Western Esoteric Orders

"Though the adepts of this tradition, of which I have taken Dee as an exemplar, have been small in number and marginalized in official history, it is my contention that the experimental world of the occult and its attendant secret societies in many ways represents the “research and development wing” of Western civilization, in which new political, social, and religious models are proposed and tested, often finding wider purchase in society through the efforts of artists and political radicals who fall under the sway of such ideas. The influence of Freemasonry on the American and French revolutions is a primary example."
Western Esotericism; Revelation