Richard Smoley

Now available! Richard's book "Inner Christianity" can be downloaded from audible.com. For more information, please click on the link below.

Richard Smoley is one of the world’s most distinguished authorities on the mystical and esoteric teachings of Western civilization.

Educated at Harvard and Oxford universities, he worked at a wide range of journalistic positions before becoming editor of Gnosis, the award-winning journal of the Western spiritual traditions, in 1990, a position he held up to 1999. He is the coauthor (with Jay Kinney) of Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions, and of Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition (Shambhala, 2002).

Richard's latest book, Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity, was published in April 2008 by Jossey-Bass.

In April 2007, Harper San Francisco (newly rebaptized as Harper One) released the paperback edition of Richard's Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism This is an accessible and engaging history of the secret currents of Western civilization--including Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Catharism, the Rosicrucian legacy, Freemasonry, Theosophy, and much more. It also explores how these currents have shaped modern trends and thinkers ranging from William Blake to C.G. Jung, and, in more recent times, Philip K. Dick, Harold Bloom, and A Course in Miracles.

In January 2006, Tarcher/Penguin published The Essential Nostradamus, Richard's guide to this fascinating but elusive prophet. The Essential Nostradamus contains fresh and accurate new translations of Nostradamus's key prophecies, as well as an evaluation of his work--and of prophecy in general.

In June 2006, Quest Books published a new edition of Hidden Wisdom, containing a new foreword discussing the Western esoteric traditions in the light of current events, and containing valuable updates on these traditions.

Richard has some other exciting new projects at the moment. BMA Studios has released an audio (CD) version of Inner Christianity, read by Richard himself. To order, just click on the link to the right.

Richard has also written a novel entitled The Gospel of Matthias, which tells the story of Christ in the context of esoteric Christianity. It's currently unpublished, but a limited number of spiral-bound copies are available for $30 postpaid (they can be signed and inscribed by the author if you like). If you're interested in getting a copy, please contact Richard by e-mail.

Currently Richard is executive editor of The Quest, the members' journal for the Theosophical Society in America. He is also editor of Quest Books, a publisher of books on spirituality and esotericism, operated by the Theosophical Society. If you have ideas or suggestions for books or articles, please contact him by e-mail at the link to the right.