Occult Tales

What It's About

A collection of eleven short tales written for The Path magazine between 1885 and 1893, each drawing on theosophical ideas to explore the hidden forces at work in human life. The stories range from allegory to something closer to supernatural fiction: serpents with occult significance, wandering eyes that see beyond the physical, a picture gallery that reveals karmic truth, rishis encountered in their ancient retreats. Running through them all is a sense that the ordinary world is underlaid by invisible laws — of karma, of spiritual progression, of forces that shape destiny without most people ever perceiving them.

Key Concepts

Karma and its consequences; the astral body and subtle perception; spiritual evolution; the role of adepts and rishis in human development; the theosophical understanding of nature, death, and rebirth.

About the Author

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) was an Irish-born lawyer who emigrated to New York in his teens and became one of the three co-founders of the Theosophical Society in 1875, alongside Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott. He led the Society's American Section for most of his adult life and was a central figure in bringing theosophical ideas to a broad American audience.