A. E. Waite, George MacDonald, and the Golden Stair from Victorian Fantasy to Edwardian Mystical Fiction

This article explores how the scholar, poet, novelist, and mystic A. E. Waite, shaped by the influence of George MacDonald, fostered a literary movement that sought to rectify earlier definitions of mysticism and distinguish mysticism from the occult arts by rooting his understanding of mysticism in a sacramental theology aligned with Christian religious tradition. The author argues that Waite’s work had profound consequences for the spiritual lives of many Edwardian readers, for subsequent decades of spiritual writers, and even for the course of spirituality and religion in our own day and time.