Bücher der Reihe Cambridge Library Collection - Spiritualism and Esoteric Knowledge

Samuel Liddell Mathers' 1889 edition of this work introduces readers to a fascinating work of Renaissance occultism. Edited and translated from manuscripts at the British Museum, the text purports to disclose the secrets of history's wisest king, including how to summon God's power to create spells.

Albert Louis Caillet (1869-1922) devoted himself to the study of psychic sciences after a career in civil engineering. In this essential reference work on the literature of the occult, published in three volumes in 1912, he covers subjects ranging from alchemy to secret societies.

English historian and antiquary Thomas Wright (1810-70) published prolifically on subjects ranging from Old English texts to Anglo-Saxon cemeteries. This two-volume 1851 publication is testimony to his interest in folklore, sorcery and legend. Volume 1 gives instances of alleged witchcraft from sixteenth-century Europe.

First published in 1877, this two-volume spiritualist text describes the philosophical and occultist aims of the Theosophical Society, which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91) had recently helped to found. Drawing on her extensive travels, she claims to address the shortcomings of both scientific and theological inquiry.

This two-volume work from 1879 is a comprehensive study of demon mythology by freethinker and writer Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907). In Volume 1, Conway classifies types of demon, and argues that the various types are personifications of the main obstacles to 'primitive man,' such as hunger and disease.

Spiritualism, first published in 1853, caused an instant controversy as it detailed the conversion of New York judge John W. Edmonds and physician George T. Dexter to spiritualist practices, with Dexter even becoming a medium. Volume 1 includes letters from two spirits - 'Sweedenborg' and 'Bacon' - who communicated through Dexter.

This 1886 book was a pioneering attempt to explain ghost-seeing through the idea of telepathy, by analysis of over 700 case studies. Volume 2 presents data for auditory, visual, reciprocal, and collective hallucinations. It is a key source for the history of Victorian psychical research.

Providing a thorough examination of Agrippa's life and works, Prost's biography follows its subject through his travels and teaching across Western Europe in the early sixteenth century. In addition to its discussion of Agrippa, Volume 1 provides an important history and discussion of the occult arts and sciences.

Written by her close friend and partner Edward Maitland, this two-volume biography details the life of physician, spiritualist, and activist Anna Kingsford. First published in 1896, this first volume details Kingsford's early life, her first meeting with Maitland in Paris, and the beginnings of their joint supernatural experiences.

A tour of hoaxes, tricks and outrageous gimmicks, this book is the product of the American showman P. T. Barnum (1810-91), now famous for observing that 'every crowd has a silver lining'. First published in 1866, it provides an entertaining glimpse into the bizarre world of Victorian 'humbug'.

When Annie Besant (1847-1933) wrote in her 1893 Autobiography that her life was 'much attacked and slandered' she was only 45 years old, and many more controversies were yet to come. In this book, Besant charts her dramatic political and ethical awakenings, up to the point where she joined the Theosophical movement. She describes how she was unhappily married to a clergyman, contemplated suicide, embraced atheism, and legally separated from her husband. She recounts how she became a prolific writer and public speaker, joined the National Secular Society, was involved in the highly controversial publication of a birth control leaflet, and engaged in activism for workers' rights and home rule for Ireland. She also reflects on her own ideology and spirituality. Besant did much to shock and challenge Victorian society, and this book vividly portrays her struggles and successes.

First published in 1860, Eliphas Levi's history of magic follows in the wake of his enormously successful Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie, which first appeared in 1854. In this book, the French occultist and alleged magician offers a thoroughly comprehensive survey of the idea of 'magic' in Western history, from its origins in Indian, Greek, cabalistic and hermetic traditions to the latest developments in nineteenth-century occult philosophy, as well as his own private recollections of his experience with magic. Levi is adamant in his treatment of magic as a serious science and one compatible with Christianity, encouraging his readers to see magic as the reconciliation point between faith and reason, science and belief, authority and liberty. Extending to almost six hundred pages and with numerous illustrations, this book should appeal to those interested in the nineteenth-century obsession with mysticism and the occult.

Immensely popular in nineteenth-century France, this substantial book went through five editions between 1818 and 1863. It is an A-Z encyclopedia of the occult sciences, listing notable practitioners and books, superstitions, demons, spirits and other phenomena associated with magic, divination, sooth-saying and the supernatural. Its author, the prolific Collin de Plancy (1794-1881), moved to Paris in 1812. He owned a bookshop and speculated in property, a venture which resulted in his exile to Brussels. In 1837, he returned to Paris, rejected his earlier anticlericalism, and converted to Catholicism. The preface to the 1845 edition of his Dictionnaire Infernal, reissued here, claims its purpose is to refute error, banish superstition, and explain literary symbols and imagery.Significantly, the preface and the book's concluding paragraph affirm the Church's role as a source of truth, and the book carries the approval of the archbishop of Paris.

