Having grown up among the bookshelves of his father’s historic eponymous bookstore “Samuel Weiser Books”, Donald Weiser was distinctly placed at the feet of 20th century occult publishing from his earliest years.
Born in 1928, the year after his father’s bookstore was established in its original location in New York City’s famous “Book Row”, Donald spent the majority of his childhood in the later 4th Avenue location, where for decades the world’s occultists had come to seek his father’s business.
By his mid 20s Donald had become an active part of the operation of Weiser’s bookstore, pushing his father in 1955 to publish the unbound sheets brought to him by Karl Germer of the 1937 edition of Aleister Crowley’s book The Equinox of the Gods.
At the start of the 1960s Donald had expanded the family business into full time publishing. Seeking to bring a wider readership to otherwise long out of print and exceptionally rare occult texts Weiser Publishing was perfectly timed with the 60s esoteric occult revival. Eastern mysticism, kabbalism, and general mystical traditions became all the rage among the youth counter culture. Occultists like Karl Germer, Harry Smith, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Israel Regardie hung about the shop, and with their access to the antiquarian stock of the shop it let them reprint both rare texts and contemporary authors.
Throughout its near half century under Donald’s ownership Weiser was an instrumental publisher and bookstore in the world of the esoteric and occult. From the mid 1980s Donald was also the owner of the venerable Watkin’s Books in London, the “world’s oldest esoteric bookstore”. Even after Donald sold Weiser’s publishing division and then five years later in 2005 ‘retired’ and turned over the bookshop business, which had moved to Maine in the 1980s due to increased rents in NYC, Donald was still active. Starting Ibis Press with his wife Yvonne from his Florida retirement.
The role that Donald Weiser played in exposing occult texts to an audience outside of those who can afford the rarest of manuscripts is immeasurable. Without Weiser publishing many of the 20th century’s occultists would have had little access to the body of knowledge we now take for granted. Grimoires, holy texts, occult and fortean thinking; esoteric thought has been greatly advanced by Donald and his family and to him we are personally greatly indebted.
Donald passed away on 12 April, 2017 in his Florida home. He was 89. A memorial is to occur in New York City in the near future.
