Samuel Weiser

Weiser Antiquarian Books is the oldest occult bookstore in the United States. It specialises in books on Aleister Crowley and his circle, magic, mysticism, eastern religions and alternative spirituality. Its earlier New York incarnation, The Weiser Bookshop, was described by Leslie A. Shepherd as "perhaps the most famous occult bookstore in the U.S."

The original Samuel Weiser Bookstore was started in New York City's famous "Book Row" area by Samuel Weiser in 1926. It moved several times within the "Book Row" before relocating to 117 4th Avenue, where it remained for a number of decades. To start with Samuel Weiser Books sold general used books, but with an emphasis on the occult and comparative religion. In 1949 Samuel Weiser was joined by his brother Ben who had worked with him for a few years in the 1930s. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s they increased Weiser Books' specialist focus on the occult at a time when many bookstores refused to handle such subjects.

One of the customers of the shop was Karl Germer, successor to Aleister Crowley as head of the Ordo Templi Orientis. After Crowley's death, most of his papers and other possessions were shipped to Germer including the unbound sheets of the 1937 edition of his book The Equinox of the Gods. In 1955 Germer sold the sheets to Samuel Weiser who had them bound up in maroon cloth and sold through the shop. This was probably one of the first books to be published by Samuel Weiser – although it retained the original O.T.O. title page and imprint. Germer also sold Weiser a collection of the First Edition of Crowley's masterwork on the tarot, The Book of Thoth. Despite being leather bound, printed on handmade paper, and in an edition of only 200 copies signed by Crowley himself, interest in "the Beast" was low at the time and for nearly two decades copies could be purchased from the shop for $50 or less (as of 2009, they command thousands of dollars).

Rising rents and urban change forced many of the bookstores out of "Book Row." A number moved into the adjacent Broadway, with Weiser, whose stock had now grown to over a hundred thousand volumes, taking a premises at 845 Broadway. The new building had a huge basement, which the Weiser brothers crammed with books on all manner of subjects. After a heart attack forced Samuel Weiser into semi-retirement, Ben Weiser was joined by Samuel's son Donald.

Samuel Weiser had begun publishing in the mid-1950s, and through the late 1950s produced a small number of books under the Occult Research Press imprint before starting to publish under his own name. The development of the 1960s "counter-culture," and the growth of popular interest in esotericism and Eastern religious and mystical traditions, allowed Ben and Donald Weiser to expand the company's publishing activities. They recruited many contemporary authors, such as Israel Regardie, who were customers. The shop's stock also provided them with rare and out-of-print books that they could reprint.

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Wikipedia