Recent and Forthcoming Works
My new book, The Caretakers of the Cosmos, is out in the UK and will soon be released in the US.
According to Nicholas Colloff at his engaging Golgonooza site: “in his most recent book, ‘The Caretakers of the Cosmos: Living Responsibly in an Unfinished World’, [Lachman] explicitly sets out his own views of what it means to be human and why we are here? This being Lachman his views are set out lucidly, engagingly, tentatively and accompanied by a cloud of illustrious witnesses from the Hermetic tradition and the the Kabbalah, to Blake and Goethe through to Berdyaev and Cassirer (amongst many others).” You can see the entire review here.
My publisher Tarcher/Penguin recently purchased the US rights to my book Into the Interior: Discovering Swedenborg (published in the UK by the Swedenborg Society) and is releasing a new American edition in April 2012 as Swedenborg: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas. 
Recently I contributed an audio guide to an exhibition on Secret Societies held at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux. Here you can listen to the guide - in German - and find out more about the exhibition. The catalogue for the exhibition, Secret Societies, to which I’ve contributed two essays, is available at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com
My most recent book is The Quest For Hermes Trismegistus From Ancient Egypt to the Modern World published by Floris Books, who also publish the UK editions of my Rudolf Steiner and A Secret History of Consciousness.
Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality is due for release in the US in October 2012.
April 9, 2011 at 11:06 pm
dear gary lachman, i read your book on consciousness (and others), and i’m wondering if you’ve come across stuart hameroff’s work about consciousness. he is at the center for consciousness studies at the university of arizona, and it seems like his work would be something you’d be interested in. you can google “stuart hameroff consciousness” and watch him interviewed, also “stuart hameroff beyond belief”. just fyi, edward.
October 20, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Gary…I am a huge fan of your research, and own most of your books, (including the hard to find Swedenborg book!)….just a note to say that I am very eagerly looking forward to your book about HPB!
-Charles
October 21, 2011 at 9:38 am
Hello Charles and many thanks for the warm words. HPB is due out late next year - unless the 2012ers are right - and Penguin is bringing out a US edition of Swedenborg in the spring. I’m glad it will have an chance to read a wider audience. All the best, Gary
January 13, 2012 at 9:09 pm
A long time fan of Jung, I have spent years also composing and writing music. Gary your book Jung The Mystic is a joy to read and
your writing style brilliant. When reading your book I don’t want to turn if off, rather I can’t stop reading. Gary it would seem that from the volume of your work you can’t turn it off either. I can’t wait to read all of your books. You have given me back the “joy of reading”
Thank you and happy trails
January 14, 2012 at 10:55 am
Dear Sean, Many thanks for the warm and encouraging words. I’m glad you enjoyed the book and also glad that it has renewed your joy in reading. What better compliment to a writer? This is the kind of response we dream of. That you’re a fellow musician and composer only adds to it. All the best, Gary
January 17, 2012 at 2:49 am
Gary Lachman’s intellect and storytelling are impressive, without stealing the thunder from his subject. Although Gary’s insight and
skills draw circles around my intellectual wagon, I am left with the
following thoughts after reading his book “Jung the Mystic”.
Perhaps , Jung’s belief that there is something magical about him
is what gets Carl Jung “through it all”. Whereas Freud noted that
there was not a lot of room for error, Freud kept a tight reign on
his school of thought, that let him (Freud) “hold on” to reality. I
sense that Jung’s ability to hold onto reality was his view of the
essence of “magical” and “mystical”, and that he saw himself as
part of it. Essentially, “magic is the cure”, so sayeth the shaman.
January 19, 2012 at 11:39 am
Hello Sean. Many thanks for the perceptive remarks. All the best, Gary
February 16, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Hi Gary,
have read about half your books and have enjoyed them all. Minor criticisms here and there, but nothing to get excited about. Looking forward to the Hermes, Swedenborg and Blavatsky titles. Thought, a touch cynically, a few years back, you were the new Colin Wilson, and now I know for sure you are, quite sincerely I might add.
Any thoughts on the new Crowley bio by Tobias Churton? Just curious.
Do keep up the good work sir, your well researched and bullshit-free assessments are much appreciated.
cheers, gordon phinn
February 17, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hello Gordon, Many thanks for your comments. If I can write anything half as good as Colin’s books, I’ll be very happy. His work has influenced me enormously, which is no surprise to anyone who knows his books and mine. I haven’t had a chance to read Tobias Churton’s Crowley bio, but reports are that it is good. It is on my list. Thanks again and keep in touch. Best, Gary
June 9, 2012 at 6:43 pm
I thought that this would be a good place to make requests, if you’ll forgive the presumption. How about future monographic studies of:
1. Schwaller de Lubicz
2. Jurij Moskvitin (this will be a challenge!).
We really need a good English-language overview and assessment of Schwaller, in particular, I think. Do you read French? If so, then I wonder whether you’ve read (and what you think) of Erik Sable’s book “La Vie et l’Oeuvre de Rene’ Schwaller de Lubicz” (2003)?
