Overview

An international history of the uncanny in the 1920s and 1930s. The interwar period was a golden age for the occult. Spiritualists, clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind readers, and Jinn summoners all set out to assure the masses that just as newly discovered invisible forces of electricity and magnetism determined the world of science, unseen powers commanded an unknown realm of human potential. Drawing on untapped sources in Arabic in addition to European ones, Raphael Cormack follows two of the most unusual and charismatic figures of this age: Tahra Bey, who took 1920s Paris by storm in the role of a missionary from the mystical East; and Dr. Dahesh, who transformed Western science to create a panreligious faith of his own in Lebanon. Traveling between Paris, New York, and Beirut while guiding esoteric apprenticeships among miracle-working mystics in Egypt and Istanbul, these men reflected the desires and anxieties of a troubled age. As Cormack demonstrates, these forgotten holy men, who embodied the allure of the unexplained in a world of dramatic change, intuitively speak to our unsettling world today.

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Raphael Cormack has a PhD in Egyptian theater from the University of Edinburgh and is currently a visiting researcher at Columbia University. He is an award-winning editor and translator and has written on Arabic culture for the London Review of Books and elsewhere. Dennis Kleinman has been narrating audiobooks since 2013 and has at least forty titles to his credit. His career began with a biography of a British general, Sir David Fraser, and then transitioned into a series of period romance audiobooks, which opened up his creative approaches and choices to the characters that he brought to life. His body of work includes drama and mysteries, coupled with fan fiction and adventure. Adding to his resume is a three-part audiobook series covering espionage across Eastern Europe, in the Birth of an Assassin series, as well as the in-depth exploration of a family's heritage in Out of The Shoebox. Dennis worked with Douglass Davies on his novel Steinburg-a work about international political intrigue, which allowed Dennis the artistic freedom to explore his own European origins and early family history. Working with Ed Renehan of New Street Nautical Audio, Dennis has narrated half a dozen nautical themed audiobooks, including Desperate Voyage, the account of Donald Crowhurst's attempt to sail in a round the world yacht race in 1968. Dennis has worked on South African themed works that include The Lion Seeker, about early Jewish settlement and emigration to South Africa. He narrated and brought many characters to life in The Zebra Affaire, set in 1976 apartheid South Africa. Dennis adopts the various South African accents in an authentic, meaningful, and sensitive way, allowing his own South African roots to flow through the narration. Dennis was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and emigrated to the United States in 1980 after completing his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Cape Town. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.

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