The importance of magic in nineteenth-century European popular culture and folklore has never been in dispute, as belief in miracles, prophecies, and magical talismans remained strong. Nineteenth-century Europe inherited a rich, complex esoteric tradition from the early modern era. Esoteric Freemasonry flourished in continental Europe in the eighteenth century, especially in the smaller states of western and central Germany. The Enlightenment made its own contributions to the esoteric tradition. If the Enlightenment itself exercised influence over the subsequent development of elite magic in the nineteenth century, the Illuminist reaction against Enlightenment rationalism and materialism played an even greater role. The French Revolution marked an important caesura between the esoteric Freemasonry and Illuminism of the late Enlightenment and the rise of new currents of magic and esotericism in the nineteenth century. The Western esoteric tradition was, in the nineteenth century, enriched by two imports from beyond Europe: Spiritualism in the 1850s and the Theosophical Society in the 1880s.