Just Finished Reading: The Occult Tradition – From the Renaissance to the Present Day by David S Katz

Touching briefly on subjects as various as Gothic literature, Spiritualism and Secret Societies David Katz bolts through 500 years of Occult thought in just 200 pages. Needless to say the analysis of the various traditions within the Occult is rather fleeting. Katz does draw out some interesting threads though spending some time on the relationship between science, especially in subjects such as psychology and anthropology, and Occult thinking which are fairly surprising. Also surprising (at least to me) was the inclusion of Mormonism and present day Christian Fundamentalism within the Occult world view. This was a disappointing and in some ways a rather boring book. Katz did a reasonable job drawing the attention of the reader to quite a few of the Occult highlights over the last half millennium but his remit was far too large for such a brief book. At best this was a brief introduction to the Occult tradition sometimes consisting of lists of names, dates and books published. It would have been far better if the author had narrowed his scope a bit and attempted more analysis of why these people believed and acted as they did. That is what disappointed me most about this volume. Not a total waste of time and money but certainly not the best book I’ve read on the subject.