Calcutta’s Telegraph has a review of The Occult Tradition by David S. Katz worth a looksee . . . Inthe Twilight Zone . . . Ancient Wisdom . . . not completely as open minded and critical as it should be but some interesting points to be made well worth a squint or three . . .

It’s the realm of the unknown; it deals with the supernatural world and its possible influences, it’s a quality hidden from our senses — it’s occult tradition that has had a very special place in the history of social evolution both in the West and in the East. The Occult Tradition describes the growth and the meandering path of this “special synthesis of magic and science” over the past 500 years and shows how the esoteric world view fits together. The author, David S. Katz, has reflected on the various aspects of occult tradition that flourished in different parts of the world during different times and how it became a powerful “super science” that, at times, was considered parallel to modern science itself. Despite the growth of modern science, the occult tradition evolved in the West and manifested itself in the form of diverse groups such as the Freemasons, Mormons, Theosophists, New Ageists and American Fundamentalists. Renaissance in Europe brought about new thoughts in almost all fields of life. It was also the time when science, religion and magic reached their peak, gothic and supernatural fiction flourished and spiritualism emerged as a serious inquiry to contact the dead. However, the borders between the various disciplines were undefined — mythology and anthropology, mesmerism and hypnotism, parapsychology and psychology all seemed to follow each other. Even renowned scientists were found to be highly interested in occult. Isaac Newton saw occultism as a synthesis of magic and science, while Frances Yates described occult as a path that led to a spiritual philosophy, a religion less dogmatic and more attuned to nature. James George Frazer called magic the “bastard sister of science”, and believed that the magician is closer to the scientist than to the priest. It was indeed difficult to make a distinction between the occultist and the scientist since both regarded themselves as men of research. There was a considerable overlap between both groups as a number of people who were known chiefly for their scientific discoveries simultaneously harboured the hope that their work would contribute to solving mysteries that could only be described as supernatural. The supernatural figures of Pythagoras, Aristotle’s amplification of Platonic cosmology, Galileo’s explanation of the universe as a “vast book written in mathematical language”, Paracelsus’ strong belief of the occult idea of macrocosm and microcosm, and the celebrated predictions of Michel de Nostradamus all indicate the closeness of the occult with modern science. Even respected psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung successfully amalgamated psychoanalysis and the occult to such an extent that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.The occult seems to be a coherent intellectual stream that has its roots in metaphysics, cosmology and religion. Within its realm are numerous sub-systems such as magic, astrology, demonology, Kabbalah and numerology. At the bottom of all this is a firm belief that there is a plan to the universe and if only we understood it, we would be able to manipulate its operation. Through its analysis of occult philosophies, Katz tries to find out whether the universe is alive, if there are hidden connections within it, if one can control those secrets and whether we have neglected an entirely separate science that works according to a different set of principles.