The Esoteric Ambience of the American Renaissance

Abstract There is a European witticism to the effect that America is where European traditions go when they die. Of course the actual relationship between European esoteric traditions and American esotericism is much more complex and reciprocal. One could as easily say that America is where European traditions go to be reborn, for this more accurately expresses the movement back and forth from Europe and England to the United States, and from North America back to Europe and England. Such a movement is precisely what we find when we survey the history of Western esotericism in the United States during the mid-nineteenth century: it is quite closely intertwined with the history of European and English esotericism. As always, however, this history is rarely if ever one of social movements so much as of remarkable individuals.