L. W. de Laurence

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L. W. de Laurence (full name Lauron William de Laurence) was an American author and publisher on occult and spiritual topics. He was born in 1868 and died on 11 September 1936 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. His publishing company and spiritual supply mail order house was located in Chicago, Illinois.

Although he is mocked and reviled among modern occultists for his plagiarism (or, more properly, book-pirating) of the Pictorial Key to the Tarot by Arthur Edward Waite, he also wrote his own works, including The Master Key, and The Great Book of Hindu Magic.

De laurence was a pioneer in the business of suppliying magical and occult goods by mail order, and his distribution of public domain books, such as Secrets of the Psalms by Godfrey Selig and Pow Wows or the Long-Lost Friend by John George Hohman had a great and lasting effect on the African American urban hoodoo community in the southern United States as well as on the development of Obeah in Jamaica.

In early 1930 he was consecrated a bishop by fellow Spiritualist, Arthur Edward Leighton, a bishop of the American Catholic Church (a church body with the episcopal succession of Joseph Rene Vilatte). One surprising result of Dr. de Laurence's consecration was that it helped influence the move of some black spiritualist churches towards a more traditional view of Christianity and he may have consecrated the first bishops for these churches, eg. Thomas Watson of New Orleans in the year of his death, 1936.