of these actors (and some of them are quite intriguing actors) can claim to have influenced the world in a significant, continuing way? There is no one here with the stature of Napoleon, Disraeli, Hitler or Stalin, or Roosevelt. No one the stature of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, or Russell. No one the stature of Gandhi, Niebuhr, or Marx. Of course, the deeper question is whether any of the figures considered by Lachman should have the level of influence comparable to the figures I listed above. And, in fairness, while no one of Lachman’s subjects alone had a large effect, as he notes in his Introduction, the occult and esoteric collectively have influenced our culture and the course of history. Even as I write this, a potent mix of politics and esoteric beliefs challenge the status quo.

The explorer-author

Thus, regardless of what skeptics like me might conclude about many of these figures, like human activity as a whole, they and the occult represent a part of who we are. The fact that we believe in all manner of things and act in all manner of ways is a part of why we take an interest in ourselves as a species, or more precisely, as a culture. These lives, these beliefs, whatever their reality (whatever that may mean or entail) is interesting nonetheless because of what it says about us. Is it simply that we humans are dumb and gullible? We have to go beyond that simplistic and unsatisfying conclusion to learn something deeper about ourselves. To this end, Gary Lachman provides us a great service by dedicating himself to exploring the boundaries of human consciousness and beliefs where most thinkers (especially academics) don’t dare go. It’s at the boundaries, the unexplored edges, that we learn something new. I know that I’ll keep following him there. 

Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen by Gary Lachman

History, but not "just" history

Before I get to this book, please indulge me while I engage in a couple of brief tangents that I will tie into the book review in due course. First, I hear people say something to the effect that “people shouldn’t bring religion into politics,” or “in America, our Constitution says we should keep religion and politics separate.” I find these statements well-intentioned and understandable, but nevertheless absurd. Religion and politics have been conjoined since humans conceived of each, and they have been intimate since the dawn of civilization (agriculture and cities). One can argue that as a part of the modern project these concerns should be separated, and in some measure, they address different domains. But they are overlapping Venn diagrams, each claiming a common territory. Religion, broadly conceived, is the stuff of ultimate concerns: how we relate to those powers greater than us (e.g., God, gods, Nature, the Dharma, the Tao, etc.) and how we relate to each other (morality broadly conceived). Politics often addresses the mundane: “Where should we put this road?” and “How much should we levy for taxes this year?” (I was a city attorney for three decades.) In short, the “who gets what, when, and how” of Harold Laswell. But politics also addresses fundamental issues of life and death, such as definitions and punishments for murder, the legality of abortion, declarations of war—the big issues. In short, politics entails both the sacred and the profane; it involves the ethical and the practical. Thus, I can’t imagine keeping religion and politics separate. It’s impossible. On the other hand, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ..”  In other words, what it requires is the separation of church and state, the respective institutions of religion and politics. The First Amendment prohibits the state from interfering in religious belief and practice, regardless of whether conducted within an institutional framework (church, synagogue, mosque, temple, etc.) or arising from the beliefs and practices of any one person. This constitutionally mandated separation of government from religion provides an essential safeguard for the individual, and it protects both religious institutions and government.  Entanglements of church and state create problems for churches and states. 

My next digression involves some post-election communications about Trump and Clinton. In short, one person with whom I had some contact argued that Trump deserved to win over Clinton because Clinton was in cahoots (my term, not his) with “the Illuminati,” such as George Soros. What? I, in my Enlightenment bubble, thought that such nonsense was something that I’d encounter only among the truly wigged-out. Not so. There isn’t a bubble out there; there are more bubbles than we can begin to count. I prefer mine (and I hope that it doesn’t create too distorting a lens), but we need to pop some of these others.

Having allowed myself these two digressions, let me turn to this book and explain why I found my digressions fitting in the circumstances. Gary Lachman’s Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen (2008) is about the intersection of religion (or spirituality, if you prefer a wider net) and politics. However,  instead of the usual roster of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, he’s writing about those who inhabit the fringes of those religions and some who draw upon entirely different creeds. If Lachman had shared any jokes in this book, they wouldn’t have set up with a “priest, a minister, and a rabbi walk into a bar,” but “a magician, an adept, and a charlatan walk into a bar.” But unlike the mainstream set-up, where perhaps a Roman collar and a yarmulke would help us distinguish who is who among the mainstream three, among the three occult figures, you couldn’t know who is who from any first glimpse. (N.B. Don’t take this analogy too far; we can’t necessarily tell who is a charlatan in the occult group and only by process of elimination can we identify the minister in the first. Protestants can be so nondescript in public.) The occult has its roots in many of the mainstream traditions, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic, in addition to other traditions (Gnosticism, Hermeticism, etc.), but by definition, the occult remains out of sight and the esoteric reserved for the few. Lachman argues that the occult traditions became more secretive with the advent of the modern world when science and materialism (Newton’s interests notwithstanding) became the dominant ideology. With this tidal shift in culture, concerns about the soul, mind, and consciousness became suspect and began to migrate underground. Thus, the shadow side of religion becomes, even more, a matter of fear and fascination.