June 11, 2012 at 11:23 am
Dear Kevin, Many thanks for your comment. I have written on Schwaller de Lubicz in A Secret History of Consciousness, Politics and the Occult, and The Quest for Hermes Trismegistus, but I think a separate monograph on him would be a good idea. Sadly my French is pretty poor, so no I haven’t read Erik Sable’s book. A study of Moskvitin would be a challenge. I corresponded with him briefly, after I sent him a copy of A Secret History (I assume you know the book? I write about his work in it as well). He had what seems an interesting life, a musician as well as a philosopher, and he mentioned that he was involved with the Danish novelist Henrik Stangerup, whose work I’m not very familiar with. Sadly, Moskvitin died a year or so after we started corresponding. I think that aside from Colin Wilson - who introduced me to his work - I’m the only one to write about him in English. All the best, Gary
June 15, 2012 at 12:53 am
Thanks for your reply, Gary. I read your pieces on Schwaller and Moskvitin in the Secret History (I haven’t read the other two books you mention, but I did read your stand-alone Schwaller article), and that whetted my appetite for more. I do hope that you’ll write more about these authors in the future-especially Moskvitin, now that you’ve mentioned having corresponded with him. It’s funny: When I see that photo of a young Moskvitin in the midst Stravinsky and Isak Dinesen, with the former obviously enraptured by Dinesen, and paying no attention whatsoever to Moskvitin, I think to myself, “Igor, you are fawning over the wrong person, and are ignoring the true genius in the room”.
June 16, 2012 at 12:47 am
Dear Gary,
Thank you for all your wonderful works (literary & musical)! I would love to interview you about it all for my site and for my project on punk & spirituality I have been working on for the past (almost) ten years. I am especially looking forward to your biography on Blavatsky. Please get in touch (conversationswithbianca [at] gmail [dot] com)
Gratitude & respect,
Bianca
September 5, 2012 at 4:46 am
Greetings from Theosophy.Net. We’re looking forward to doing a review of your upcoming book on HP Blavatsky. If it is up to the quality of your book on Hermes there should be a lot of interesting, new material. No one that I know of (having been a long-time student of HPB) has ever managed to find her Huxley or Swedenborg moment(s) as she described it/them. It is understanding those experiences that is crucial in how she came up with her theosophy.
February 19, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Hi Gary, I’m thoroughly enjoying many of your books. I recently read Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia by Andrei Znamenski and thought it might be of interest to you. That I’d pass it along if you haven’t already heard of it.
Thanks~Brian
February 20, 2014 at 11:22 am
Many thanks for the tip Brian. I’ll have to check out the book. I’m wondering if it is about Nicholas Roerich? If so, your suggestion is apt as I am about to write an article on Roerich for the Fortean Times. Best, Gary
March 3, 2014 at 11:31 pm
Hello Gary, this week I found your book ‘Jung the Mystic’ , then yesterday saw you were at Theosophical Society, as I had a commitment I couldn’t come to listen to you. Will you being giving anymore talks within the London area anytime soon, as I’d like to listen to what you have to say, before I start above mentioned book.
Thanking you - Madeleine Defoe
March 4, 2014 at 10:56 am
Dear Madeleine, I’m sorry you couldn’t make the Theosophical Society talk. I don’t have any talks in London lined up for the immediate future, although I will be speaking at the Eternal Knowledge festival in July. But a talk may come up. If you subscribe to my site you’ll get a notification, or just check the Upcoming Talks and Lectures page every now and then. But please don’t wait to start reading Jung. Best, Gary
March 4, 2014 at 10:32 pm
thanks for your speedy reply, I did feel it might be synchronicity, and I should have gone, as the other appt wasn’t uplifting or spiritual. Yes The Mystic Jung is waiting for me. Regards Madeleine
May 25, 2014 at 12:13 am
As a “biological psychiatrist” with a long time interest in Jung (and many hours of Jungian analysis) I enjoyed immensely Jung the Mystic and want to thank you for that. Of about a dozen biographies (including Bairs) I would consider yours one of the best and definitely the most fun to read. After decades of studying neurotransmitter theory and related topics your book has rekindled an old interest in “the psyche” and made me aware of the enormous amount of writing that has been done on this recently, of which I am mostly ignorant. Personally I believe that “science” may yet contribute some understanding to the Mysterium Tremendum that underlies all these efforts. A fascinating correlate in the physical sciences to Jung’s Collective Unconscious may emerge from a greater understanding of Entanglement, the now scientifically established fact of “non locality” or as Einstein characterized it “spooky action at a distance” that occurs instantaneously between two subatomic particles “even if the whole world lies between them”, as described in Louisa Gilder’s excellent book The Age of Entanglement. After all, if “telepathy” occurs between electrons, what might this mean regarding connections between conscious beings? Many thanks for your book on Jung and looking forward to reading your other work. Bob Rosenberg, MD
May 25, 2014 at 8:58 am
Dear Robert, many thanks for your comments and I’m very glad you liked the book. Entanglement sounds like a fascinating area to explore - it also reminds me of Jung’s synchronicity and Wolf Singer’s research into ‘nonlocal neurons’ which relates to the ‘binding problem’ in consciousness studies. Not to make an shameless plug for another of my books, but I write about this a bit in The Caretakers of the Cosmos. The neurons in question are not connected spatially but temporal. They fire at the the same time, but there is no apparent physical cause of their firing. It is as if the individual neurons ‘know’ when their fellows will fire, without any causal connection - again, like synchronicity. In any case, many thanks again for letting us know how much you enjoyed the book. All the best, Gary