The theatre of the occult revival

Based on field research and archival study, this book offers an in-depth exploration of the religious foundations, political and social significance, and aesthetic aspects of the theatre created by several of the most influential leaders of the Occult Revival: Katherine Tingley, Rudolf Steiner, Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Aleister Crowley, Alexander Mathews, and Gerald Gardner. The Occult Revival was an international surge of interest in the supernatural, magic, and Eastern mysticism that thrived in Europe and the United States between the late nineteenth-century and the mid-twentieth-century. By studying the theatre that was developed in affiliation with occult movements, this book shows how theatre contributed to the complication and fragmentation of Western religious culture during the turn-of-the-century Occult Revival and how theatre continues to play a part in the development of occult rituals and beliefs.