Mitch Horowitz - New Thought Renegade

How a lifelong fascination with mystical studies and the occult led author and presenter Mitch Horowitz to this seismic moment in New Thought philosophy.

Mitch Horowitz is no stranger to the public eye. An established author and presenter, he’s as famous for his non conformist approach to life as he is for his thoroughly researched and eloquently authored texts. Renowned film director, David Lynch of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive fame, called Mitch “solid gold.” A confident public speaker, his ability to make complex esoteric information palatable for the everyday person backed by historical and scientific evidence is quite profound. As the Huffington Post claims, “Horowitz has the rare gift of making the esoteric accessible to discerning masses.” Horowitz’s journey has seen him traverse a wide berth of esoteric knowledge - from ancient Egyptian and Greek texts to turn of the century New Thought sciences in the USA; from figures widely revered such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Neville Goddard and Napoleon Hill to more maligned occult figures such as Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey. Horowitz embodies the hallmark of punk vestiges; controversial, pragmatic and a willingness to flip established narratives about spiritualism in order to present a fresh approach as to why thoughts are causative.

Horowitz’s latest book ‘Daydream Believer’ available from July 26 2022 (pre order here), harnesses the knowledge he’s acquired from his previous research presented in his books ‘Occult America’, ‘The Miracle Club’ and ‘One Simple Idea’, to give us the practical enlightenment needed to apply this knowledge in our everyday lives.

I recently spoke with Mitch to discuss his journey through esoterica from his first encounter with astrology to his new book, ‘Daydream Believer’.

Sophie K: You are an author, a speaker and a presenter who is well renowned in the community, but who is Mitch?

Mitch Horowitz: In all the years no one has ever once asked me that question. Who is Mitch? Wow. I have never been asked that question before and I appreciate it. I probably would say that I am a person of very very deep passions and wishes for how I’ve wanted to live my life, who I’ve wanted to be in this life, and I think I grew up in a world that I felt very estranged from as many people do about their childhood homes. I grew up in a world where there was very little beauty, very little refinement, there was very little appreciation for greater and different ways of living; where there was little appreciation for demonstrating sympathy or sensitivity towards other people- whether or not you agree with them at certain moments. And I remember feeling a deep sense of wanting to live a completely different way.

Unlike people who make a great change in geography or career, all of which I find very understandable and desirable, I for whatever reasons, didn’t make that great change in geography exactly - I stayed in the greater NYC area my whole life. It took me many years to find a sense of self as a writer because I was working in publishing for a long time and publishing was good to me in many ways; but I always felt like I was an imposter like I wasn’t doing what I should have been doing. Deep down though, we know whether we are in the time or place or circumstance where we’re supposed to be. I’d have to say that at this point in my life and I’m aged 56, I’m experiencing life for the very first time from the perspective of how I saw myself as a kid, as a young person, as an adult but never fully moved into. So I think I would have to say I consider myself someone who was lost and found in terms of the life I wanted to lead, and I’m trying my best to arrive at an everyday philosophy of living that is both self determinative and that is honorable towards other people. One of the things that has resulted in however is I actually have very few people in my life. I have a partner; I have two adolescent sons; and to be perfectly frank, those are the people in this world whom I care about - beyond that I have an obligation to be honorable towards other people, telling the truth, doing all I can not to humiliate others, and to do my work as an artist, speaker and presenter… that’s who I am.

I thought when I was in my mid 30s my life was settled. I was married, kids were on the way, and I had a reasonably successful career in corporate publishing. I was looking to buy a lakehouse in upstate New York…. when you start doing things like that you start affirming the parameters of your life. Yet life went in a different direction.

I wrote my first book ‘Occult America’ in 2009 and I think it’s important to let people know that I was 43 going on 44 when that book came out. I had been prepping for a long time but I view it as a great privilege to have published my first book at 43. And I always like people to know that; we’re so conditioned by cultural norms that tell us these are the phases of life, yet, this has not been the case for me.

You mention your first encounter with the esoteric as getting an astrology read out from a dime slot machine when you were a young boy. What was it about the information that astrology scroll gave you that sparked something in you?

