American Metaphysical Religion
Please take a moment to peruse the endorsements from authors esoteric like Gary Lachman, Mitch Horowitz and Mary K. Greer, and academic like Jeffrey K. Kripal, K. Paul Johnson, and Amy Hale.
“In American Metaphysical Religion, Ronnie Pontiac does his readers an inestimable service, surveying and summarising an immense amount of academic material that would be too expensive and dull for them to take on themselves. Trawling through a history of the New World seldom recognised or reported on, Pontiac makes a strong argument that melting pot, salad bowl, or mix and match potpourri, America has always had a religious consciousness, separation of church and state notwithstanding. From the early days of the Masonic Founding Fathers to contemporary exponents of the not so New Age, the somewhat less than United States has been a breeding ground for a surprising, often bewildering collection of faiths. Thomas Edison, William James, Timothy Leary, Carlos Castaneda, and Terence McKenna are only some of the figures Pontiac takes on in this detailed, thorough and readable account of the often wildly disparate beliefs held by that “one nation under God.” Gary Lachman, author of The Return of Holy Russia
“I couldn’t put this book down. It’s a storybook concerning a multi-formed religion that lies just below the surface of American awareness, yet plays a significant part in the beliefs and inspirations that characterize our psyche. Its “metaphysical” ideas reach everyone, from presidents to heads of corporations, as well as major figures in the arts and sciences, and the average citizen. Focusing on the stories of the key influencers, you’ll find con-artists and cultists, as well as those who have inspired and led major movements for social change, political and environmental action, and who have enriched the lives of millions. We can see them as people struggling to make sense of life, the world, and other realities. Prepare to be amazed.” Mary K. Greer, author of Women of the Golden Dawn:Rebels and Priestesses.
“Ronnie Pontiac has produced one of the finest, most comprehensive works of independent scholarship that we possess on the mystical currents of American religion — currents that have served as an occultic force seismically shaping our nation. Like a journey down a wild, winding, and uncharted river, American Metaphysical Religion takes us through byways and inlets that few historians know — or expect. The breadth and vintage of Pontiac’s historicism are unusually deep. Surprises emerge on nearly every page. Manly P. Hall would be proud. “— Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America and Uncertain Places
“The various currents that Catherine Albanese brought under the banner of American metaphysical religion have continued to attract broad attention, both for their insights and powers and for their conspiracies and dangers. There is no single thing here. There are many things. Ronnie Pontiac’s book is a full engagement with these deep currents and a wild map of the ocean they form. The reader sets the book down with a sense of the endless nature of those waters, but also with the conviction that, below the waves, ‘America’ is fundamentally an esoteric idea and a mystical ideal, and always has been.” Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities
“Ronnie Pontiac brings back to life a fascinating cast of largely forgotten characters from American religious history. Combining exhaustive research with an engaging presentation, this book deserves a wide readership. Especially valuable for me is the groundbreaking discussion of the Platonic enthusiasts Thomas Moore Johnson, Alexander Wilder, and Hiram K. Jones. Amid these diverse and colorful characters, the American members of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor have most intrigued me for years, thanks to Ronnie’s pioneering inquiries about Johnson and Wilder that have now come to fruition in this book that will bring their work to the wide readership they deserve. Well researched, relevant, and revelatory.” K. Paul Johnson, author of Edgar Cayce in Context and Initiates of Theosophical Masters
“Ronnie Pontiac has given us a lucid tour through the Wild West of American-style spirituality. He drives us through landscapes peopled by odd characters that some have deemed ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ but whose burning arrows have ignited things in our psyches whether we knew it or not. I was constantly delighted by his new, luminous insights into characters and events that I thought I knew everything about, but clearly didn’t. I didn’t want the book to end. I suppose the highest praise I can give is to say, with a tinge of jealousy: I wish I had written this…” Alan Richardson, author of Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune
“American Metaphysical Religion is surely the most fascinating book I have read in decades and the life of the author is just as fascinating. It was Ronnie Pontiac’s good karma to meet Manly P. Hall and magically and unexpectedly step into a new life as his researcher, friend and student. This treasure trove of a book is a testament to all that the grand old man passed on to him. The author’s painstaking research reveals an American history previously undocumented, it is the history of those seeking utopia in a new land, it is in many ways a mythic tale of the human spirit. He says the book is an introduction to ‘four centuries of America’s metaphysical saints, grifters, misfits, revolutionaries, visionaries, eccentrics, and some important thinkers who were far ahead of their time.’ Welcome to this New history of America. The story holds many surprises: women abolitionists, astrologists, alchemists and Adepts, prophets and spiritualist mediums. Perhaps the most astonishing discovery in a catalogue of astonishing revelations is the existence of the Plato Club in Jacksonville, Illinois — Yes Plato was studied in the nineteenth century Midwest! Hollywood may have written its own history of cowboys and cattle but kindly allow Ronnie Pontiac to enchant you with a different story. Allow yourself to be uplifted by the alchemical cauldron which is America. As a consummate storyteller Pontiac simply breaks the traditional view of American religiosity and reweaves a multicoloured tapestry from its many threads. This is an especially long book, over 600 pages but the work never loses pace, not a word is wasted, every sentence is packed with information, often about little known people but heroes and heroines nonetheless. The book has been a pleasure to read but more than that it is has provided an illuminating journey into the eternal spiritual quest of human nature set free in a new land. Manly Hall would surely smile upon the work of this unspoken apprentice.” Naomi Ozaniec, author of Becoming A Garment of Isis
“Ronnie Pontiac has written a most useful and readable overview of American Metaphysical Religion from Colonial times to the present, including contributions of European immigrants; from the 18th century Enlightenment’s occult underground through the 19th century’s ”occult explosion” and right up to the present. At the same time, he cogently emphasizes the details. He has consulted all the sources and scholarship. His own personal experiences and friendships with significant practitioners add a hands-on touch. Significantly the Platonic tradition is given pride of place and is central to his argument. From Andrew Jackson Davis’s diagrams of the Platonic “Great Chain of Being” to the late Transcendentalist Neoplatonists Thomas M. Johnson and Alexander Wilder’s Journals and Occult connections, e.g., Wilder’s composing the Neoplatonic sections of Madame Blavatsky’s works. Their search for a new Neoplatonic theurgy in the rituals of the Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn. The primarily Platonic/Pythagorean Hermetic-in addition to Eastern religions- syncretism of many occult associations-too name a few. The book is reader friendly and will serve as perhaps the best guide for the general reader, for whom it is intended. Nevertheless, professional scholars and “adepts” will discover useful details and approaches usually glossed over or under played by leaders in the field.” Jay Bregman co-editor of Platonic Traditions in American Thought
“A never-ending gold-hearted gossip column and a vast erudite history of American arcana. Every page is filled with illuminating morsels — manna for the seeker, a feast for all.” Matt Marble, author of Buddhist Bubblegum
“A few years ago, I wandered into the “history room” of a popular spa in Southern California, where I had traveled to experience its healing waters. A little digging after my visit revealed that the site was the former home of a cult which fused New Age beliefs with Christianity; its deceased leader was said to keep watch over the current community members from the vantage point of a spaceship circling Earth. While such cultural history might seem commonplace for California, Ronnie Pontiac’s new book, American Metaphysical Religion: Esoteric and Mystical Traditions of the New World, does an excellent job of suggesting that intriguing occult histories are lurking around every street corner in America. Sweeping in scope, ranging in time from the colonial period to the 21st century digital age, and connecting the dots from the East coast to the West, American Metaphysical Religion permanently unseats the lingering myth that the United States is (or was) an exclusively Christian nation. Pontiac considers the influence of indigenous belief systems, the reach of Americans who studied with Eastern lamas, the 19th century revival of Platonism, and the recurrent call of ancient Egypt as relevant ingredients in our recognizably American stew. Written with the intellectual detachment of a scholar and the curiosity of aseeker, Pontiac’s book pulls the Masonic trick of letting you decide what it all means. The author’s skill at weaving coherent stories out of thin threads functions to deliver the macrocosm of American metaphysical history via the microcosm of the lives of individual occultists. For example, a chapter about the importance of a single metaphysical bookstore in Los Angeles put me in mind of all the other esoteric hubs that have flared brightly across the nation, and the communities they seeded. To its credit, American Metaphysical Religion goes miles beyond a 1952 explosion at a private residence in Pasadena for its flashpoints in American occult history. Read this book: I guarantee you will encounter a character who helps you locate your own lineage in the tangled skein of American metaphysical religion, which Ronnie Pontiac does such a great job of unraveling.” Thea Wirsching, author of the American Renaissance Tarot
