THE OCCULT SCIENCES: SKETCHES OF THE TRADITIONS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF PAST TIMES, AND THE MARVELS OF THE PRESENT DAY
Book Details + Condition: Richard Griffin and Company (London and Glasgow, UK). First Edition thus, 1855. Octavo. Hardcover. 376 pages, with advertisements to endpapers. Index included. Original cloth lettered in gilt on spine, decorated in blind on spine & boards. A volume in the "Cabinet Edition" of the "Encylclopaedia Metropolitana: or, System of Universal Knowledge, on a Methodical Plan Projected by Samuel Taylor Coleridge" series. Contributors to this volume include Reverend Edward Smedley, W. Cooke Taylor, Reverend Henry Thompson, and Elihu Rich.
A comprehensive work on all matters occult. Chapters include: "The Belief in Supernatural Beings"; "Localities"; "The Exercise of Occult Power"; "Psychological Experiences"; "Wonders of Divination"; and "Natural and Artificial Charms". Fascinating subset topics include: Familiars, Demons, Devil, Incubus, Vampires, Goblins and Bogles, Witchcraft, Exorcism, Necromancy, "The Spell," "Touching for the Evil," "The Elixir of Philosopher's Stone," Ancient civilizations, Supernatural beings, Elves, Fairies, Angels, Mesmerism, Dreams and trances, Astrology, Divination, and much more. More obscure divination topics include Lithomancy, Scyphomancy, Crystalomancy, Gastromancy, Onimancy, Coscinomancy, Alectromancy and Clidomancy. A sound and clean copy of a scarce work, with firm binding; rubbed corners and spine edges; light wear to extremities; interior is clean and free of markings.
