The Crusaders Academy of Science Incorporated: Transychology , Part III "Secondary Spiritual Distortions" - "Divinatory Art," No. 36. Bronx: The Crusaders Academy of Science, 1932.

I found this lecture series advertised in Il Messaggero della Salute, and brought it into the collection (although it is completely written in English) for reasons that will become clear.

This brochure contains one "lecture" of The Crusaders Academy of Science, Incorporated: Constituted for the promotion and development of the spiritual and mental faculties, directed by the Masters of the Crusaders Order of the World, of the Masonic Society, q.v.

Ah, Masons! Finally something familiar to students of Italian America, although "Masons" aren't to be found as a topic in the Routledge History or the Italian American Encyclopedia, but there is an excerpt from Michele Pane in Durante that speaks of a character who is a "Venerable of the Freemasons of the Mazzini Lodge."

Inside this typescript or mimeogaphed brochure, undated but perhaps 1932, the seller to me opined because it discussed an upcoming Christmas 1932, there is advertised "Transychology," "the Ancient Mysteries" ("Revelation of the 'secrets' of the Oriental-Indian and Egyptian Masters"), Occultism ("Spiritualism-magnetism and Allied Sciences"), and "Projection and Psychic Levitation-Systems and Practices."

The ad seems to be promoting "A Course of Superior Studies" compiled by Gaetano Russo, M.Ps.Sc., Director General of the Crusaders Order of the World. There follows episode No. 36 of the course, namely, "astrology-horoscopes."

The cover contains a photograph of the Crusaders' "Administration Building" or headquarters, at 1857 Anthony Avenue, corner of Mt. Hope Place, in the Bronx. The building was previously the Shuttleworth mansion, built in 1896.

This issue of a multi-issue course of study in an area of inquiry or endeavor not previously associated with Italian Americans - which, though in English, was advertised in a long-lived magazine written and published entirely in Italian! - is for many reasons, therefore, more than a little interesting.