Occult America_ The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation - Mitch Horowitz [124]
From a cultural perspective, perhaps no tradition of the East made deeper inroads than Zen Buddhism. Studied by American scholars in Japan and brought to America in large measure by the brilliant teacher D. T. Suzuki in the 1950s and ’60s, Zen became an American religion in its own right. Attracted by its message of nonattachment and “just be” spirituality, the Woodstock generation made Zen one of the most widespread of the nation’s new religious movements. Zen attracted hundreds of thousands of adherents or loose hangers-on and wielded broad influence on the religious ideals and language of the youth culture. The concept of “mindfulness” joined the American idiom. Almost a century earlier, Theosophy had helped introduce Buddhism to the West when Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky made formal Buddhist vows in Sri Lanka in 1880, probably the first Westerners ever to do so. But it was in the ’60s and ’70s that Buddhism found its true footing on American soil.
The 1960s also exposed Americans to Native American shamanism, or a certain version of it. A stocky Latin UCLA graduate student named Carlos Castaneda ignited mass interest in the wisdom of a mysterious (and many said invented) Yaqui Indian medicine man in his 1968 best seller, The Teachings of Don Juan. In the following decade, critics and some disappointed readers heaped scorn upon the elusive Castaneda when the logistics and circumstances of his Don Juan books failed to hold up under scrutiny. Even Castaneda’s own background as a globe-trotting Brazilian was exposed as invention. He was the Peruvian son of a jeweler. As some readers discovered, however, the books’ true value did not appear by dissecting the realness of Don Juan or by heading off to the Southwest in search of magic mushrooms or a Native American teacher. Rather, Castaneda’s writings made the most sense to those readers who already had a commitment to a religious or wisdom tradition and understood his books as allegories on that path. The resonances, some found, could be remarkable.
The Revolution Will Be Published
If publishers needed any further encouragement about the potential of the new spiritual literature, in 1969 a New York astrologer and former Miss America contestant named Linda Goodman placed the first astrology book on The New York Times best-seller list. The popularity of Sun Signs made “What’s your sign?” into the nation’s favorite (and most parodied) pickup line. Observers could hardly believe how far astrology had traveled from the temples of the primeval world and how appealing it could seem in the present. “I’m a nonbeliever,” wrote Marcia Sel ig son in a charming assessment of modern astrology in 1969 in The New York Times. “But in the last few weeks, since I paid a call on Linda Goodman, I’ve found it impossible to remain unseduced by astrology.” Goodman, she continued,
has an empathic quality that makes you want to tell her everything that’s unsettling you, and let her fix it up. Which I did. And she did. Far be it from me to pooh-pooh a science that tells me not to worry about the problems I’m having with my Sagittarius boyfriend because, as Linda so aptly put it: “You have a deep rich Taurus sense of humor and great sensuality and you cook well and are great fun and attractive to men and keep a lovely home.” Obviously she’s right about astrology being the