I was having a dialogue with my friend who is a scholar of occult literature and traditions, and I asked him why astrology has endured; and he paused and said “..because it’s pretty accurate.” And I burst out laughing. This is the answer none of us are supposed to give. We’re supposed to stroke our chins and talk about sociological factors and human anxiety - and we live in an age of anxiety and uncertainty - and I don’t think there’s a single modern generation that doesn’t feel like they’re living under a modern precipice. However, he’s intellectually very capable of defending his answer and it was liberating to hear someone just say it.

As a child, I got my dime scroll horoscope and there were probably two things that turned me on about it. One was that some of what it said struck me as being true and the other, was that I was fascinated with the occult symbols and sigils and I wanted to know where this stuff came from; I still harbour that fascination. Astrology has its earliest beginnings, as it’s translated in the western world, in ancient Mesopotamia. The astrology that’s reached us today is of a different sort and has gone through different permutations; historical threads have been cut and new threads have been spun. Nevertheless it is incredible to me that almost everybody walking around in the Western world today could tell you his or her sun sign and something about it, and probably, whether they call themselves a believer or non believer, identifies with it in some way. It is probably the longest running extra physical tradition in modern history. But I wanted power, and as a 9 year old child or a 56 year old man, there are a finite number ways of gaining power. And gaining some sort of invisible help from an occult tradition was a means to that.

You also use tarot. How did you first come across tarot and what is it that keeps you there?

As I encountered some of the decks - and I encountered the Smith-Waite deck first and stuck with it - I was really entranced by the images; I found them so alluring and truly mysterious in the best way and it did seem to me that what Pamela Smith created was authentically a codex of human nature. I think her work as an artist is really extraordinary and mysterious. Waites’ collaboration with her was seminal. So how could I not experiment with these cards? It didn’t even occur to me to not experiment with these cards. I sat down and looked through the little booklet that came with the deck of cards and I found things that seemed penetrating, that seemed truthful. I also found things that were the opposite and I learned to approach these sources with a great deal of care. One could argue it’s random; it’s possible that is true. But the experiences that I’ve had mitigate against that, so i’ve stuck with it.

¹Tarot card from the Rider-Smith-Waite deck

In your book Daydream Believer you mention that there have now been enough studies on ESP, precognition and even placebo studies showing evidence of expectancy becoming physically measurable in specific outcomes, so much so that it’s circumstantial law; the data is not controversial but the implications are. In what way are the implications potentially controversial?

It seems to me the implications support the existence of an extra physical world. ESP especially is a tough topic. It engenders an enormous about of pushback. I get responses from people that are deeply polarized when I talk about ESP. One version of the responses for example, is a billionaire who made the remark to me; “…you should believe more in your own theories” and that I was being conservative with respect to ESP. I’ve had really intelligent bloggers and others interested in the esoteric tell me I’m being quite conservative in my view. On the other end of the sliding scale, a journalist said to me; “…I’m concerned this is becoming some sort of religion for you”- his perspective was that I was completely lost in orthodox belief. So this topic deeply polarizes people because I think they realize the stakes of it. It may be the only facet of the occult that has been subject to scientific testing of which we have hardcore statistical evidence gathered in academic settings since the 1930s. It polarizes so deeply because people do realize the stakes. Once you crack open the door that states JB Rhine’s card tests were right in the early 1930s, you’ve opened the door to the infinite just with those card tests! I guess that’s why some people perceive me as being conservative on the issue. If you can take the most rudimentary aspect of parapsychology, such as JB Rhine’s card tests; here’s 5 cards, take a guess, over time you have a 1 in 20 chance of being right so let’s see what occurs. And what occurs is not what is supposed to occur. We are confronted with the greatest of all human questions - is life local? If JB’s tests are correct, life is not local. It’s not just a matter of my flesh and bone and the grey matter of my brain; we participate in an invisible world and it opens the door to everything. I think that’s why the stakes are so high and those are the implications.

²Zener cards used to develop and test ESP

Hard science is being confronted with these challenging questions and the possibility that 3D reality is unravelling. It seems that quantum physics sits parallel to those more esoteric philosophies doesn’t it?

