Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
Price: $750.00
Hardcover. First edition. Large octavo. 607pp. Illustrated. Frontispiece portrait of Randolph. Glossy illustrated boards. Fine, issued without dustjacket. The first full length biography of Randolph (1825-1875), who had a profound influence and impact on the American occult scene. Long before Aleister Crowley and Wilhelm Reich, Randolph knew, taught, and practiced rituals using sexual energies to channel the forces of nature. Included are chapters on his early life, the development of his occult philosophy, his meetings and feuds with Madame Blavatsky, and appendices on his sex magic. From the Epilogue: "Randolph was learned, brilliant, and charming - and also, as everyone recognized, singular, eccentric, proud, prickly, suspicious, and even paranoid at times. He was a black man who tried with considerable success to succeed in a white world and did do so on his own terms rather than as the merely symbolical Black Man erected by the forces of organized reform. In the world of spiritualism and occultism his was a revolutionary role, and he was truly the precursor of American occultism." The first edition is remarkably uncommon.
Item #465060
