Readers are familiar with the work of Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, but let's delve more deeply into the emergence of the occult in American literature, and conversely, into the role of literature in the emergence of 20th-century occultism. Fiction not only shaped occult leaders’ conceptions of their occult and esoteric knowledge, but it also gave a mouthpiece to leaders of esoteric orders and new religious movements to reach mass audiences through new forms of publication, such as pulp fiction magazines and cheap genre fiction books. Dr. Mark Morrisson, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Liberal Arts Professor of English, will take us on a tour of the genre and how it shapes our culture into the 21st century.

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