In 2022, author and self-titled "magic experience designer" Ferdinando Buscema writing forBoing Boing noted that "Horowitz is among the most articulate and respected voices in the contemporary occulture scene."[23] His latest book is a work ofmagick, history, and occult spirituality titledPractical Magick (2025).[24] In 2025, Horowitz began writing a newsletter forSubstack, "Mystery Achievement," focused on occultism in history and practice.[25]
The son of alegal aid attorney and a medical secretary, Horowitz grew up inBellerose,Queens, before moving toNew Hyde Park, New York.[26][27][28] He was raised in a traditional Jewish household and had anOrthodoxbar mitzvah.[29][30] He developed an interest in the occult through books offolklore at his local public library, book-club catalogs at elementary school, and astrological content, such as newspaper horoscopes, whose references he historically researched.[31] Horowitz received a bachelor of arts in English literature fromStony Brook University, where he was editor-in-chief of the school's student newspaper,The Statesman.[32] In 1987, he won the Martin Buskin Award for Outstanding Campus Journalism.[33] Before entering publishing, he worked as a police reporter.[34]
In the early nineties, Horowitz served as youth-section treasurer of theDemocratic Socialists of America and on the editorial committee of its magazine,Democratic Left, an experience he described as "building an organization in its darkest days in hopes of future utility."[38][39]
Horowitz is the author ofOccult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, which received the 2010 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award,[40] and was noted for exploring the impact of occult and esoteric philosophies on mainstream politics and culture; theWashington Post stated that "Horowitz teases out fascinating stories of the 'dreamers and planners who flourished along the Psychic Highway'... In showing how the paths of these figures occasionally intersected with the likes ofAbraham Lincoln,Frederick Douglass andFranklin D. Roosevelt, Horowitz argues that the influence of the occult extends beyond the séance room and into the mainstream of American thought.”[41]
Horowitz notes the impact ofFreemasonry on conceptions of religious liberty in the American colonies and classifies the BavarianIlluminati as "radicalJeffersonians" focused on initiatory esotericism and liberal reform.[44][45]
Horowitz believes that occultism is a uniquelyWestern tradition, and that theRenaissance-era rediscovery and adaptation of pre-Abrahamic belief systems inaugurated a new era for those beliefs, thereby making occultism, as integrated into modern society, anancient revivalist movement.[46]
His 2023 bookModern Occultism was noted for its historical comprehensiveness, surveying occult-themed philosophies from late-antiquity to the present.[50][51]
Writing inThe Washington Post in 2010, Horowitz identified themes and language from occult scholarManly P. Hall in the speeches of PresidentRonald Reagan, including the story of an "unknown speaker" at the signing of theDeclaration of Independence and America’s assignation "to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb fromthe swamps."[61] In 2021, in theEisner-nominatedMysterious Travelers, culture scholar Zack Kruse wrote: "Horowitz draws specific attention to how Reagan infusedNew Thought and mind power language into the declaration of his candidacy in 1979... Horowitz provides a revised context that places Reagan, and his story, within the mystic liberal frame."[62]
In 2009, Horowitz was on the faculty of the urban holistic learning center, theNew York City Open Center,[78] for its annual Esoteric Quest.[79] He presented lectures at the Open Center entitledThe Psychic Highway: New York’s 'Burned-Over District' and the Growth of Alternative Spirituality in America[80] andMade in America: The Hidden History of ‘Positive Thinking’.[81]
Horowitz has called attention to the worldwide problem of violence against accused witches, helping draw notice to the human rights element of the issue.[82]Chinese government censors excised nearly 40% of aMandarin translation of Horowitz's 2014 bookOne Simple Idea, a history of the positive-mind movement.[83]
Horowitz wrote thecatalogue essay for the 2025Raymond Pettibon /John Newsom exhibitThe Seven Deadly Sins and The Seven Heavenly Virtues at the Kebbel Villa Museum inSchwandorf,Germany, noting: "Raymond Pettibon and John Newsom do us the favor of avoiding the shallows of explicitness and instead capture jarring episodes of the sinful and salvific, notions incomplete and often confusing in our lives." In the essay Horowitz further wrote, "I will not deny my joy at writing about Pettibon whoseBlack Flag bars aretattooed on top of my righthand; I saw them at age seventeen in 1982."[84]
