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In political and private life, Wallace’s success seemed to arise from the unconventional broadness in how he defined himself. He wasn’t a farmer or a businessman, a publisher or a politician, a Republican or a Democrat. He was, above all, a seeker. “Fundamentally,” he told a friend, “I am … a searcher for methods of bringing the ‘inner light’ to outward manifestation and raising outward manifestation to the inner light.” He freely connected his metaphysical interests to his public work: “Religion is a method whereby a man reaches out toward God in an effort to find the spiritual power to express here on earth in a practical way the divine potentialities in himself and his fellow beings.”

FDR got his man. The farmer–seeker–statesman won the convention’s approval, even as some grumbled that Wallace was too liberal and too strange. After FDR’s reelection, Wallace seemed to have greatness in reach. He developed a reputation as the New Deal’s Renaissance man and the administration’s philosopher-in-residence. He maintained a frenetic speaking schedule and, through his public appearances and personal popularity, held together critical elements of the New Deal coalition, ranging from Southern blacks to Midwestern farmers to Northeastern intellectuals. He was even discussed as a potential successor to FDR.

But it was Roosevelt’s final vice president and the man who replaced Wallace—Harry Truman—who instead became a household name, while few today remember Henry A. Wallace. And in this turn of events, Jim Farley’s initial misgivings about the farm-belt mystic may have been correct.

A Searcher for the Infinite

Wallace freely called himself a “practical mystic.” His interest in esoteric philosophy came as the result of a long and considered journey, and he often seemed baffled that others could not respect the seriousness of his search.

As a young man growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, he left the Presbyterianism of his youth to journey through the various occult and metaphysical systems, from Theosophy to Native American shamanism. In high school in the early 1900s, he hungrily took in William James’s classic of comparative religion, The Varieties of Religious Experience—a volume marked by the deep interest with which the philosopher viewed New Thought, mental healing, and other metaphysical strains. Wallace read Ralph Waldo Emerson and took a particular interest in the work of the twentieth-century metaphysician named for him: Ralph Waldo Trine, author of the inspirational best seller In Tune with the Infinite. Trine’s idea of the mind as a material, creative force deeply touched the young Wallace. But it was Theosophy that placed the deepest mark on his expanding worldview.

Around 1919, when Wallace was entering his thirties, he attended a meeting of the Des Moines Theosophical lodge. And by 1925 he had become active in the Liberal Catholic Church, a movement closely linked with Theosophy and founded by one of its most colorful and controversial leaders, the English author Charles Webster Leadbeater. The Liberal Catholic Church was designed as an alternative to the Anglican and Catholic Churches: It practiced traditional Christian liturgy and the Mass but permitted worshippers the freedom—very much in the vein of Theosophy—to acknowledge and pursue truths in all the world’s religions. The church’s doctrine noted: “There is a ‘communion of Saints’ or Holy Ones, who help mankind, also a ministry of Angels.” This cracked open the door for belief in the hidden Masters spoken of in Theosophy. For several years, the Liberal Catholic Church was Wallace’s spiritual home—he performed elements of the service, wore vestments, and helped organize its Des Moines branch. He left by 1930, after the reemergence of one of many scandals over Leadbeater’s intimacies with underage boys.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Wallace also joined Freemasonry, in which he attained all but the order’s highest rank. In the early 1930s, he entered a serious