Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903) was an American author, journalist, folklorist, educator, and occult scholar. He was among the first writers to connect folklore, psychology, and mental science. While he became internationally known as a humorist and poet, his deep interest in Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, folklore, and hypnotism made him a key influence on the New Thought movement and modern self-improvement literature.
Leland was born in Philadelphia and studied at Princeton University, then continued his education at Heidelberg, Munich, and the Sorbonne in Paris. Although Princeton gave him a classical education, his real interests grew outside the classroom. He later said he lived a “double life,” appearing to focus on his studies while privately reading Neoplatonists, the Hermetica, Gnostic texts, and Renaissance mysticism. He often went into the woods near Princeton to reflect on these ideas, believing that ancient philosophers held important psychological truths that had been forgotten. In Germany, he lived like a wandering scholar, searching for both academic knowledge and traces of old philosophical traditions across Europe.
During his time in Europe, Leland encountered many important ideas of the nineteenth century. At Heidelberg, he met Justinus Kerner, a German doctor and mystic, who studied mesmerism, spiritualism, and magnetic sleep. Kerner introduced Leland to new scientific ways of explaining things once thought to be supernatural. While studying in Paris, Leland’s education was interrupted by the Revolution of 1848, and he joined the student revolutionaries, serving as a captain during the uprising.
After returning to America, Leland briefly worked as a lawyer before moving into journalism and writing. During the Civil War, he strongly supported the Union, writing political commentary and satire for the Continental Monthly and helping to popularize the word “emancipation.” He also served with Union forces during the Gettysburg Campaign. His book The Breitmann Ballads (1871), a collection of humorous poems in a mix of English and Pennsylvania German dialect, made him famous in both America and Europe.
Once he was financially independent, Leland moved back to Europe for good and focused on studying folklore and comparative religion. He lived for many years in London, Germany, and finally Florence, Italy, where he learned about the traditions of Romani communities, Irish Travellers, Native American myths, and Italian folk religion. He was the first scholar to identify and record Shelta, the secret language of the Irish Travellers, and spent years gathering fading oral traditions across Europe. His meeting with an Italian folk practitioner named Maddalena led to his book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899), which became a major influence on modern Paganism and Wicca. Link
Throughout his research, Leland became more convinced that the remarkable effects linked to magic, mesmerism, and occult practices could be explained by how the human mind works. He believed that what people once called enchantment or fascination was actually based on psychological principles now known as hypnotic suggestion. He was especially influenced by Scottish doctor James Braid, who argued that suggestion, not animal magnetism, worked through the nervous system and imagination.
Leland eventually turned from studying suggestion in others to training his own mind. Using ideas from ancient Hermetic philosophy and modern psychology, he created a practical system based on concentration, planning, repetition, and self-suggestion. He thought that focusing on certain thoughts right before sleep would help build habits, memory, willpower, and character overnight. These ideas became the foundation of his 1899 book Have You a Strong Will?, later called The Mystic Will in America. In the book, Leland said that willpower is not something you are simply born with, but a skill anyone can develop through regular mental practice.
Leland also made important contributions to public education. He strongly supported industrial arts and founded the Public School of Industrial Art in Philadelphia, where he brought woodworking, embroidery, metalwork, and other crafts into the classroom. Many people admired his educational reforms, including Oscar Wilde, who praised Leland for combining artistic creativity with everyday learning.
By the time of his death in Florence in 1903, Charles Godfrey Leland had produced an extraordinary body of work spanning literature, folklore, anthropology, education, occult philosophy, and psychology. His unique synthesis of Hermetic philosophy, hypnotic suggestion, folklore, and practical mental training made him one of the earliest writers to connect the mystical traditions of the past with the emerging psychological and self-help movements of the twentieth century.
