Morrow, Felix (1906-1988)

American publisher who contributed significantly to the occult boom in the United States in the 1960s through his publishing house University Books and associated Mystic Arts Book Society. Morrow was born on June 3, 1906, in New York City in a Hasidic Jewish family. He grew up in a non-religious atmosphere and became drawn to both Marxism and Freudian teaching. He became a graduate student in philosophy at Columbia University (1929-31), where he researched the history of religions. As editor of the theoretical monthly magazine Fourth International, he wrote a thoughtful article on Marxism and religion. For over a decade (1931-46), he devoted himself to the revolutionary socialist movement and was author of an important study: Revolution and Counter-revolution in Spain (1938; rev. ed. 1974).

In 1946, he moved from socialism to capitalism in publishing as executive vice president of Schocken Books, a Jewish publishing house in New York City, and became attracted to the writings of Franz Kafka, Martin Buber, and Gershom Scholen, and through them rediscovered his Hasidic roots. However, from 1948 to 1970, he became immersed in Freudian psychoanalytic training and publishing, though at the same time, his association with Mel Arnold at Beacon Press, and later with University of Notre Dame Press, made him responsive to mysticism. Throughout this period he remained a socialist at heart, this dichotomy creating many personal conflicts for him while broadening his humanist outlook.

As executive vice president of British Book Center, he took on American rights of Flying Saucers Have Landed by Desmond Leslie and George Adamski (originally published in England in 1953), and this project launched his research into earlier literature in psychic and occult subjects. In 1954, he incorporated University Books, Inc. in New York, and began publishing important out-of-print books on occultism, mysticism, psychical research, and comparative religion. These included key works such as A. E. Waite's books on the tarot and ceremonial magic; Lewis Spence's Encyclopedia of Occultism; Montague Summers' books on witchcraft and vampires; William James's Varieties of Religious Experience; R. M. Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness; F. W. H. Myers's Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death; scholarly works by Charles Guignebert on the origins of Christianity; D. T. Suzuki's books on Zen; Nandor Fodor 's Encyclopedia of Psychical Research; G. R. S. Mead 's books on Gnosticism; Alexandra David-Neel's Magic and Mystery in Tibet; and scores of similar books that opened large segments of the tradition to a new generation of modern occultists.

Each book carried a new introduction, evaluating the work in a modern context and often supplying original biographical research on the author. Some of these introductions were written by Morrow under the pseudonym 'John C. Wilson;' others were written by such authorities as E. J. Dingwall, Kenneth Rexroth, and Leslie Shepard.

University Books also published original works as the occult revival threw up names like Timothy Leary and new causes like the psychedelic revolution. In addition to publishing, the company marketed chosen titles each month through the Mystic Arts Book Society. A major event of that period was Morrow's association with William Nyland in distributing the books of Georgei I. Gurdjieff through the society. Morrow eventually became a disciple of Nyland and developed a great respect for the Gurdjieff work.

After 15 years of creative and stimulating publishing in the fields of occultism and mysticism, Morrow relinquished the business to Lyle Stuart, who continued the University Books imprint side by side with its own Citadel Press imprint, and moved the operation from New York to Secaucus, New Jersey. In 1973, Morrow launched a second occult series for Causeway Books, an imprint of A. & W. Publishers, Inc., New York. Morrow wrote some of the new introductions for this series under the pseudonym "Charles Sen."

The significant influence of Morrow's publishing work was recognized by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Rockefeller Foundation, which initiated an oral history recording project on the advanced literary-intellectual life of New York City between 1925 and 1975. Tape recordings have been made of Morrow and other individuals for deposit in the Oral History division of the Columbia libraries.

Morrow extended his psychological studies from Freudianism to Maslow's humanist psychology and the holistic depth psychology of Ira Progoff. He was in charge of publishing projects in these areas for Dialogue House Library (80 E. 11th St., New York, NY 10003) prior to resuming independent publishing again with the books of Mantok and Maneewan Chia under the imprint Healing Tao Books, in New York. In his later years he was a regular visitor to the library of the Parapsychology Foundation in New York, where he found excellent facilities for research. He died suddenly on May 28, 1988, in New York.