Esoteric Buddhism: Now Available!

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AP Sinnett is the author of this fascinating book- his probably most well known, and one of the better written.

The number of topics covered within it are vast but there are two especially which concern the modern occultist perhaps most of all; the treatment of nirvana, devachan, and the general concept of the afterlife and reincarnation cycle first and foremost, and second to it, a bit about the history of the central Buddha of Buddhism itself. Some of the concepts elaborated on by Sinnett were, here, for the first time, de-westernized, that is, understood in the sense that Easterners actually practiced Buddhism. On some other topics, the mark is missed, but the work itself is quite good.

The fervent absorption of Eastern lore not previously understood or in some cases even quantified by the European and American spheres had begun in fervor by the 1880s.

173 pages.

H.P. Blavatsky (An Outline of her Life): Now Available!

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This short outline has only one subject; the founder and long term leader of Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky. This work chronicles her life in a fairly substantial degree of detail, however one with the intrinsic bias of being written by a member of the Theosophical Society- therefore it refutes some largely accepted claims such as fraudulent spiritual tricks in Blavatsky's apartment; the author here claims some rotating panels used as evidence of fraud were built after she left- it's difficult to determine whether this counter to the rationalists of the era is true.

For those interested in Theosophy this is a must-read.

46 pages.

The Theosophy of Christ: Now Available!

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This short work represents a contemporary look at Theosophy from a perspective different from that of the Oriental tradition. While Theosophy at large brought East to West, this and similar works spoke more of Jesus and attempted to re-assert the supremacy of Christendom over spiritism and similar phenomena.

Largely, it encourages prayer for healing, claiming that the dispensation of healing miracles did not end in antiquity.

45 pages.

Modern Vampirism: Now Available!

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This is one of the flat-out weirdest works I've ever edited; a short work, it treats on poetry and prose related to vampires, details both blood drinking and psychic attack, and altogether appears to endorse the concept that literal vampires- that is, in the strain of Dracula, able to keep a corpse semi-alive or appear in apparitional form- are both real and very dangerous. Cautionary in part, it warns the reader to be mindful and not utilize ouija boards or seances or hypnotism, to avoid elemental spirits from parasitizing them.

Alluding to both fiction and supposed nonfiction accounts of injury and death from energetic vampirism, it also suggests hanging around extremely optimistic people in order to fight such otherworldly forces.

49 pages.

Echoes of the Orient: Now Available!

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And now comes one of the most recognizable works released within Theosophy; an early work, "Echoes of the Orient" by the esteemed William Quan Judge.

Altogether it is a broad overview of 1. What Theosophy is, 2. What Theosophy believes, and 3. A mild refutation of some criticism aimed at the same. It should be noted that Judge was vice president of the rapidly expanding order at the time and that Theosophy would not only significantly expand after the writing of this book but spawn multiple significant offshoots, influencing politics despite being apolitical and being conjoined to the proro-eugenic movement.

70 pages.

Materialized Apparitions: Now Available!

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This work is quite interesting and refers to various experiences and experiments performed by the author with regards to seances at the time for some years running. The main focal point is none other than the now infamous Anna Fay, was eventually outed as a fraud by Harry Houdini, among others- indeed not that many years after this work sought to use her as evidence of a spirit world.

Nonetheless it is of value- all the content connected just with the theoretical side of spirituality remains intact even to this day in a theoretical sense- although it is generally considered bunk because of its association with the same mediumship circles this work refers to. A fine bit of work exemplifying the spiritualism movement and of great interest for its description- accidentally- of very refined parlor magic.

82 pages.

Imperialistic Council of the Magi: Now Available!

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Of all of the odd arcana I've encountered during half a decade editing occult works, this takes the cake for the most odd of all. Invoking none other than Eliphas Levi, it purports to tutor the reader in how to become a magi. Here I insert an opinion; this work is typical of the era (and for a couple decades after) and is more like the Book of Forbidden Knowledge than it is a standard occult philosophy guide, only without some of the bric-a-brac inclusions and advertisements for crystals and self help guides.

That isn't to demean the work however- it's a fun albeit short read, and the various teachings it employs aren't inauthentic in and of themselves and roughly correlate to Theosophy and similar movements from the period. Highly recommended both for lore and laughs!

51 pages.

Animism, the Seed of Religion: Now Available!