Writer Will Solomon inCounterPunch called Horowitz's 2025 bookPractical Magick "an impressive blend of interrogated history and hands-on, practical techniques," noting that "Horowitz's writing stands out for its fundamentally sober, journalistic engagement with the material."[85]
The California-basedgarage rock bandDeath Valley Girls wrote and recorded a song called "10 Day Miracle Challenge" for their 2020 albumUnder the Spell of Joy, and note that it was inspired by Horowitz's affirmation-and-intentionality program of the same name, as well as by his 2018 bookThe Miracle Club.[86]
Horowitz has also appeared on seasons one and two of the History Channel showThe UnBelievable withDan Aykroyd.[91] In an interview in November 2024 withDecider, Aykroyd noted, "I love Mitch Horowitz. He's great... I kind of relate to him in a way."[92]
Horowitz hosted, co-wrote, and produced the 2022 documentaryThe Kybalion, directed by Ronni Thomas and shot on location in Egypt.[93][94] He appeared on seasons I and II ofShudder’sCursed Films onAMC+, a selection ofSXSW 2020.[95][96]
He is also featured in documentaries includingWoodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, directed byKier-La Janisse, a selection ofSXSW 2021.[97][98]
In September 2024, Horowitz became part of the cast of theShudderhorror seriesV/H/S/Beyond, playing the role of a historical commentator.[14] Beginning in October 2024, he appears on theMGM+ miniseriesBeyond: UFOS and the Unknown.[101][102]
Horowitz was a vice-president at Penguin Random House and editor-in-chief of TarcherPerigee, its imprint focused on spirituality and metaphysics.[19] Horowitz published titles inworld religion,esoterica, and themetaphysical,[103] as well as works inphilosophy,social thought andpolitics, includingCatching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by directorDavid Lynch,[104]2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl byDaniel Pinchbeck andWeapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq bySheldon Rampton andJohn Stauber. He has published a number of works by religious scholar[18]Jacob Needleman, includingThe American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Founders andWhat is God?[105] While at Tarcher, he oversaw the work of writer-editorMike Solana, who later became a vice president atPeter Thiel'sFounders Fund.[106]
In 2003, Horowitz published a trade-sized "Reader’s Edition" ofThe Secret Teachings of All Ages by Manly P. Hall.[107] In 2022, he introducedTaschen's reissue of Hall's original work.[108]
Horowitz has edited and introduced anthologies includingNeville Goddard's Final Lectures[109] andThe Secret History of America by Manly P. Hall.[110]
Also in 1996, Horowitz reissued theanti-war satireReport from Iron Mountain in cooperation with its original authors and conceptualizersVictor Navasky,Marvin Kitman, Richard Lingeman, and chief writerLeonard Lewin. Journalist Phil Tinline wrote in his 2025 history of the book,Ghosts of Iron Mountain, that in correspondence about Navasky's foreword to the reissue, "its editor, Mitch Horowitz, encouraged him to address this question of why a left-wing satire had inspired the right. Were the two sides getting similar messages from it? Did it 'expose a sort of cognitive netherworld or fault-line of paranoia' that the two sides had in common?"[122]
^Horowitz, Mitch."My Father Fought the Sex Pistols",Medium, June 4, 2018. Accessed December 23, 2023. "In 1977, we moved from our bungalowed Queens neighborhood of Bellerose to the supposedly safer and rosier environs of New Hyde Park, about three miles east."
^Horowitz, Mitch (April 30, 2010)."Reagan and the occult".The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. Archived fromthe original on August 10, 2011. RetrievedFebruary 28, 2024.
^Horowitz, Mitch."The Crisis of Professional Skepticism", Medium, February 27, 2023. Accessed December 23, 2023. "In any case, the crisis of professional skepticism now presents an irony in which self-perceived defenders of reason brutalize truth in its name. That is the antithesis of science, good criticism, and good ethics. Our culture needs a new cohort of skeptics who strive to do better."
^Horowitz, Mitch (2022).Uncertain Places: Essays on Occult and Outsider Experiences, Chapter 23: The Preface the Chinese Government Banned. Inner Traditions. p. 275.ISBN978-1-6441-1592-3.
