The Dedalus Book of the Occult: A Dark Muse

By Stefan Isaksson

The Dedalus Book of the Occult: A Dark Muse
Gary Lachman
Dedalus Ltd.
378 pages
ISBN: 1903517206

Gary Lachman is worthy of great praise for writing his great book The Dedalus Book of the Occult, I have no doubt about that whatsoever. Or actually, it’s not really correct to label it a “book”. It’s more of a book of reference than anything else. And as with most other books of reference, The Dedalus Book of the Occult is definitely not meant to be read all in one sitting (even if yours truly did just that thanks to his great sense of duty towards the readers). It’s rather a book that one can return to again and again, or simply have standing ready in the bookshelf in case one needs to consult it.

It’s made up of two different parts. The first part offers, besides the very interesting introduction entitled A Dark Muse, five different sections. They are: Enlightenment Occultism, Romantic Occultism, Satanic Occultism, Fin de siécle Occultism, and The Modernist Occultist. Throughout these sections, some of the most important thinkers, philosophers, authors, scientists and other important people of each era are described, along with his different connections to the occult. Both famous and not so famous names appear (or, at least many belonging to the latter category are not known to the larger mass or the ones who haven’t read about the history of the occult before), such as Baudelaire, Newton, Crowley, and no less than two distinct Swedes: Emanuel Swedenborg and August Strindberg. Swedenborg wrote heavily about his different astral journeys to various planets in the (at the time) known universe and managed to influence more or less every single occultist who came after him, and Strindberg was very interested in the esoteric art of alchemy and read eagerly many of the occult texts that were available to him.

The second part offers a large amount of different texts, all written by occultists mentioned in the previous part. This is a great initiative, since most occultist have been described thoroughly and have had a large amount of their work mentioned by Lachman. For the reader to now have the opportunity to read some of these works for himself is very welcome.

However, The Dedalus Book of the Occult has not a single illustration. Most characters in it appear to have been very colourful, to say the least, and it would therefore have been nice if at least some of them could have been illustrated. But no, there is no such thing. The other major flaw – a flaw that unfortunately is very great – is the fact that the book have no index whatsoever. The page in the beginning having “Contents” as its heading only offer the different pages for the sections and parts, and that’s it. When you get to page 378 the book suddenly comes to a very abrupt end, and in case you want to reread parts of it later, for instance if there is a certain author or work you need to refresh your memory about, then your only alternative is to painstakingly flip through the pages until you find what you’re looking for. And this flaw is indeed unacceptable, considering the fact that the book is indeed a book of reference.

But if you manage to ignore this annoying mistake; then the book is a superb piece of work that any serious student of the occult should own.