The list of occult groups identified and discussed by Lachman is impressive. From early modern times, we get the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati. All of these groups clothed themselves in secrecy, which, in addition to practical concerns about repression by ruling authorities, makes each organization more attractive to members (exclusiveness) and more fascinating to outsiders. Also, one can’t help but note that these groups seem to be populated by the elite, not simply (or even primarily) the aristocracy, but the educated elite as well. For instance, both Descartes and Leibniz are associated with the Rosicrucians. (An aside: isn’t Leibniz one of the most brilliant minds of all time?) The elite membership in these organizations certainly enhanced both their prestige and popular resentment of against them.

But how influential—or even powerful—were these early modern occult groups? In the end, the pyramid with the eye on the dollar bill and George Washington’s well-known Freemasonry membership notwithstanding, these groups were not that influential. If you want to gauge the thoughts and beliefs that guided the American Revolution and Founding, you’d do better to study Locke, the Scottish Enlightenment, Montesquieu, the Atlantic Republican tradition, and the English Whig tradition than  Freemasonry. Add the political economy of slavery (as sadly one must), and you have a strong sense of the thinking behind America’s political origins.  Occult organizations also had their fingerprints on the French Revolution, on both the Right and the Left (the time in which these terms emerged), but no group (occult or not) was in control completely or for long until Napolean put an end to the chaos. The ideas behind sea-change of the French Revolution have more to do with Voltaire and the philosophes and their arch-critic Rousseau than any occult dogma or action.

The intersection of the occult and the political continued into the 19^th century. At the level of individuals and events, adherents to occult organizations and beliefs have a role, but in the more encompassing mix of culture and political beliefs, their effect is hard to discern. The ideas of Marx and Mill and mainstream religions and philosophies are the most influential. Of course, many small sectarian groups, both political and occult (and sometimes overlapping) populate history since the French Revolution. Zionists and anti-Semitic schemers, utopian socialists and free-love advocates, syndicalists and social welfare groups—experimenters (good and ill) of all types abound as society goes through continued upheavals. As Lachman notes, inquiries into the spiritual, the non-material, and consciousness preceded modernity (and are as old as human culture), but in times of great change and turbulence, these concerns become acuter and more widespread. And beginning in the late 18^th century, the turmoil of politics, the wildfires of revolution, the conflagration of wars, imperialism and colonialism, along with changes in technology and culture, vastly increased the total wealth of Western nations and altered the composition of society while dramatically changing the culture. This level of change was—is—unprecedented in human history. But in contrast to the headlong changes in our lived environment, changes in shared consciousness, particularly at the deeper individual levels, seems to move at a much slower pace, taking the course of epochs, not months and years. Thus, to any extent that the occult or esoteric beliefs and practices might have had an effect would, by definition, be limited to an elite and could only disburse slowly through society. By contrast, changes in some religious practices can spread like wildfire through society, for instance, the changes of the Protestant Reformation and the Great Awakening, to provide just two examples. Thus, whatever legitimate hopes initiates might hold in times of great change, the odds are against any significant influence—not to mention control—over events. Thus, for all of the aspiration, the influence of the occult and esoteric remains limited.

But despite the limited influence, the role of occult and esoteric thinkers remains intriguing. Within periods that I’m acquainted with, the footprints bear following. Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists were proponents of Indian independence at the beginning in the late 19^th century. In Romania, the great scholar of religion, Mircea Eliade, had sympathies with Romanian fascist and nationalist groups through the Second World War. Finally, at present, the president’s aide Stephen Bannon cites Julius Evola (along with Lenin) as an intellectual mentor. Evola was an Italian esoteric thinker and critic of modernity who promoted Italian fascism. Thus, while esoteric and occult thinkers certainly have not guided events nor have they been at the forefront of the intellectual currents shaping modern life, neither have their beliefs and personages been negligible. And contemplate this: you may conclude that Stephen Bannon is not the president and that his beliefs, no matter how seemingly fringe or outrageous, are of little consequence. But understand that the man he serves is marked by an extreme intellectual vacuity, and the contents of the House of Horrors that fill Bannon’s mind will undoubtedly—have undoubtedly—streamed in to fill that vacuum.

Before I conclude my review, I need to admit something. I feel a bit guilty about reviewing this book. The guilt comes from the fact that while reading it—and other books and articles by Lachman—I find myself mumbling “hum-hum," making an electronic note of a “yes” to a passage, and generally finding that his comments—never intrusive and or heavy-handed—reflect many of my beliefs and conclusions. I enjoyed this book, like the others, because he channels and expresses so many of my thoughts and perceptions. It’s reassuring the find someone who shares many of your viewpoints, but it may take the edge off of my criticism. If so, so be it; you’re forewarned. 