I actually get far more pushback from people in the humanities and the social sciences than I do from people in the hard sciences. When I’m talking to people from the medical sciences, physics people and engineers, they tend to be much more fluid and flexible - and these are hardcore intellects who’ve dedicated their lives to replicable, evidence based, deeply complex sciences. The pushback I’ll get are from people in the social sciences and humanities maybe because modernist intellectual culture - Marx, Darwin, Freud, mitigated against religion as being something of a false explanation. If you wanted to get into the real deal you had to deal with the biology, germs, economics or trauma and religion was seen as a false diversion. Didn’t Marx say religion is the opiate of the masses? The problem with that outlook is that in the same way Marx never foresaw vast changes and complexities in economics outside of the industrial realms (some may argue with me on that), he also never foresaw vast developments in religion that would exceed what was going in the Victorian era. So modernist culture imbibed this idea that religion was somehow a sham that kept us from seeing what was going on in the particle world, in germs, in the recesses of our psyche. All those questions were necessary, but it didn’t require throwing the extra physical over the side of the boat. Probably people that seek out work in the social sciences or the humanities are more attached to that mode of thinking than those in medicine, physics or engineering and that’s why a lot of the pushback comes from them which is ironic - they’re sitting around analyzing texts whereas my physics scientist is very happy to talk to me about some very far out questions.

In your book Daydream Believer you state that tension, resistance and defeat are forces that drive intention, improvement and resilience. And yet, mainstream spiritual culture appears to espouse something markedly different. What do you mean when you refer to spiritual culture as a malady tearing the seeker in two?

It seems to me a lot of alternative spiritual culture in America and the western world in general, has imbibed, inherited, and translated certain key concepts from Vedic and Bhuddist culture; some of which comport well with ideas in western Scripture. I think that some of us within the spiritual seeking culture in the western world, have come to feel that acquisitiveness, materialism in the worldly sense, attachment and identification are, in the same way modernist intellectualists view religion, diversions. Chasing after goodies, money, titles, position and power - these things are apparently all a distraction from our true nature. However, I dissent from that idea through personal experience.

I have imbibed those ideas very deeply and I have read many of the same books including classics they’ve read, and I came to feel about 10 years ago, that actually engaging in my career, speaking, presenting, writing, being in front of a camera and microphone were the happiest moments of my life. I simply couldn’t fathom that somebody was telling me …you’re hypnotised, you’re suffering from illusion, this is Samsara, Maya, a false god, this is the world of Caesar.

Classify it all you want, and use whatever language you want to tell me I’m really not experiencing this - but I really am experiencing it. Could you tell someone that they're not in love or in grief? I don’t mean to sound glib, but I’ve heard it all. I’ve had discussions with people considered abbots in monasteries and people who espouse similar philosophies to Deepak Chopra and I respect this idea of transcending the ego if the individual experiences fulfillment; but that has not been my experience. And I can’t imagine that my life is exceptional, or that I am the only person that feels this way. But we are not given permission in our spiritual groups to express this.

Every artist wants to be seen, every singer wants to be heard, every musician wants people to dance to their music. I can’t fathom anyone who doesn’t want that recognition. That’s what I meant that the seeker feels torn in two. We have this yearning to create, to sing our song and we want that song heard. We want a constituency, we want an audience, we want to be seen, appreciated, and recognised.

And yet at the same time we have these traditions telling us that’s the ego, that’s illusion, that’s false goodies, that’s what we have to transcend.

I don’t want to transcend that I want to fulfill it. I think self expression is the key point in life.

You have often spoken of Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey who are two very polarizing and contentious figures. What is it about them that warrants your interest?

³Anton LaVey - Founder of the Church of Satan

⁴Aleister Crowley - founder of Abbey of Thelema; occultist and practitioner of magick.

When I need to turn down the controversy I go back to writing about Satanism instead of ESP; believe it or not I get more pushback with ESP!

Crowley and LaVey were both very different. I would have liked to have known Anton LaVey but I would not have liked to have known Crowley. Crowley was like Ancient Greece - a beautiful artist but a troublemaker, and Anton LaVey was more like Ancient Rome- less beautiful but more quotidian and expository. I do feel he was a richer, better and fuller person than Crowley was. Crowley was a man who did not care who got hurt and I disrespect that. He recreated a deeply orthodox liturgy that he said he wanted to destroy in mainstream religion. Anton whilst espousing a similar philosophy, was simpler, more direct, and in some regards more dramatic. But I think he was a more honorable human being. I think if you wound up in Crowley’s circle you were apt to get hurt psychologically and maybe even physically.

