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slug: lineages
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# The Lineages

Modern spirituality did not appear from nowhere. It is an accretion of currents carried forward by movements, teachers, books, publishers, institutions, and scenes — and most of what looks new in a wellness studio or a tarot deck has a traceable ancestry. This section covers that transmission: where the field's ideas and practices came from, and who or what carried them.

A lineage need not be a formal teacher-to-student descent. A bestselling book, an influential teacher, a retreat center, a publishing house, or an online community can all function as a transmission node. The articles here cover the foundational ones — Theosophy, which fed almost everything that followed; New Thought, the ancestor of manifestation and prosperity belief; Spiritualism and its mediums; the Human Potential Movement and Esalen, where Eastern practice, psychology, and somatic work converged in the West; the occult lineage of Crowley and the Golden Dawn; and the modern popularizers and infrastructure, from Neville Goddard to *The Secret* to Hay House, that brought it all to a mass audience.

Read this section to understand why the field has the shape it does, and to find the historical source behind a belief or practice covered elsewhere in the book. Many entries in The Worldview, The Maps, and The Ways point back here for their genealogy.

## [Western Esotericism & Occult Revival](western-esotericism.md)

- [Theosophy](theosophy.md)
- [Aleister Crowley](aleister-crowley.md)
- [Chaos Magick](chaos-magick.md)

## [New Thought & Mind-Cure](new-thought.md)

- [Neville Goddard](neville-goddard.md)

## [Spiritualism, Channeling & Mediumship](spiritualism-mediumship.md)

- [Spiritualism](spiritualism.md)
- [Parapsychology](parapsychology.md)

## [Human Potential & Transpersonal Psychology](human-potential.md)

- [Human Potential Movement](human-potential-movement.md)
- [Esalen Institute](esalen-institute.md)

## [Neopagan & Earth-Based Currents](neopagan-currents.md)

- [Asatru](asatru.md)
- [Wicca](wicca.md)

## [Left-Hand Path Currents](left-hand-currents.md)

- [Satanism](satanism.md)
- [Anton LaVey](anton-lavey.md)
- [Temple of Set / Setianism](temple-set.md)
- [Luciferianism](luciferianism.md)

## [Contemporary Publishers, Teachers & Scenes](contemporary-scenes.md)

- [Eckhart Tolle](eckhart-tolle.md)
- [The Secret](secret-byrne.md)
- [Hay House](hay-house.md)

## [Eastern Imports & Perennialism](eastern-imports.md)

- [Modern Postural Yoga](modern-postural-yoga.md)
- [Self-Realization Fellowship](self-realization-fellowship.md)
- [Carlos Castaneda](carlos-castaneda.md)

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