Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
The Foundations of Re-Enchantment : Freemasonry, Theosophy, and the Occult Revival - Christopher  Coome
eTextbook alternate format product

Instant online reading.
Don't wait for delivery!

Go digital and save!

The Foundations of Re-Enchantment

Freemasonry, Theosophy, and the Occult Revival

By: Christopher Coome

Hardcover | 29 December 2025

Sorry, we are not able to source the book you are looking for right now.

We did a search for other books with a similar title, however there were no matches. You can try selecting from a similar category, click on the author's name, or use the search box above to find your book.

In 1875, in a small apartment in New York City, a handful of freemasons and spiritualists met in secret. After hours spent debating advances in science and the spiritual mysteries of the Orient, the assembled guests settled on an idea. What the 19th century needed most, they concluded, was an institution dedicated to exploring the untamed borderlands between scientific and religious thought. Two weeks later, the Theosophical Society was born, inspiring a trans-continental occult revival that fundamentally transformed the religious margins of Western society. The movement that followed was an explosive mix of creativity, spiritual longing, and pseudo-scientific mischief. Piggybacking on the idealist zeal of the fin de siècle, major occult sodalities grew like ripples: the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn, a magical order created by Rev. A. F. A Woodford, William Wynn Westcott and Samuel Mathers; the Anthroposophical Society, created by the Austrian clairvoyant, Rudolf Steiner; and the Ordo Templi Orientis, an institution most famous for its association with Aleister Crowley. These were some of the most delightfully bizarre, magnetic, and intellectually pyrotechnic individuals of the 19th century, and their antics, both intellectual and personal, make for some of the most engaging moments in the development of contemporary spirituality. However, behind all these societies there was another organization: Freemasonry. Seemingly hidden behind the glare of the occult revival, Freemasonry provided many of the variables of fin de siäcle occultism: syncretism, initiation, hidden superiors, and reverence for ancient mystery cults. From Helena Blavatsky to Aleister Crowley, each of the leading occultists stated their supreme debt to the Masons and their mysteries. In The Foundations of Re-Enchantment, Christopher Coome tells an immersive and compelling story of this remarkable emergence of occult organizations at the turn of the 19th century.

More in Modern History from 1700 to 1900

The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective - Sara Lodge
Jane Austen at Home : A Biography - Lucy Worsley (

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written - Walter Isaacson
Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
Return of a King : The Battle for Afghanistan - William Dalrymple

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Tobruk: 75th Anniversary Edition - Peter FitzSimons

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
Revolutionary Spring : Fighting for a New World 1848-1849 - Christopher Clark
The First Fleet - Rob Mundle

RRP $27.99

$23.75

15%
OFF
The Romanovs : The Story of Russia and its Empire 1613-1918 - Simon Sebag Montefiore
The Devil In The White City - Erik Larson

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF