Books like Decline of Magic by Michael Hunter

D. Michael Quinn examines the influence of folk magic and occult beliefs in the environment that shaped Joseph Smith and early Mormonism.

In The Dark Side of the Enlightenment John V. Fleming shows how the impulses of the European Enlightenment, generally associated with great strides in the liberation of human thought from superstition and traditional religion, were challenged by tenacious religious ideas or channeled into the darker pursuits of the esoteric and the occult. His topics include the stubborn survival of the miraculous, the Enlightenment roles of Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry and the widespread pursuit of magic and alchemy. Though we tend not to associate what was once called alchemy with what we now call chemistry, Fleming shows that the difference is merely one of linguistic modernization. Alchemy was once the chemistry, of Arabic derivation, and its practitioners were among the principal scientists and physicians of their ages. No point is more important for understanding the strange and fascinating figures in this book than the prestige of alchemy among the learned men of the age. Fleming follows some of these complexities and contradictions of the "Age of Lights" into the biographies of two of its extraordinary offspring. The first is the controversial wizard known as Count Cagliostro, the "Egyptian" freemason, unconventional healer, and alchemist known most infamously for his ambiguous association with the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which history has viewed as among the possible harbingers of the French Revolution and a major contributing factor in the growing unpopularity of Marie Antoinette. Fleming also reviews the career of Julie de Krüdener, the sentimental novelist, Pietist preacher, and political mystic who would later become notorious as a prophet. Impressively researched and wonderfully erudite, this rich narrative history sheds light on some lesser-known mental extravagances and beliefs of the Enlightenment era and brings to life some of the most extraordinary characters ever encountered either in history or fiction.--Book jacket.

An insightful examination of how witchcraft, astrology, and popular magic shaped English society during the 16th and 17th centuries amid the Protestant Reformation and the rise of scientific thought.

While acknowledging France at the eve of the Revolution as the root of the modern world, Porter also makes a case for considering Britain's importance in catapulting the world into modernity.

Talking to the Gods explore the linkages between the imaginative literature and the occult beliefs and practices of four writers who were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Dion Fortune were all members of the occult organization for various periods from 1890 to 1930. Yeats, of course, is both a canonical and well-loved poet. Machen is revered as a master of the weird tale. Blackwood's work dealing with the supernatural was popular during the first half of the twentieth century and has been influential in the development of the fantasy genre. Fortune's books are acknowledged as harbingers of trends in second-wave feminist spirituality. Susan Johnston Graf examines practices, beliefs, and ideas engendered within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawg and demonstrates how these are manifest in each author's work, including Yeats's major theoretical work, A Vision. -- from back cover.