It is intensely interesting to follow season after season the rapid evolution and change of public thought in the direction of the mystical. The educated mind is most undeniably attempting to free itself from the heavy fetters of materialism. The ugly caterpillar is writhing in the agonies of death, under the powerful efforts of the psychic butterfly to escape from its science-built prison, and every day brings some new glad tidings of one or more such mental births to light. As the New York “Path” truly remarks in its September issue, when “Theosophical and kindred topics ... are made the texts for novels,” and, we may add, scientific essays and _brochures_, “the implication is that interest in them has become diffused through all social ranks.” That kind of literature is “paradoxically proof that Occultism has passed beyond the region of careless amusement and entered that of serious enquiry.” The reader has but to throw a retrospective glance at the publications of the last few years to find that such topics as Mysticism, Magic, Sorcery, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Mesmerism, or, as it is now called, Hypnotism, all the various branches in short of the _Occult_ side of nature, are becoming predominant in every kind of literature. They visibly increase in proportion to the efforts made to discredit the movements in the cause of truth, and strangle enquiry—whether on the field of theosophy or spiritualism—by trying to besmear their most prominent heralds, pioneers and defenders, with tar and feathers. The key-note for mystic and theosophic literature was Marion Crawford’s “Mr. Isaacs.” It was followed by his “Zoroaster.” Then followed “The Romance of Two Worlds,” by Marie Corelli; R. Louis Stephenson’s “Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll;” “The Fallen Idol,” by Anstey; “King Solomon’s Mines” and the thrice famous “She,” by Rider Haggard; “Affinities” and “The Brother of the Shadow,” by Mrs. Campbell Praed; Edmund Downey’s “House of Tears,” and many others less noticeable. And now there comes a fresh outburst in Florence Marryat’s “Daughter of the Tropics,” and F. C. Philips’ “Strange Adventures of Lucy Smith.” It is unnecessary to mention in detail the literature produced by avowed theosophists and occultists, some of whose works are very remarkable, while others are positively scientific, such as S. L. Macgregor Mathers’ “Kabbalah Unveiled,” and Dr. F. Hartmann’s “Paracelsus,” “Magic, White and Black,” &c. We have also to note the fact that theosophy has now crossed the Channel, and is making its way into French literature. “La France” publishes a strange romance by Ch. Chincholle, pregnant with theosophy, occultism and mesmerism, and called “_La Grande Pretresse_,” while _La Revue politique et litteraire_ (19 Feb. 1887, _et seq._) contained over the signature of Th. Bentzon, a novel called _Emancipée_, wherein esoteric doctrines and adepts are mentioned in conjunction with the names of well-known theosophists. A sign of the times!