Presents the Reverend George William Allen, an important figure in esoteric religious and cultural movements that swept North America and Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. This original biography is the first serious scholarly attempt to define the man, his theology, his philosophy and to trace his influence.

The Reverend George William Allen was an important figure in a number of esoteric religious and cultural movements in America and Europe. This is the first serious scholarly attempt to define the man, his theology and philosophy and link him directly to movements that helped determine the cultural and religious avant-garde of the Western world from the 1880s to 1914. J.D.Lavoie's extensive background in theology and history and his mastery of available original documents lend his research terrific relevance in linking intellectual currents of Victorian, Edwardian and modern esoteric beliefs and patterns.

Allen's "dream-theory", unlike Sigmund Freud's research, emphasized the notion that ordinary reality was a false state and that "waking up" process -a process linked to mystical connections-was the one sure way to human self knowledge. Allen went on to influence poets such as Yeats and Pound as well as, at a remove, the "spitirtualism" of Nazi and fascist movements.