Occult Publishing: Bookshops, Presses and Periodicals Since 1800

Modern occultism has always been a culture of print. From John Denley's shop of magical books and manuscripts in early nineteenth-century Covent Garden to the Victorian publishers who issued the works of the Theosophists and the Golden Dawn, and from the London bookshops of Watkins and Atlantis to the American houses of Weiser and Llewellyn, specialist booksellers, presses and periodicals created the occult public, connected scattered practitioners and decided which texts became the canon. Today small presses, mass-market imprints and digital platforms continue that role.

Denley's Shop and the Market for Magical Manuscripts§

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries occult knowledge in Britain circulated largely through a small trade in old books and manuscripts. Its best-known figure was John Denley (c. 1764–1842), a bookseller in Catherine Street, Covent Garden, who specialised in astrology, alchemy and magic. Denley sold printed rarities and manuscript copies of grimoires, and he employed the young Frederick Hockley to copy texts for customers; many of the manuscripts that later reached the Golden Dawn passed through this network. Denley's shop is often identified with the occult bookseller described at the opening of Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni (1842), discussed in Bulwer-Lytton's occult novels.

Denley is also linked, by long tradition, with one of the first modern occult books in English, Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801), a compilation drawn largely from Agrippa and other early modern sources. Printed books like Barrett's, and copied manuscripts like Hockley's, were expensive and few, and the readership was limited to a handful of collectors, astrologers and gentlemen students of the "occult sciences".

Victorian and Belle Époque Occult Publishers§

The occult revival of the 1880s needed publishers, and a few firms made the field their own. In London, George Redway issued a stream of occult titles in the 1880s, including S. L. MacGregor Mathers's The Kabbalah Unveiled (1887) and early books by A. E. Waite. William Rider & Son, originally a general printing firm, became the leading British occult publisher of the early twentieth century; it published Waite's books and, in 1909, the tarot deck designed by Pamela Colman Smith under Waite's direction, still known as the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot after its publisher.

The Theosophical movement built its own publishing apparatus. The Theosophical Publishing Society in London and the publishing house at Adyar in India issued Blavatsky's works, Annie Besant's and C. W. Leadbeater's books, and cheap pamphlets for lodges around the world, and the movement's American publishing later continued under the Quest Books imprint. In Paris the publisher-booksellers of the Belle Époque played a similar role: the Librairie du Merveilleux of Lucien Chamuel was a gathering point for Papus and his associates, and the firm of Chacornac kept Éliphas Lévi's works in print and later published the journal Le Voile d'Isis, which became Études traditionnelles, closely associated with René Guénon.

Occult Periodicals: From The Theosophist to The Occult Review§

Periodicals mattered as much as books. They carried news of lodges and lectures, serialised new teachings, printed correspondence between readers in different countries, and advertised astrologers, mediums and booksellers. Spiritualism led the way with weeklies such as the Banner of Light in Boston (from 1857) and Light in London (from 1881). Blavatsky and Olcott founded The Theosophist in Bombay in 1879, and Blavatsky launched Lucifer in London in 1887. In Paris Papus founded L'Initiation in 1888 as the organ of his occult network, described in Papus and the Martinist Order.

The most important British title was The Occult Review, founded by Rider in 1905 and edited for many years by Ralph Shirley. For half a century it published essays on magic, psychical research, astrology and mysticism, reviews of new occult books and contributions by writers ranging from Waite to Dion Fortune. Aleister Crowley took another route with The Equinox (1909–1913), a substantial self-published journal that printed Golden Dawn rituals, his own holy books and instructional papers in defiance of oaths of secrecy. Through such journals the occult became a public conversation rather than a secret held by a few orders.

London's Occult Bookshops: Watkins and Atlantis§

Two London shops have become institutions. Watkins Books was founded in the 1890s by John M. Watkins, a friend of Blavatsky, and settled in Cecil Court off Charing Cross Road, where it still trades; it also published books on mysticism and Theosophy. The Atlantis Bookshop in Museum Street, Bloomsbury, opened in 1922 under Michael Houghton, who as a publisher issued Gerald Gardner's novel High Magic's Aid (1949), an early fictional presentation of the witchcraft that became Wicca. Atlantis became a meeting place for occultists from Crowley's circle to the witches of the 1950s and later.

These shops did more than sell books. Their noticeboards, back rooms and staff introduced newcomers to groups and teachers, and their stock lists effectively defined what a serious student was expected to read. Similar specialist shops appeared in Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and other cities, and in the later twentieth century almost every large town had its esoteric or New Age bookshop.

American Occult Publishing: de Laurence, Llewellyn and Weiser§

In the United States the Chicago firm of L. W. de Laurence, active from the early twentieth century, sold occult books by mail order, many of them unauthorised reprints of British editions. Its catalogues reached the Caribbean and West Africa, where its books became part of local traditions of magic and were sometimes banned; this story is told in the grimoire revival.

Llewellyn was founded in 1901 by the astrologer Llewellyn George in Portland, Oregon, and for decades published mainly astrological texts and almanacs. After Carl Weschcke bought the company in 1961 and moved it to Minnesota, Llewellyn expanded into ritual magic, witchcraft and the New Age, publishing a new edition of Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn (1969–71) and a vast list of practical handbooks. Samuel Weiser opened a bookshop in New York in 1926; from the 1950s the firm also published, reprinting classic occult texts and issuing new works by Crowley, Regardie and many others, and it continues today as Red Wheel/Weiser.

The Paperback Boom, Small Presses and the Digital Age§

The "occult explosion" of the late 1960s, discussed in contemporary occultism, was in large part a publishing phenomenon. Mass-market paperbacks put Crowley, Lévi, tarot handbooks and witchcraft manuals on airport bookstands, and large general publishers added occult lists. In Britain, firms such as the Aquarian Press specialised in the field.

From the 1990s two contrasting trends emerged. On one side, specialist small presses began to produce carefully edited, finely bound editions of grimoires, art books and new magical writing in limited runs, aimed at collectors and serious practitioners, while academic publishers launched series devoted to the history of magic and esotericism. On the other, the internet made thousands of public-domain occult texts freely available, print-on-demand allowed anyone to publish, and social media turned tarot decks and witchcraft guides into best-sellers among younger readers, as described in the occult today. The bookshop and the journal survive, but the canon is now negotiated across many platforms at once.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the oldest occult bookshop in London?§

Watkins Books, founded by John M. Watkins in the 1890s and long based in Cecil Court, is usually described as London's oldest surviving esoteric bookshop. The Atlantis Bookshop in Bloomsbury, opened in 1922, is another historic occult bookshop still trading.

What was The Occult Review?§

The Occult Review was a British monthly magazine founded by the publisher William Rider & Son in 1905. For decades it was the main English-language forum for articles and reviews on magic, mysticism, psychical research and astrology.

Why is the Rider-Waite tarot named after Rider?§

The deck was published in 1909 by William Rider & Son of London, the leading occult publisher of the day. Its images were drawn by Pamela Colman Smith to A. E. Waite's design, so many now call it the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

Sources and further reading§

• The Occult Underground — James Webb, 1974
• Grimoires: A History of Magic Books — Owen Davies, 2009
• The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern — Alex Owen, 2004
• The Theosophical Enlightenment — Joscelyn Godwin, 1994
• The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft — Ronald Hutton, 1999
• The Re-Enchantment of the West — Christopher Partridge, 2004