About the author
Lewis Bayles Paton was an American biblical scholar and archaeologist who taught Old Testament interpretation at Hartford Theological Seminary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and who directed excavation work in Palestine. His book Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead in Antiquity, reissued by Legare Street Press, examines how ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures understood death, ancestor worship, and communication with the dead, drawing on his background in biblical archaeology and comparative religion. Written in an earlier scholarly idiom and now in the public domain, it belongs to a body of early twentieth-century academic literature on ancient religion rather than to contemporary spiritualist writing. Readers interested in the historical and textual roots of ideas about ghosts, ancestor cults, and necromancy in antiquity, approached from a scholarly rather than devotional angle, are the audience for this reissued study.
📖 Where to start with Lewis Bayles Paton
💬 What our editors say about Lewis Bayles Paton's books
“Paton delivers a dense, academic treatise that demands patience from its audience. While it offers invaluable insights for serious students of history and esotericism, it is not suited for casual readers seeking light…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead in Antiquity
“Paton delivers a dense, scholarly examination of ancient necromancy and ancestor worship, appealing primarily to academics and dedicated historians of religion. The text is rigorous and comprehensive, yet its academic tone may…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on Spiritism and the Cult of the Dead in Antiquity