The sharpest criticism of Anton LaVey which is real, is also part of what I love about the man. People will sometimes say his work is just a bastardization of Nietzche and Ayn Rand. There is truth to that and I accept and acknowledge that. In Anton LaVey you found this very dramatic persona who incorporated strands of both with a great deal of adolescent rebellion and a certain degree of provocative occultism. I was confronted with that childish zeal I had found with the astrology and tarot and so, how could I not open this box?

There was this aspect about Anton - he was a showman and a carnival guy but he also recognized that there was something about being a showman and a carnival guy that could translate into other peoples’ lives. If someone was in a situation for example, where they were not able to have the sexual life they wanted to have, he made the case quite bravely, to have your fantasy life and interact how you want that way. He has given approbation to people to just be with themselves and I think this is a very liberating message for the individual and it gives people options. And that’s the side that I love.

You recently made a film about the Kybalion - the apparent collation of Hermetic wisdom from Ancient Egypt and Greece. However, this was a text you had initially dismissed but in later years revisited. Why did you dismiss it and what reignited your interest again?

⁵

I first encountered it twenty years ago when I thought I needed to educate myself on New Thought. I was of the outlook that it was just early 20th century New Thought costumed in Hermetic garb. I thought it had some serviceable insights but it was a work of New Thought dressed up in Egyptian garb. I was also impatient with people speculating who the 3 initiates were and my research showed that it was actually written by William Walker Atkinson.

Then two things happened in proximity with one another. I was talking to a respected scholar of religious studies and I mentioned the Kybalion and he said “..there are some good ideas in that little book”. When I was writing the book One Simple Idea, a history of New Thought and positive mind in 2014, I came across a profile of comedic actor Sherman Hemsley in an old TV guide magazine. It had a painting of him on the cover titled something like Sherman Hemsley’s Secret Life, and I opened up to the article which wrote about his interest in Kabbalah and meditation and the reporter asked, “..how did you become successful?” to which he responded, “…I met the man with the book and it changed everything for me.”

Well that book was the Kybalion. Again, who am I not to open this box?

I read it five times in one summer, and I felt my first judgment was wrong. There is something in this book; it’s a good distillation of ideas from Hermeticism. The Kybalion has become one of these books that evinces polarized reactions. Some people are so angry of its claim as authentic Hermeticism that they have to react against it; they essentially have to piss on the Kybalion. In fact, Hermeticism for centuries has itself been considered a mutt by scholars of late Egyptian and Neo Platonic thought in academia who considered it nonsense. The vaunted traditions of Hermeticism itself is at home with the Kybalion, because it itself was considered a novelty or a knock off; a mutt.

One of the key principals in the Kybalion is that the ‘All is mind; the universe is mental’. So it seems to me that the mind or awareness, may be the ultimate arbiter of reality. And there are a lot of people in theoretical physics who have come to that place - Max Planck and Schrödinger among others. There are a good many people who have come to that point of view for good reasons, and people of a mystical nature who have also come to that point of view. But we still have to deal with the experience of multiple laws and forces which may be incredibly real. Whatever this reality we live in, it requires us to live under different laws. Mortality is one.

So I am sympathetic to the idea that the ‘all is mind’ but must remember for the sake of my own humanity, that we have to live under these different laws and forces.

Any advice for a young person just starting out on their esoteric or spiritual journey?

Ensure you find your own self validation- explore ideas freely and trust your own experience. Don’t be snookered by dogmas, concepts and words from people whose positions amount to some authority- from priests, or monks, or gurus, or light workers.

Self validation is the most important experience to have so don’t let someone, just because they speak with authority, snooker you into invalidating your experience.

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Mitch Horowitz’s latest book Daydream Believer is available on preorder here.

Amazon

Target

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Check out Mitch Horowitz’s previous books

Occult America

One Simple Idea

The Miracle Habits

The Miracle Club

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1. Ryder- Waite- Smith Tarot

2. Tom Fanshawe, “The matching distribution”, Significance; Royal Statistical Society; 26 July 2018

3. Anton LaVey, https://www.amazon.com/ANTON-LAVEY-Satanist-Baphomet-24x36inch/dp/B019P1EGS6

4. Aleister Crowley, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thelema

5. The Kybalion, Amazon.com