“Secrecy: Silence, Power, and Religion” by Hugh B. Urban

"The powers of political secrecy and social spectacle have been taken to surreal extremes recently. Witness the twin terrors of a president who refuses to disclose dealings with foreign powers while the private data of ordinary citizens is stolen and marketed in order to manipulate consumer preferences and voting outcomes. We have become accustomed to thinking about secrecy in political terms and personal privacy terms. In this bracing, new work, Hugh Urban wants us to focus these same powers of observation on the role of secrecy in religion. With Secrecy, Urban investigates several revealing instances of the power of secrecy in religion, including nineteenth-century Scottish Rite Freemasonry, the sexual magic of a Russian-born Parisian mystic;...>>

“Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink” by Mike Mitchell

"The illegitimate son of an aristocratic politician and an actress, Meyrink set up as a banker in Prague. At the same time achieving notoriety as a dandy and rake while also being a successful sportsman, winning prizes at rowing regattas; about to commit suicide, he chanced on a pamphlet about life after death, put his revolver away and started a lifelong interest in the occult. He unmasked false mediums and experimented with alchemy, drugs and clairvoyancy until an 'affair of honour' led him to challenge the whole of the Prague officer corps, setting machinations in motion which resulted in his being wrongly imprisoned; his bank collapsed and he became a writer. Stories collected round him,...>>

“The Dedalus Meyrink Reader” by Gustav Meyrink

"Gustav Meyrink is one of the most important and interesting authors of early 20th-century German Literature. To establish his reputation in the English-speaking world Dedalus has translated his five novels plus a collection of his short stories and published the first ever English-language biography of Meyrink. Now is the time to produce an overview of Meyrink in a single volume. The Dedalus Meyrink Reader has excerpts from all the translated books and a whole section of hitherto untranslated material, including the stories from the collection Fledermáuse and autobiographical articles. This volume is perfect companion for both the Meyrink scholar and the first-time Meyrink reader, containing as it does the whole gamut of Meyrink's writing...>>

“The Angel of the West Window” by Gustav Meyrink

"A complex and ambitious novel which centres on the life of the Elizabethan magus, John Dee, in England, Poland and Prague, as it intertwines past and present, dreams and visions, myth and reality in a world of the occult, culminating in the transmutation of physical reality into a higher spiritual existence. John Dee, through his 20th century descendant, is led by the Green Angel to the 'Other Side of the Mirror'. From the erotically alluring Assja Shotokalungin (in all her incarnations), the pliant Jane, the mischievous Queen Elizabeth I to the earless charlatan Kelley, the truly grotesque Bartlett Greene and the sinister Emperor Rudolph I, John Dee heads a cast which lingers in the mind...>>

“The White Dominican” by Gustav Meyrink

"The White Dominican is Meyrink's most esoteric novel, and draws on the wisdom of a number of mystical traditions, the most important of which is Tao. It is set in a mystical version of the Bavarian town of Wasserburg, which sits on a promontory surrounded on three sides by the River Inn. The novel describes the spiritual journey of the simple hero, who, guided by a number of figures, (his eccentric father, the spirit of a distant ancestor, the protecting presence of his dead lover and the mysterious figure of the White Dominican), escapes the 'Medusa head' of the world to a transfiguration, through which he joins the 'living chain that stretches to infinity'."...>>