emasons who could not find an occult philosophy within Freemasonry. These enthusiasts persisted, both as individual students of Hermetism and, in continental Europe, as groups of occult practitioners, into the 19th century, when the growth of religious skepticism led to an increased rejection of orthodox religion by the educated and a consequent search for salvation by other means—including occultism. But those interested turned to new forms of occultism rather than to the Hermetic tradition: on the one hand to Spiritualism—the practice of alleged regular communication between the living and the spirits of the dead through a living “medium”—and on the other to Theosophy—a blend of Western occultism and Eastern mysticism that proved to be a most effective propagator of occultism but whose influence has declined markedly over the last 50 years. Indeed, despite the 19th-century revival, occult ideas have fail
ed to gain acceptance in academic circles, although they have occasionally influenced the work of major artists, such as the poet William Butler Yeats and the painter Wassily Kandinsky, and occultism in Europe and North America seems destined to remain the province of popular cultu
