The Secret Teachers of the Western World

Lachman (Evolution of Consciousness, California Inst. of Integral Studies; Politics of the Occult) presents this work as "a serious study of our 'rejected knowledge' and an engagement with some of the people pursuing it today" and successfully achieves his first goal of a scholarly study of the "rejected" knowledge of the Western esoteric tradition. This comprehensive history engagingly traces a way of thinking and living that was often at the margins of accepted Western society. While it would be easy to sensationalize such a past, Lachman deftly navigates between the extremes of presenting a unified "conspiracy" behind hermeticism and a polemical attack on its opponents. It is an academic work, not a practitioner's guide, which ranges from discussions on Plato to Carl Jung and onto the New Age as well as current explorations in alternative spiritual traditions. Lachman further briefly considers important mystics from the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions who informed the esoteric tradition.