Physician, astrologer and occult philosopher, Ebenezer Sibly (1751 99) wrote popular works of medical theory and advice, including Culpeper's English Physician (1789) and this companion volume of 1795. A synthesis of theology, natural philosophy and medical science, the book argues for a microcosmic understanding of the human body as a composite of the four essential elements. An ambitious work, it bears witness to an important era in the development of modern medicine, as Sibly looks to combine an older hermetic tradition with new Enlightenment-era insights into the physical universe. In the...

The Benedictine monk and biblical scholar Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672 1757) published this work in 1746; it was translated into English in 1850 by Henry Christmas (1811 68). It examines a wide selection of supernatural tales and beliefs from across Europe. Taking the stance of a scientific enquirer, Calmet sought to understand the truth behind stories of good and bad angels, vampires, witchcraft, possession by demons, and the dead who come back to life. He compiled accounts of the supernatural from official reports, newspapers, eyewitness accounts and travel writing, and this two-volume...

The Benedictine monk and biblical scholar Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672 1757) published this work in 1746; it was translated into English in 1850 by Henry Christmas (1811 68). It examines a wide selection of supernatural tales and beliefs from across Europe. Taking the stance of a scientific enquirer, Calmet sought to understand the truth behind stories of good and bad angels, vampires, witchcraft, possession by demons, and the dead who come back to life. He compiled accounts of the supernatural from official reports, newspapers, eyewitness accounts and travel writing, and this two-volume...

After the execution of the Samuels family known as the Witches of Warboys on charges of witchcraft in 1593, Sir Henry Cromwell (grandfather of Oliver Cromwell) used their confiscated property to fund an annual sermon against witchcraft to be given in Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire) by a divinity scholar from Queens' College, Cambridge. Although beliefs about witchery had changed by the eighteenth century, the tradition persisted. Martin J. Naylor (c. 1762 1843), a Fellow of Queens' College and the holder of incumbencies in Yorkshire, gave four of the sermons, on 25 March each year from 1792 to...

This is the final book written by the seventeenth-century occultist and alchemist, Thomas Vaughan (1621 66). Originally published under Vaughan's penname, Eugenius Philalethes, in 1655, the work found a new audience in the Rosicrucian circles of the nineteenth century, when William Wynn Westcott, Supreme Magus of the Society, republished the volume in 1896 with a commentary by an associate, S. S. D. D. 'I have read many Alchemical Treatises', its annotator comments, 'but never one of less use to the practical Alchemist than this.' For its later readers, however, the value of the text lay in...

The Frankfurt physician Georg Kloss (1787 1854) was an avid bibliophile and a Freemason. In 1835 his large collection of early printed books was sold by Sotheby's in London, as his extra-curricular interests had shifted from incunabula to the history of freemasonry. He went on to publish several scholarly books on the subject, of which this bibliography (Frankfurt, 1844) was the first. Mentioned by Frederick Leigh Gardner in 1911 as 'excellent though exceedingly scarce', it records over 5,000 books, documents and references relating to freemasonry. These date from 1723 to 1835, and many are...

A leading German theosophical writer, Karl Kiesewetter (1854-95) published several influential works in the years just before his early death. They included a history of modern esotericism (1891), a biography of Mesmer (1893, also reissued in this series), studies of John Dee and of the Faust legend (both 1893), and this two-volume account of occult beliefs and practices in the ancient world (1895), which was completed by Ludwig Kuhlenbeck (1857-1920), a scholar of ancient philosophy and law. This study covers nine civilisations, including those of the ancient Near East (primarily Babylon,...

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 91), writer, traveller and spiritualist, is well known for her role in nineteenth-century theosophy. Born in the Ukraine, Blavatsky travelled extensively and claimed to have spent seven years studying esoteric mysteries in Tibet. From 1863 she began working as a medium and later counted W. B. Yeats among her followers. In 1875 she founded the Theosophical Society with Henry Steel Olcott. Influenced by Eastern philosophy and the Templars, Freemasons and Rosicrucians, the Society aimed to unravel the occult mysteries of nature. First published in 1877, this book...

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831 91), writer, traveller and spiritualist, is well known for her role in nineteenth-century theosophy. Born in the Ukraine, Blavatsky travelled extensively and claimed to have spent seven years studying esoteric mysteries in Tibet. From 1863 she began working as a medium and later counted W. B. Yeats among her followers. In 1875 she founded the Theosophical Society with Henry Steel Olcott. Influenced by Eastern philosophy and the Templars, Freemasons and Rosicrucians, the Society aimed to unravel the occult mysteries of nature. First published in 1877, this book...

It was only in his forties that civil engineer Albert Louis Caillet (1869 1922) decided to abandon his career to devote himself to the study of psychic sciences. From 1912, he wrote several publications on occultism and created the Societe Unitive, whose goal was 'to improve life through a reasoned system of mental, psychic and physical hygiene'. This three-volume compendium, first published in 1912, is an essential reference tool on the literature of the occult. The extensive bibliography lists hundreds of books on subjects as diverse as magic and witchcraft, mythology, divination, the...