My full review can be found here.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it an enthralling, well-researched primer on the history of the occult. It is worth noting that this book focuses primarily upon writers rather than scientists or pure magicians. It is also worth noting that the latter half of the book provides a rich sampling of sections from the most pertinent texts mentioned. It's a fun exercise to read the samples while focusing upon the author's section. ( )

In theory, this book tracks the influence of "the occult" oon literature, art, science…

Needless to say, that's a slightly difficult task – by nature, and by definition, "the occult" is hidden.

Having said that, I enjoyed this book, and found it useful. There are times when the writer is more credulous than I am (I'm not at all sure I believe as much about some of the historical figures as he does), but not overly so – this is still within the realms of "read with some confidence".

For those who are new to the area, this book might assume more knowledge than is comfortable – for those who know the area well, the book will be vaguely interesting but will tell them little new. For those who have some background, but not much – it might just be a gold mine.

It has a serious lack, however, in not having an index – one must trawl through to find entries. Admittedly, these are fairly well marked but the lack of an index reduces the usefulness of the book greatly.