Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age w/ Raphael Cormack and Mary Beard

Raphael Cormack discusses his latest work Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age which explores spiritualists, clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind readers and Jinn in the interwar period. Historian and classicist Mary Beard points to the surprising connections between antiquity and the present in her latest work Talking Classics.

About the book

The interwar period was a golden age of the uncanny. Clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind-readers, miracle-workers and jinn-summoners—all assured the masses that, just like the newly discovered invisible forces of electricity, radiation and magnetism, unseen spiritual powers commanded a realm of hidden human potential. This was a transnational movement of eccentrics, gurus and prophets, with East and West interacting in unexpected ways.

Drawing on untapped sources in Arabic as well as European records, Raphael Cormack follows two of the most unusual and charismatic figures of this age: Tahra Bey, who took 1920s Paris by storm as an ‘Oriental’ missionary; and Dr Dahesh, who harnessed Western science to create a pan-religious faith in Lebanon. Travelling between Cairo, New York and Jerusalem, Paris, Istanbul and Rio de Janeiro, the two mystics reflected the desires and anxieties of a troubled age. These forgotten holy men, who embodied the allure of the unexplained at a time of dramatic change, speak to our own unstable world today.

About the author

Raphael Cormack is an award-winning editor, translator and writer. The author of the widely acclaimed Midnight in Cairo, he is Assistant Professor of Modern Languages at Durham University.