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The Most Famous

OCCULTISTS from United States

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This page contains a list of the greatest American Occultists. The pantheon dataset contains 37 Occultists, 3 of which were born in United States. This makes United States the birth place of the 3rd most number of Occultists behind United Kingdom and France.

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary American Occultists of all time. This list of famous American Occultists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Anton LaVey

1. Anton LaVey (1930 - 1997)

With an HPI of 68.87, Anton LaVey is the most famous American Occultist.  His biography has been translated into 49 different languages on wikipedia.

Anton Szandor LaVey (born Howard Stanton Levey; April 11, 1930 – October 29, 1997) was an American author, musician, and Satanist. He was the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of Satanism. He authored several books, including The Satanic Bible, The Satanic Rituals, The Satanic Witch, The Devil's Notebook, and Satan Speaks! In addition, he released three albums, including The Satanic Mass, Satan Takes a Holiday, and Strange Music. He played a minor on-screen role and served as technical advisor for the 1975 film The Devil's Rain and served as host and narrator for Nick Bougas' 1989 mondo film Death Scenes.Historian of Satanism Gareth J. Medway described LaVey as a "born showman", with anthropologist Jean La Fontaine describing him as a "colourful figure of considerable personal magnetism". The academic scholars of Satanism Per Faxneld and Jesper Aagaard Petersen described LaVey as "the most iconic figure in the Satanic milieu". LaVey was labeled many things by journalists, religious detractors, and Satanists alike, including "The Father of Satanism", the "St. Paul of Satanism", "The Black Pope", and the "evilest man in the world".

Photo of Edgar Cayce

2. Edgar Cayce (1877 - 1945)

With an HPI of 64.96, Edgar Cayce is the 2nd most famous American Occultist.  His biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Edgar Cayce (; March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American attributed clairvoyant who claimed to speak from his higher self while in a trance-like state. His words were recorded by his friend, Al Layne; his wife, Gertrude Evans, and later by his secretary, Gladys Davis Turner. During the sessions, Cayce would answer questions on a variety of subjects such as healing, reincarnation, dreams, the afterlife, past lives, nutrition, Atlantis, and future events. Cayce, a devout Christian and Sunday-school teacher, said that his readings came from his subconscious mind exploring the dream realm, where he said all minds were timelessly connected. Cayce founded a non-profit organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, to record and facilitate the study of his channeling and to run a hospital. Cayce is known as "The Sleeping Prophet", the title of journalist Jess Stearn's 1967 Cayce biography. Religious scholars and thinkers, such as author Michael York, consider Cayce the founder and a principal source of many characteristic beliefs of the New Age movement.

Photo of A. E. Waite

3. A. E. Waite (1857 - 1942)

With an HPI of 54.55, A. E. Waite is the 3rd most famous American Occultist.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith or Waite–Smith deck). As his biographer R. A. Gilbert described him, "Waite's name has survived because he was the first to attempt a systematic study of the history of Western occultism—viewed as a spiritual tradition rather than as aspects of protoscience or as the pathology of religion."He was a Freemason, as well as being a member of the SRIA and Golden Dawn. He spent most of his life in or near London, connected to various publishing houses and editing a magazine, The Unknown World.

Pantheon has 3 people classified as occultists born between 1857 and 1930. Of these 3, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased occultists include Anton LaVey, Edgar Cayce, and A. E. Waite.

Deceased Occultists

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Which Occultists were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 3 most globally memorable Occultists since 1700.