Oriental Esoteric Center/Society, Bulletin of the
Oriental Philosophy and Comparative Religion.
Other titles: Bulletin of the Oriental Esoteric Society / The Esoterist (1921-1924)
1904--1920 Weekly (irregular)
Washington, D.C.. Publisher: Oriental Esoteric Center; Esoteric Brotherhood, Inc.. Editor: Agnes Elizabeth Marsland and H.N. Stokes.
Succeeds: Philadelphia (Argentina)-->La Verdad (Valparaiso, Chile)-->El Loto (Lima Peru)-->The Radiant Centre-->The Radiant Truth Succeeded by: La Luz (Mexico City)-->Bulletin of the Oriental Esoteric Center/Society-->The Esoterist-->Prophecy Bulletin; L'Etoile d'Orient
1/1, May 22, 1904-December 1920. $1.00 a year, fifty cents for six months, twenty-five cents for three months. 6-24 pp., 8 x 5, unnumbered, printed in blue or purple ink.

Until 1908 the journal consisted of untitled and unnumbered typewritten leaflets distributed free in connection with the lectures of Marsland (1855-c. 1939) at the Oriental Esoteric Center. From 1908 to 1920 the journal was called Bulletin of the Oriental Esoteric Center (or Society, after Marsland's split with the Count de Sarak in 1910), and from 1921 through 1924 was called The Esoterist. Although the Center was the organ of the teachings of Sarak and the Initiates of Tibet until 1910, the journal never mentions either and consisted largely of meeting notices, platitudes from Marsland's lectures, devotional passages from the likes of Rama Prasad, and exhortations to silence the reason and submit the mind to the internal whisperings of the Tibetan Masters. The advertisement for the journal in Azoth, April 1918 promised: "Individual Guidance and Teachings in the application of Spiritual Law to the Daily Life, graded from the Simplest Rules of Right Living to the Most Advanced Truths of Esoterism."

Marsland was the daughter of a politically connected Washington family and had imbibed the New Thought-Theosophical-occult teachings of the day. In 1902, she met Sarak, a convicted felon and charlatan who arrived in the United States in 1901 one step ahead of another criminal charge for fraud in Peru. Marsland became his translator (from French to English), and the Oriental Esoteric Center was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1902 as the local branch of Sarak's Order of the Initiates of Thibet. In 1903 she accompanied Sarak to Mexico where he established another branch, and in 1905 she returned to Washington without him to enliven the Center there. The journal was preceded by The Radiant Centre, which failed when Sarak demanded $500 for the issuance of a charter to the group, and The Radiant Truth, which seems to have ceased after a few issues. Marsland moved herself and her journal (then called The Esoterist) to Lexington, North Carolina in 1923. The O.E. [Oriental Esoteric] Library Critic edited by H.N. Stokes originated as the library bulletin affiliated with the Esoteric Center, but, after a bitter lawsuit in 1911-1912 over the ownership of the journal and the library, the Critic went its own way and became the leading opponent of "Neo-Theosophy." The large glyph in the logo of the organization is a "kef" or "kaf" in the alphabet of the "Magi." LOC; NYPL.

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