DUIN: Halloween spurs tales of the occult

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By Julia Duin

With Halloween approaching, it's the time of year to talk about mystical philosophies, Ouija boards, secret lodges, New Age thought — in other words, the "occult" aspect of religion that deals with secret ways of acquiring knowledge.

Which is why I nabbed Mitch Horowitz's new book, "Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation."

Mr. Horowitz, a book editor living in New York, grew up Jewish but terms himself "unclassifiable" now. He gives "occult tours" of Manhattan where a lot of avant-garde and metaphysical religions once set up shop. His favorite stop is a Swedenborgian church on East 35th Street between Park and Lexington avenues inspired by Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th-century Swedish mystic who believed in astral travel and discourses with extraterrestrials.

"Most of these occult figures considered themselves Christian," he points out. "They just felt their beliefs were in harmony with their Christianity."

America has been a world laboratory for mystic experiments. Central New York was a psychic highway of religions starting with the Shakers and the Quakers, followed by the Mormons, the Millerites (who became the Seventh-day Adventists), the Oneida Community, the Freemasons, Mesmerism and Spiritualism.

Dubbed the Burned-Over District, the region was the perfect incubator for Mormon founder Joseph Smith, a well-known clairvoyant before his famous visions. His family owned magical charms, divining rods, amulets and other esoterica.

"There is something in the American soil," the author muses, "that from early on meant that people felt they could contact God without intermediaries. It was a radical Protestantism: Ordinary teens, uneducated folk and farmers could be in touch with the divine."

This hunger for contact with God birthed a spiritualism that was huge during the Civil War era when death in battle or childbirth was common and many children died young. Grieving parents gathered in parlors to reach out to their loved ones through mediums. They would hear mysterious knocks purportedly from the departed. Ouija boards — patented in 1890 but in use since the 1850s — were wildly popular means of communicating with the dead.

The boards are now passe, but "channeling" — as in reaching a spirit being from another dimension, an angel or some kind of higher intelligence — is huge, the author told me. Much of it goes on in private homes in the form of "healing circles."

"People are desperate for invisible help," he said. In a time when Christianity and Judaism downplay the supernatural in their own traditions, people will seek spiritual power wherever they can find it.

I asked him where America's "psychic highway" is now.

"Definitely California," he said. "It is a permanent engine for religious innovation in America. Follow the flow of migration and you'll see where the new religious movements crop up."

Plus, a lot of mystical subcultures have gone mainstream and have been Christianized. Mr. Horowitz did 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.

"I listen to [megachurch preacher] Joel Osteen frequently on Sunday mornings," the author said, "and he's giving sermons that are discourses in positive thinking. He's standing on the shoulders of an occult tradition."

• Julia Duin's Stairway to Heaven column runs on Sundays and Thursdays. Contact her at jduin@washington times.com.