March 1, 2005
Former bass player for the band Blondie, Lachman ("Turn Off Your Mind") takes a historical look at the magical arts. Beginning with the Enlightenment and working up through the modern era, Lachman provides an overview of writers and poets studying alchemy, mesmerism, magnetism, and hypnotism, with an emphasis on how the actions and teachings of particular practitioners influenced their contemporaries and the literature they produced. The second part of the book provides a selection of writings by some of these practitioners. Readers would also enjoy books by Edgar Allan Poe, Madame Blavatsky, Charles Baudelaire, and William Blake, all discussed in the text. Recommended for any library with an interest in mysticism. -Jennifer Kuncken, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA
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