John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age

John Fetzer is best remembered as a communications magnate who owned the Detroit Tigers and became one of the wealthiest persons in America. Until now little has been known about his lifelong spiritual journey, from Seventh-day Adventism to spiritualism. In this sympathetic but balanced book Brian C. Wilson brings Midwestern metaphysical religion to life.

~Ronald L. Numbers, Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Brian Wilson's book vividly and astutely traces the life of businessman and philanthropist John E. Fetzer, whose journey combined the distinctly American story of a spiritual seeker with the personal quest for a deeper meaning of freedom. The John Fetzer Wilson describes shines forth as an energetic, great-hearted man utterly open to the wonder and miracle of life. He shows how the spiritual journey of one twentieth-century soul crosses the threshold into the human future.

~Rob Lehman, Fetzer Institute Board Chair

This is a nuanced religious biography of a pioneer of radio, a major philanthropist, and a well-known Michigan personality who sought a monistic spirituality receptive to subtle conscious energies that he considered to be as real as radio waves, electricity, and radiation. It is also a near-encyclopedic map of the eclectic American esoteric and an erudite exploration of a New Age to which we have not paid nearly enough attention: one emerging from and expressive of esoteric Christian piety, business, patriotism, civic responsibility, and a distinctly metaphysical Midwest. Highly original and genuinely pioneering through and through.

~Jeffrey J. Kripal, Author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion

This is a well-written and meticulously researched overview of spiritual exploration outside the mainstream in twentieth-century America and a skillful explanation of how various strains of belief came together to form what became known as New Age religion. John Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age unearths a complex landscape of nontraditional spiritual actors and institutions, constructed behind the more familiar infrastructure of churches, temples, and mosques.

~Evelyn Sterne, Associate Professor of History, University of Rhode Island, and Author of Ballots and Bibles: Ethnic Politics and the Catholic Church in Providence

This is an important biography. By giving us Fetzer's spiritual biography, Brian Wilson presents something like a condensed history of alternative, metaphysical, spiritualist, and New Age religion in the twentieth century. Fetzer was a remarkable figure, and this book demonstrates just how unusual a figure he really was while at the same time showing how Fetzer's life was the confluence of many major and less well-known religious figures and movements.

~Arthur Versluis, Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University and Author of American Gurus, Magic and Mysticism