Oliver Bland

Little is firmly documented about Oliver Bland as a person, and the name appears to have been used with deliberate anonymity. What can be confirmed is that he is credited as the author of The Adventures of a Modern Occultist, first published in 1920 and later preserved by major libraries and public-domain archives.

That book presents a personal, conversational tour through spiritualism, psychic phenomena, mediumship, and occult investigation. Rather than writing like a distant scholar, Bland comes across as a participant-observer, describing strange experiences and the people drawn to them in a way that helped make the subject accessible to general readers.

Because reliable biographical records are scarce, Bland is remembered mainly through the book itself. For readers interested in early modern occultism and the culture of supernatural inquiry in the early 1900s, his writing offers a vivid period voice.