In recent decades, occultism has grown significantly. In 2025, Pew Research Center found that 30% of Americans make use of astrology, tarot cards, or fortune tellers.
But occult and esoteric beliefs, practices, and movements have been a part of mainstream culture – in a more veiled form – for a long time.
My investigation into this began when someone gave me the 1937 book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. It’s quite well known – something of a classic in the business and personal finance world, and a pioneer in the self-help genre. As the title indicates, it’s a book about building wealth and success, purportedly based on Hill’s 25-year study of over 500 wealthy and successful individuals and the principles that led them to the top of their industries.
But here’s what the title doesn’t indicate: the principles behind the book’s message are occult principles, and some of the practices promoted by the book are essentially of a magical character.
As the Internet Sacred Texts Archive (ISTA) puts it:
While not considered part of the New Thought movement [which emphasized the magical power of mind over matter], Hill drew on many of their concepts and techniques. He prefigured the 'Prosperity Consciousness' of present-day New Age thinkers. And a host of motivational writers and speakers have followed in his footsteps.
Much of the book is just that: motivational content and business advice about how to be rich and successful. However, as the ISTA notes:
Towards the end of the book he steps off a precipice and ventures into some very esoteric territory. He discusses harnessing Kundalini energy, manifesting psychic powers such as telepathy, tapping into higher consciousness, and getting in touch with the great minds of history, although, again, he is not too specific about how to accomplish these feats.
As just one example of Hill’s esotericism, we find that one of the 13 “principles for success” in the book is to develop your “sixth sense,” a supposed hidden inner faculty that enables you to communicate with “infinite intelligence.” This is just psychobabble for the occult practice of trying to contact spirits. Hill is pretty honest about this, writing:
The sixth sense probably is the medium of contact between the finite mind of man and Infinite Intelligence….
...
There comes to your aid, and to do your bidding, with the development of the sixth sense, a ‘guardian angel’ who will open to you at all times the door to the Temple of Wisdom.
Opening spiritual doors and communicating with some otherworldly “intelligence” is precisely what magic is about, and any Christian familiar with the Bible knows what those “intelligences” really are. Here, the practice is just dressed up in “self-help” terms, but that doesn’t make it any less spiritually dangerous. (And by some accounts, the original draft of “Think and Grow Rich” was even more directly occult.)
This questionable “success” advice becomes even more concerning when we learn about the real inspiration behind Hill’s ideas (it wasn’t Andrew Carnegie, as Hill claimed). In his 1967 book “Grow Rich With Peace of Mind,” Hill relates an experience in which he was visited by an invisible presence. The unseen visitor allegedly said: "I come from the Great School of the Masters. I am one of the Council of Thirty-Three who serve the Great School and its initiates on the physical plane.” The speaker said that Hill had been under the guidance of the School for years, and that now, he had “earned the right to reveal a Supreme Secret to others.”
Unsurprisingly, the “secret” has to do, once again, with the supposed power of the human mind and will to shape reality – which is a classic occult and magical trope. This idea has roots in the ancient Hermetic notion that “all is mind” and mental vibrations can control reality. The pop-culture term “The Law of Attraction” is an offshoot of the same idea, formulated by New Thought writers (in the same milieu as Hill) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A lot of pop-psychology and self-help nonsense (partly popularized by Hill) – such as the “Law of Attraction” and “manifesting” – is actually rooted in occult principles.
In case that’s not enough evidence that Hill was mixed up in occultism, it should be noted that he was at one time part of the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians, a literal cult that attempted to raise an “immortal baby” by bringing her up according to their beliefs. The cult leader, James Schafer, wrote a book called “Mental Magic: The Miracle Power for Producing,” which appears to have been a New Thought text on harnessing hidden mental powers and manifesting prosperity (much like “Think and Grow Rich,” a book that the cult treated as a kind of sacred text). The “manifesting” and other psychic elements of “Think and Grow Rich” tie in with Hill’s interest and involvement in the Master Metaphysicians cult and the New Thought/New Age beliefs that seem to have influenced it.
The fact that Hill was a known serial con-artist and divorcee, often on the run from the law, doesn’t exactly instill confidence in his work, either. In fact, “Think and Grow Rich” has been called “The Biggest Self-Help Scam in History.” Even the interview with Carnegie on which the work was allegedly based and which allegedly launched Hill’s study of successful people was, apparently, completely fabricated by Hill; Carnegie’s definitive biographer, David Nasaw, found no evidence for the supposed meeting between Hill and Carnegie.
Books such as “Think and Grow Rich” offer a sobering reminder of the subtle pervasiveness of anti-Christian occult practices and philosophy within mainstream culture. Hill is not the most subtle purveyor of such ideas, but he was certainly a profoundly popular one, actively spreading dangerous ideas a century ago.
Before becoming a writer, Walker Larson taught literature and history at a private academy. His writing has appeared in over a dozen outlets, including The Hemingway Review, The Epoch Times, and his Substack, The Hazelnut. He is also the author of two novels, Hologram and Song of Spheres.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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