The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of alternative religious currents and practices, appropriating earlier traditions, entangling geographically distinct spiritual discourses, and crafting a repository of mindscapes eminently suitable to be accommodated by later generations of thinkers and practitioners. Penned by specialists in the field, this volume examines important themes and figures pertaining to this occult amalgam and its resonance into the twentieth century and beyond. Global guises of the occult, ranging from the Americas and Europe to India, are variously addressed, with special attention to the crucial role of mesmerism and the origins of modern yoga.

The nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of alternative religious currents and practices, appropriating earlier traditions, entangling geographically distinct spiritual discourses, and crafting a repository of mindscapes eminently suitable to be accommodated by later generations of thinkers and practitioners. Penned by specialists in the field, this volume examines important themes and figures pertaining to this occult amalgam and its resonance into the twentieth century and beyond. Global guises of the occult, ranging from the Americas and Europe to India, are variously addressed, with special attention to the crucial role of mesmerism and the origins of modern yoga.

Assembling original contributions, this book is a pioneering attempt to fill the lacuna of research on the Euro-American esoteric reception and appropriation of East Asian religious and philosophical ideas. Chapters encompass research on the early phase of reception, pertaining to Daoism and the Yijing in the 19th century’s Euro-American occult milieu, with additional attempts to locate tropes and patterns even earlier – that is, within the 18th century’s mesmerism and figurism. Chapters also explore the reception as well as appropriation within the ever broadening alternative religious spectrum of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Traditionalism, the New Age, and the wider holistic milieu (including the highly popular martial arts current). This book opens up an under-explored area of research in the subject of East-West interactions and the global history of religions.