Unbeknownst to the public, esoteric and occult circles emerged around the turn of the century in conservative Christian milieus in Europe, which referred to mystical religious forms from the Far East and Islam and aimed to combat the decadent modernity characterized by individualism and materialism. In his extensive and compelling study on "Traditionalism," Mark Sedgwick reconstructs for the first time this secret intellectual history of the 20th century and demonstrates how anti-democratic doctrines significantly influenced various contexts such as Theosophy, the Thule and Rune cults of the NSDAP, the thinking of Mircea Eliade, and Julius Evola's theories of early Italian Fascism. Sedgwick's detective story is alarmingly relevant in our time. Not only do many protagonists of Traditionalism...