OCCULT EAST ASIA: EURO‐AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES. Edited by Lukas K.Pokorny and FranzWinter. Brill, 2026. Pp. x + 262. Paperback, €68.90.

This edited volume brings together a group of European scholars, including both well-established and emerging voices, who in recent years have begun investigating the pervasive influence of East Asian spiritual traditions on Western esoteric imagery. Most of these scholars have contributed to another recent seminal volume, Appropriating the Dao: The Euro-American Esoteric Reception of China, published by Bloomsbury in 2024. The contributions to this collection are revised articles, which were previously published in two special issues of NVMEN and the Vienna Journal of East Asian Studies dedicated to Euro-American reception of East Asia in Euro-American esotericism. Most chapters deal primarily with “occult China.” There is also a clear chronological focus, roughly spanning the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. This choice is significant, as it situates the birth of “Occult East Asia” within the “Chinese Century of Humiliation,” showing how Euro-American actors constructed their images of China and East Asia from a hegemonic perspective, often reinforced by colonialism. Chapter One, by Julian Strube, functions as a theoretical umbrella, demonstrating not only how European thinkers were influenced by East Asian—especially Chinese and Japanese—ideas, but also how the very discursive formation of esotericism can be said to have emerged from the entanglement of Jesuit scholarship and East Asian religious knowledge. Franz Winter focuses on the importance of China for Saint-Yves d'Alveydre (1842–1909) (Chapter Two) and on the Yìjīng 易經 and Fúxī 伏羲 in French occultism (Chapter Four). Lukas K. Pokorny traces ever-changing interpretations of Confucius in the Euro-American esoteric landscape (Chapter Three) and examines the importance of the Dàodéjīng 道德經 in the early (German) Theosophical Society (Chapter Five). The importance of China in the anthroposophical imagery is discussed in Chapter Seven by Olav Hammer and Karen Swartz-Hammer, while Chapter Nine, by Johan Nilsson, stresses the relevance of the Dàodéjīng for the English “Prophet of Thelema,” Aleister Crowley (1875–1947). Lastly, Davide Marino studies the entanglement of French colonialism in Indochina and occultism (Chapter Six), the “Easternization” of two French occultist journals at the turn of the twentieth century (Chapter Eight), and the role of Daoism in the work of the esotericist Giulio “Julius” Evola (1898–1974; Chapter Ten). In an era marked by increasing division between geopolitical blocs, contributions that perceptively demonstrate how world cultures are not mutually exclusive but deeply intertwined are especially timely.