The Black Arts after Fifty Years
Celebrating an outcast classic
This essay is adapted from my introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of The Black Arts (2017).
This year marks the 50th anniversary of historian Richard Cavendish’s landmark study of the occult, The Black Arts. The publication of Cavendish’s book — 1967 — could be seen as a banner moment for the rebirth of occult and esoteric spirituality in the modern West.
In 1967, toy giant Parker Brothers relaunched the Ouija Board, having bought rights the prior year from descendants of manufacturer William Fuld, and sold a record two-million talking boards, surpassing sales of its leading game Monopoly and installing the mediumistic device into playrooms across America.
As governor-elect of California, Ronald Reagan in January 1967 raised eyebrows by scheduling his inauguration at the perplexing hour of 12:10 A.M., prompting persistent questions — which ran throughout his presidency — over the extent of his and wife’s dedication to astrology. Reagan would admit only that “Nancy and I enjoy glancing at the daily astrology charts in our morning paper.” At that time, about 1,250 out of 1,750 daily papers featured daily horoscope columns, a post-war high.
In 1967, The Beatles learned Transcendental Meditation (TM) from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi…
