The twentieth-century esoteric philosopher Valentin Tomberg was born in 1900 in St. Petersburg to a Russian father and an Estonian mother. Little is known about his early life; indeed, Tomberg…

In 1959, while staying at the farmhouse of an old friend, the British existentialist Colin Wilson came across a book seemingly designed to attract his attention; the fact that it…

Some weeks ago I had an odd experience. Like many other people, I have spent the past few months under a voluntary “house arrest,” following the rules the government has…

The Council of Ferrara-Florence, held from 1438 to 1445 in, not surprisingly, the Italian cities of Ferrara and Florence, had as one of its main objectives the possible reunion of…

In the spring of 1915 the writer and journalist Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, a familiar name in Russian Theosophical circles, gave a series of lectures in Moscow about his recent “search…

On 11 February 1944, the 68-year-old Carl Gustav Jung – then the world’s most renowned living psychologist – slipped on some ice and broke his fibula. Ten days later, in…

The most enigmatic figure to emerge from the “occult revival” of the early twentieth century was also the most successful, the Austrian “spiritual scientist” Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Although many of…

When we think of wars, revolutions, populist uprisings, outbreaks of mass hysteria and other sudden social and political eruptions – even a popstar’s popularity or the latest fashion trend –…

Recently I returned to London after a week in Spain promoting a new translation of one of my books, and taking part in an International Occulture Conference held in León,…