“Ronnie Pontiac’s ambitious and inclusive book is an important contribution to our understanding of the culturally and philosophically diverse influences that have, from the very beginning, impacted the character of American spiritual thought and experience. The book is filled with the forgotten stories of so many fascinating characters who shaped the pluralism of the American religious landscape and which are perpetually unacknowledged, despite their significant impact. It is a critical project that shows us the contours and multitudes of cultural and historical influence that converge to produce a uniquely American esotericism, encompassing the unseen, the mystical and the numinous.” Amy Hale, author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully
“It’s a wild ride filled with so many familiar metaphysical names and intriguing connections and events to follow up on. Gems on every page. I didn’t want to put it down.” Normandi Ellis, author of Awakening Osiris
“Seen through the hazy illumination of popular media, American spirituality can seem like a monstrous monolith of repression and corrupt intentions — Ronnie Pontiac breaks down the silo and reveals the rich multiplicity and magnitude of American Metaphysical Religion. From the margins and the deeper streams of mainstream culture Pontiac pulls threads of history that are often left obscure. An able guide, this book opens the readers to the potentials that still lie waiting for those who seek more than a mega church initiation.” David Metcalfe, Scholar in Virtual Residence at the Windbridge Institute
“Scholarly yet eminently readable, this is a must for the bookshelf of any reader interested in the sociology of religion, the history of psychical development, and the psychology of sacred feeling. Highly recommended. Tod Davies, editorial director Exterminating Angel Press, and author of The History of Arcadia visionary fiction series.”
“This book is much closer to the mainstream psyche than academics would have us believe. Ronnie Pontiac’s book is a lively, engaging, thoughtful, and insightful introduction to this dazzling world.” Richard Smoley, author of A Theology of Love
“Pontiac gives a fascinating tour through the worlds of unorthodox religion in America. He does this not by explaining ideas, but by presenting the lives of numerous unorthodox individuals. The people he examines come from almost every cultural or professional background: “As befits a young republic, the history of the earliest origins of American Metaphysical Religion amounts to a long list of extraordinary characters, daring experiments, and unlikely friendships” (p. 153). These characters include Enlightenment-age philosophers (“diffusing the worst principles of the French Revolution through this land of the Puritan fathers”). They include anti-slavery abolitionists, alchemist pioneers of modern chemistry, early feminists, spirit mediums, Buddhist migrants, astrologers, appropriators of Native American, Egyptian, or Hindu spirituality, founders of alternative communes or witch covens, New Age bookshop owners, or QAnon promoters of “conspirituality.”
“Many of these people seem more like reformists than occultists. They are “unorthodox” mainly in being innovative. They are open-minded to the point of both creativity and credulity. Maybe, as Pontiac suggests, these explorers of metaphysical religion are actually the religious mainstream in America. They’ve provided the social fuel for Deism, transcendentalism, freemasonry, naturalism, pantheism, spiritualism, ecumenism, or even mystical ethno- nationalism (“Since pagans believe that the purity of nature must be preserved, then why not the purity of races?”).
“How is all this religious diversity metaphysical? Maybe it’s mostly a matter of feeling that people (and things) have a far greater potential to be realized, as seen in the Rosicrucian call for Universal and General Reformation of the whole wide world. What could be more American than that? In this religious universe, life is a game of exploring potential, rather than a test of obedience and loyalty. But “potential,” of course, is a double-edged sword. As Pontiac shows, seekers for “greater potential” can open any door, or seek to slam any door shut.
“Pontiac goes into detail on the lives of his subjects like a real aficionado. He’s admiring and critical at the same time. Every sort of eccentric reader can find lots to enjoy. Brian Griffith, author of A Galaxy of Immortal Women
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