“Spirits, Sphinx, and Serpents”: A Review of A Search in Secret Egypt, by Paul Brunton
(Burdett, NY: Larson Publications, 2007 [Orig. 1936, E.P. Dutton]). ISBN 978-0-943914-98-5 Paul Brunton, perhaps best known for his Short Path to Enlightenment and theories about the Oversoul, was an explorer, spiritualist, and thinker in the great tradition of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As humankind grappled with the Industrial Revolution and the question of the moral validity of Empire, Brunton and others like him sought to understand the varied religious, historical, and political systems of the world by experiencing them firsthand. Prior to going to Egypt, he traveled to India, writing the precursor to this volume. As Timothy J. Smith writes in the introduction, this journal is not only outward but an “inward journey of initiation.” When I first received it I anticipated a travelogue with valuable information about Egypt and its wonders through the lens of the 1930s. Although it is certainly that, detailed in its descriptions of buildings a...