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This is of interest potentially to two groups of people; the occultist will here find some interesting folk tales and spiritual rites from cultures then being actively studied at the height of the colonial era, and the history buff will find in these pages an interesting but sometimes outdated colonial perspective on non-European cultures. It focuses mostly on African lore but also on India and makes some mention (in the naturalistic period post-animism but prior to semimodern religion, as the theory then held) to the Mesoamericans. The categorical system isn't entirely accurate, but it is applicable and useful.

60 pages.

Vampires and Vampirism: Now Available!

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This work is one of a number of interesting titles on the subject of vampirism that come in the late premodern period. Many works even from that interesting early 20th century academic era only fixate on vampires as the bloodsuckers of specifically southeastern European lore- this work manages to extend its scope to Asia and Russia as well and includes a number of interesting poems and stories. In the most amusing inclusion, it classes Bram Stokers' "Dracula" as an exciting modern romance- this being amusing only because the work dates to over a century ago.

Only a small proportion of works I edit actually grab my attention fully whilst being edited- this is one of those books and I highly recommend it.

113 pages.

How to Hold Circles for Developing Mediumship At Home: Now Available!

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This short work is interesting for two reasons, neither of which has strictly to do with the stated main topic; it is all about how to develop the skill of mediumship, but the occultist has perhaps more use for it in its admonitions regarding self awareness and focus, and the literary buff will find it more of interest because it's an exceptionally good example of the specific kind of mystic literature proliferating at the time, in the wake of the east-to-the-west expansion of spiritual consciousness.

43 pages.

Fishes, Flowers, and Fire: Now Available!

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This is yet another of the infamous phallic works written during the late 1800s presumably by Hargrave Jennings, anonymously. The works at the time contained taboo materials, since they spoke of fertility rites, sexual symbolism, and feminine spiritual forces. While "Ophiolatreia" is perhaps the best known of the titles in this privately printed series, this one might be the most interesting.

The work contains three basic sections, as its title suggests; the use of fish as a sexual symbol especially as tired with Christianity would have been considered blasphemy in its era (even if accepted now)- flowers are a fairly obvious sex symbol, but the greatest bulk of the work regards fire worship. Here we see the interesting suggestion that those who "passed their seed (children) through fire to Molech" may have been not sacrificing them but rather ritualistically purifying them. An extremely good work.

115 pages.

The Mystics of Islam: Now Available!

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This is a fine work from the golden age of academics when books treating on non-western groups weren't full of nonstop "noble savage" mythology which had been common before and has become common again in our current intellectual dark age. Dwelling relatively little on the whirling dervishes and the more well known practices of some Sufi orders, it instead focuses on some of its historical subgroups including certain libertine factions and some groups which essentially equate to a form of islamized gnosticism. Altogether extremely well written with a decent bibliography to boot.

125 pages.

Realms of the Egyptian Dead: Now Available!

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This little work is one of the better, more dense pieces of Egyptology I've come across- one of the reasons I prioritized it in the new slew of works I have planned for the rest of 2018 into, probably, as late as mid 2020. Written by Alfred Wiedemann in the golden era of Victorian academic works, it is a broad overview of a few important topics within Egyptian pagan lore- especially focusing on the transition from live sacrifice to the use of clay figurines and similar things to lend a hand to the deceased, mummified Egyptian in the afterlife, as well as the topic of the self-contradicting nature of Egyptian lore; literally that within one burial two or more mythological tales scrawled on the tomb walls may tell stories which directly refute one another, causing legendary confusion.

It also contains a few bits about Egyptian mythology strictly related to Osiris and other deities, which is of decent import and quite interesting.

46 pages.

Jewish Mysticism: Now Available!

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One of a number of interesting spiritual works released by the same publisher in the 1910s, Abelsons' treatment of mysticism within Judaism here is quite good, expansive, and sometimes dense, but technically an introductory overview of magickal concepts within Kabbalah.

Speaking of the Yetzirah and Zohar among other works, it is somewhat a work of linguistic anthropology, which makes sense, since a lot of the theological and mystic concepts of Jewish spiritual lore are fundamentally derived from the Hebrew language and number systems.

123 pages.

Aryan Sun Myths: Now Available!

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This work is one of the best academic treatments of religious history that I have encountered. It spans a dozen cultures and many centuries in its pages, going from Babylon, Egypt, and ancient India, up through Greece, Rome, and into the then-modern period of the late 19th century.

