Occult Features of Anarchism: With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples, Paperback

In the 19th century anarchists were accused of conspiracy by governments afraid of revolution, but in the current century, various "conspiracy theories" suggest that anarchists are controlled by government itself. The Illuminati were a network of intellectuals who argued for self-government and against private property, yet the public is now often told that they were (and are) the very group that controls governments around the world. Intervening in such misinformation, Lagalisse works with primary and secondary sources to set straight the history of the Left and illustrate the actual relationship between revolutionism, pantheistic occult philosophy, and the clandestine fraternity. Exploring hidden correspondences between anarchism, Renaissance magic, and New Age movements, Lagalisse also advances critical scholarship regarding leftist attachments to secular politics and the influence clandestine masculine spheres continue to have on contemporary anarchist understandings of power and politics as oppressively male.

Erica Lagalisse is an anthropologist, a writer, and a postdoctoral fellow at the International Inequalities Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of 14 books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch.