Douglas Bess

I have been involved in the worlds of independent Catholicism and esoteric Christianity for over two decades, both as a participant and an autodidact scholar. I am a trained historian (B.A. in US History from the University of California) and theologian (M.A.T.S. from the Claremont School of Theology) with a probably unhealthy interest in independent/vagante Catholic and Orthodox groups, esoteric Christian groups and cults, folk Catholicism, and Traditionalism. My first published work was DIVIDED WE STAND: A HISTORY OF THE CONTINUING ANGLICAN MOVEMENT (2002, revised 2006) and I am currently finishing up my latest project - a book-length history of Abbot George Burke and his Hindu-Orthodox hybrid monastery.