Most of the lore here is in the form of historical quotation from Tacitus, Pliny, Caesar, and others, or else notations regarding the similarity between epic poems and literal mythology and the then-accepted trappings and symbols of Christendom. Indeed, the imagery of twelve followers (disciples), halos, resurrection, virgin birth, and many more such tropes, are originally pagan, and any actual historical Jesus is in all likelihood lost to history, because the subsequent writings on this figure were an amalgamation of a half dozen solar cults.

134 pages.

Valuable Herbal Prescriptions: Now Available!

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This homeopathic tract contains a number of remedies (technically late pre-modern folk remedies) for ailments ranging from dyspepsia to hysteria. It also contains a small amount of social reformist sentiment. As with "Weeds Used as Medicine" it was beautifully re-illustrated by Rita Metzner, whose instagram can be seen here.

Some of the weights and measurements used herein are archaic in form (such as the drachm) but overall it's an interesting piece of historical medical literature with quite a few botanical species of note.

56 pages.

Weeds Used as Medicine: Now Available!

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This interesting booklet was released in the early 20th century as a helpful government bulletin designed to inform farmers that some of the weeds they were constantly removing from their land were medicinal in nature and potentially of at least enough value to make the work of exterminating them mildly profitable. It has been beautifully re-illustrated by the talented Rita Metzner. You can see some of her other works here.

It covers quite a few species; datura is here notable along with poison hemlock as plants that are no longer generally considered to be valid within medicine. Catnip is also mentioned somewhat amusingly here as more valuable on the medicinal end; these days of course its primary reason for sale is as a narcotic for peoples' miniaturized lions and tigers. The general medical use of each species, along with a description of its prevalence and appearance, is paired as well with some interesting asides regarding the commercial nature of early 20th century herbal medicine.

58 pages.

Gunpowder As A War Remedy: Now Available!

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This little work is straightly a homeopathic one- the claims here made by Clarke range from the probably true to the likely false; while ingesting gunpowder in solution may have enough chemical action to be of help for some ailments (and using it to sterilize a wound makes sense since it contains both nitrate and sulfur) it is not entirely clear that his claim of the same solutions curing exposure to sewer gas (hydrogen sulfide) and the aftereffects has any significant credibility.

Written and published during the First World War, Clarke also claims here that a large amount of his medicine was sent to the trenches- whether this helped with the various ailments there at the time is perhaps still a mystery.

For those who wish to see a digitized scan of this work (for free) I have already scanned my own copy into the occult archive and you can click here to download it. While I (begrudgingly) offer Kindle releases of my editions now, I honestly prefer the old style of simply free scanned pdfs of older works and if people wish to patronize my work I prefer they purchase physical copies of the same. Until the fourth herbal/homeopathic work is complete this edition will be linked under the Academic heading.

24 pages.

The Occult Significance of Blood: Now Available

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This is Steiner's greatest addition to the corpus of occult literature. I am myself generally dismissive of theosophical and anthroposophical works, but "Occult Significance of Blood" goes deeper, far deeper, into philosophy than most contemporary booklets including others Steiner himself crafted; the only other similarly fine Steiner work I ever read was "The Ahrimanic Deception."

This text delves deep into the meaning of blood in both a strictly spiritual as well as (vaguely outdated) biological context. Filled with eugenic thought, Steiner's work here does not argue against outbreeding like many contemporary works and instead credits and lambastes it as a double edged sword a la Paradise Lost and the simultaneous liberation and downfall of human order; while exogamy, according to Steiner, gave man his true self thought and identity, it robbed him of a primordial lineage memory of sorts as it altered, forever, man's thinking abilities. Such material would later form the basis of many a nationalistic attempt to restore tribal memory and overlap it with modern consciousness, forming a divine intellect and godlike man who could never be thwarted.

34 pages.

Three New Works I Acquired

I was unable to obtain one of the works I had in mind for the archive and release; a scrapbook and partly hand-written civil war era medical quack work with various recipes and letters and other miscellaneous inclusions; the price quickly surpassed my willingness to buy a work I was not able to physically examine for condition.

However I did obtain three quack-era works related to medicine, including two on homeopathy and a third on the usage of gunpowder as a remedy. I will release these works as free scans for the archive as soon as I figure out my new printer/scanner combo and will also craft them into new editions.

from the ebay listing