A Scottish physician, Anthony Todd Thomson (1778-1849), translated and edited this two-volume 1846 study of miracles in ancient times by French intellectual Anne-Joseph-Eusebe Baconniere de Salverte (1771-1839), originally published in 1829. Volume 1 looks at human credulity, and offers explanations for supernatural phenomena.

Confidence tricks and widespread delusions have gone in cycles throughout history, and the financial bubbles and illusions of haunted houses and popular manias are as relevant now as they were when Mackay published this book in 1852. A witty commentary with insights into human nature and the madness of crowds.

First published in France in 1854, this highly popular two-volume treatise on ritual magic initiates the reader into the secrets of Western occult philosophy. This first volume, 'The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic', chronicles the philosophy of western magic and the esoteric.

Frederic William Henry Myers (1843-1901) was a classical scholar who later turned to the investigation of spiritualism. This study, published in 1903, presents Myers' theory of the 'subliminal self' and remains a fascinating example of nineteenth-century attempts to understand psychic phenomena. Volume 1 discusses dreams and sensory automation.

Edited by the writer and lecturer on spiritualism Emma Hardinge Britten (1823-99), this work purports to recount the spiritual experiences of the enigmatic 'Chevalier Louis de B.', allegedly a nobleman who was initiated into ancient occult mysteries. Britten translated and prepared the manuscript for publication in 1876.

Scottish philosopher and theologian James McCosh (1811-94) aimed in this work, which was published in 1862, to 'disentangle the confusion' about the relationship between the natural and supernatural. The book examines the question from both sides, discussing the laws of nature alongside apparently inexplicable phenomena such as miracles.

Printmaker James Caulfield (1764-1826) spent much of his career publishing books about 'remarkable persons'. This collection, done in collaboration with Henry Wilson (fl. 1820-3), was reprinted in 1869. It includes vignettes describing a wide-ranging and eccentric cast of characters and is accompanied by engravings of each person.

Modern Spiritualism (1902) was the first comprehensive history of Spiritualism. It traces the movement's historical development from its origins in animal magnetism to its decline in the late 1870s. Volume 1 covers the key figures of Paracelsus, Mesmer, Bertrand, and Esdaile. It is an indispensable source on nineteenth-century Spiritualism.

Intended as a companion volume to his bestselling Culpeper's English Physician, Ebenezer Sibly's 1795 work presents the body as a microcosm of all nature, its corruptions a result of imbalanced proportions of the four elements. Sibly draws upon Enlightenment science to try to prove an older, hermetically derived philosophy.

Martin Naylor (c. 1762-1843), a Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, was selected to give four annual sermons against witchcraft, following a tradition established in 1593 after the trial and execution of alleged witches in Warboys (Cambridgeshire). These sermons, and an account of the original events, were published in 1795.

This extensive encyclopaedia, first published in 1877, is considered to be a classic Masonic reference work. It includes detailed information on the symbols, rites, legends, terms, people and places associated with Freemasonry. The author, Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie (1833-86), was a nineteenth-century writer and Masonic scholar.

First published in French, this work by Eliphas Levi (1810-75) was translated into English by occult historian Arthur Waite in 1913. In this book, Levi traces Western magic from its origins in the ancient world to the nineteenth-century occult revival. Levi's French edition is also reissued in this series.

Written by the French Benedictine Antoine Augustin Calmet (1672-1757), and first published in 1746, this two-volume work examines a wide selection of supernatural tales and beliefs from across Europe, seeking to understand the truth behind such tales. The work was translated into English in 1850 by Henry Christmas (1811-68).

First published in 1902, this work by the mystic and historian Arthur Waite (1857-1942) establishes Kabbalah's significant influence on nineteenth-century occultism. The book chronicles the history of Kabbalist practice from its ancient Hebrew origins to its influence on other branches of the occult, including Rosicrucianism, freemasonry, hermeticism and tarot.

Eliphas Levi (1810-75) was instrumental in the revival of Western occultism in the nineteenth century. This posthumous publication (1896), translated from an unpublished manuscript, outlines the meanings of the twenty-two tarot trumps and includes editorial notes on their iconography. It concludes with Kabbalistic prayers and occult and religious maxims.

Published in 1849, this two-volume set examines how popular mythology kept alive beliefs about the occult, alchemy and the paranormal. Examining witchcraft, astrology, mesmerism, alchemy and much more, Henry Christmas shows how some of these beliefs were so entrenched that they were held almost as facts, even influencing rational thought.

Sir Hermann Gollancz (1852-1930) was Professor of Hebrew at University College London and became the first English rabbi to receive a knighthood. This illustrated edition and translation of three Syriac manuscripts containing Eastern Christian charms against illness or injury was first published in 1912.