To illustrate this point, let me quote from his conclusion, where, as in the Introduction, Lachman allows himself to comment more extensively. In the “Last Words” he writes:

Clearly, for anyone who thinks life should be about something more than reality TV, celebrity gossip, and having the “F” word misspelled on your clothes, the secular Western world leaves much to be desired. I include myself in this group. Like many people, I find much about the modern world unappealing. It's for this reason that I find critics of it like Julius Evola and René Guénon [both “Traditionalists”] and others of their sensibilities disturbing—not because of Evola's obvious fascist sympathies or Guénon's elitist ethos, but because many of their criticisms hit the mark. Unless a more moderate rethinking of modernity comes up with something soon, the more extreme alternatives offered by Guénon and others like him will seem attractive. Notwithstanding Evola's repellent racist views, it's not surprising that some of his readers appreciated his belief that the only thing left was to “blow up” everything. Thankfully, the majority take this as a metaphor, and I'd bet that many of us feel something similar at times, although, again thankfully, we have the presence of mind not to succumb to this “purifying” release. To want to knock everything down and start anew has been a part of the human psyche for ages, probably from the beginning. It's a form of metaphysical impatience, and most spiritual practices are aimed at learning how to curb it. But no society or nation can practice Zen or any other discipline; only people can. So it's up to us to refrain from indulging in the delightful and stimulating exercise of smashing everything up.

Lachman, Gary. Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen (p. 232). Quest Books. Kindle Edition.

While I’m not well enough acquainted with either Evola or Guenon to endorse their critiques of modernity, I appreciate the sentiment. (See my review of William Ophuls’s book Requiem for Modern Politics and my review of Ian McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary--also a Lachman favorite--for examples.) But as someone who’s trying to figure out how he can call himself a “Burkean revolutionary” (I’m still working out how I can transform this from a blatant oxymoron into a revealing paradox), I share Lachman’s appreciation of the critique and his desire not to destroy the world in order to perfect it. I didn’t think Donald Trump would be elected president because I didn’t believe enough American were willing to (even metaphorically) “blow up the system,” which Trump is attempting to do.

I also share Lachman’s conception of politics and political thinking:

Politics deals with the possible, not the ideal; it inhabits the messy world of becoming, not the stable world of being. Ideas from the world of being can inform the politics of becoming, but they cannot take its place, which means that as long as the world is the world, there will always be change. Attempts to force some ideal, whether it be right or left, into existence will fail, or success will come at such a cost that failure would have been preferable. While watching the collapse of his beloved Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution, P. D. Ouspensky had deep insight into what he called “the impossibility of violence,” “the uselessness of violent means to attain no matter what.” “I saw with undoubted clarity,” Ouspensky wrote, “that violent means and methods in anything whatever would unfailingly produce negative results, that is to say, results opposed to those aims for which they were applied.” This, Ouspensky said, wasn't an ethical insight but a practical one. Violence simply doesn't work. History, I think, bears Ouspensky out. If humankind and society are going to become “better,” it's not going to happen overnight. As the I Ching counsels, “Perseverance furthers.” And that, as I say, takes patience.

Lachman continues:

            Given that the political world isn't an ideal one, if I was asked which I preferred, the modern world—which allows for shopping malls, dumbed-down culture, and consumer consciousness—or a variant of the spiritual authoritarian theocracies encountered in this book, I'd have to come down on the side of modernity. With Leszek Kolakowski, I'm conservative because I believe that there is much to conserve and that the new is not always better than the old. But with Ernst Bloch I'm a radical, because I believe in the promise of the new, the potential for something that doesn't yet exist to arrive. The challenge, of course, is how to combine the two until we find the Goldilocks-like state of having things “just right.”

Id.

To all of the above, I say “Amen.” Lachman is not only a knowledgeable guide in the field of the occult, the esoteric, and of consciousness studies, but he also proves himself a responsible thinker in the quotidian world of politics. To borrow from the candidates, “I approve this message.”  

One final point. In a year-end blog post, in addition to announcing a new book scheduled for publication this spring about the imagination (including more on Owen Barfield), Lachman announced the receipt of a new commission. He reports:

I’ve also just received a commission from my US publisher, Tarcher Penguin, now Tarcher Perigee, for Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump. The book will look at the influence ‘mental science’ and ‘positive thinking’ has had on Trump’s rise to power, and will explore the links between the new ‘alt.right’ movement within the political far right and the political philosophy of the Italian esotericist Julius Evola. I will also look at the influence Alexandr Dugin, a radical political theorist influenced by Evola, ‘chaos magick’ and Martin Heidegger, has on the Russian President Vladimir Putin. In different ways both Trump and Putin seek to destabilize the west and reshape the political and economic map of Europe. With this in mind I will look at the possible connection – if any – between the European Union and a strange political philosophy that began in the late nineteenth century and according to some reports had a hidden but effective influence on European politics. This is what is known as Synarchy, the complete opposite of anarchy. Anarchy means no government; Synarchy means total government. I write about Synarchy in Politics and the Occult  and Dark Star Rising will pick up my account of the occult influence on modern politics from where I left it in 2008.

To borrow a term that I picked up from Lachman, I’m “chuffed” at this prospect. (I hope I’ve used that correctly.) I also hope that by the time of publication that it’s not as topical as it is at the moment, but I’m not banking on that. And even if we are so lucky, we’re going to be trying to discern what happened for some time, and Lachman is sure to provide fascinating insights into our unsettling course of events.