My Library

Had I wished to affiliate myself with a movement and call myself as a member of it, I could easily and willingly have styled myself as an "Anthroposophist," perhaps even an abject one. This was as close as I ever came to being a true-believer "member" in anything. Although Anthroposophy was in decline when I took an interest in it, Rudolph Steiner has very much to teach one, even today. Naturally, in surveying all the available literature on such topics, one will run across the voluminous works of Alice Bailey (1880-1944), a noted Theosophist. She is often described as the "intellectual heir" to Madame Blavatsky, and around her works the Arcane School was formulated to propagate a "Great Universal Plan" dictated by a hierarchy of spiritual masters. And with Alice Bailey we are talking BIG books, and lots of them, for example THE TREATISE ON COSMIC FIRE, a particular favorite of mine. The Arcane School was located quite near the United Nations buildings, and it possessed something quite remarkable. An extensive library of what seemed to be all of the occult books in the world. The library didn't loan books, and so I practically lived in this library (or in Weiser's Occult Bookstore), and consumed huge quantities of information. I became quite familiar to the librarian at the Arcane School, and he started recommending sources I'd never heard of or might not have run across.