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Magic, superstition, the occult sciences and esoteric knowledge appear regularly in the history of ideas alongside more established academic disciplines such as philosophy, natural history and theology. Particularly fascinating are periods of rapid scientific advances such as the Renaissance or the nineteenth century, which also see a burgeoning of interest in the paranormal among the educated elite. This series provides primary texts and secondary sources for social historians and cultural anthropologists working in these areas, and all who wish for a wider understanding of the diverse intellectual and spiritual movements that formed a backdrop to the academic and political achievements of their day. It ranges from works on Babylonian and Jewish magic in the ancient world, through studies of sixteenth-century topics such as Cornelius Agrippa and the rapid spread of Rosicrucianism, to nineteenth-century publications by Sir Walter Scott and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Subjects include astrology, mesmerism, spiritualism, theosophy, clairvoyance and ghost-seeing, as described both by their adherents and by sceptics.

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145 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Spiritualism and Esoteric Knowledge

Page 2 of 8

Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes
  • Volume 3, M–Z
  • Albert Louis Caillet
  • Published online:
    05 August 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1912
  • 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 Société 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 Kabbalah, sects and secret societies, alchemy, ancient medicine, anthropology and philosophy. It includes detailed book descriptions, critical and historical notes, brief biographies of obscure authors and multiple editions of texts. Organised alphabetically, Volume 3 lists authors from M to Z.

The Phantom World
  • Or, the Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, Etc
  • Volume 1
  • Augustin Calmet
  • Edited by Henry Christmas
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    22 March 2012
    First published in:
    1850
  • 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 anthology of his collected data analyses the material, noting problems and inconsistencies. Volume 1 investigates the appearance of good and bad angels, magic among the Greeks and Romans, sorcerers and witches, and possession by demons. Covering a vast repertory of legends, the work paints a vivid picture of the beliefs entertained in an ostensibly Christian era.

The Phantom World
  • Or, the Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions, Etc
  • Volume 2
  • Augustin Calmet
  • Edited by Henry Christmas
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    22 March 2012
    First published in:
    1850
  • 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 anthology of his collected data analyses the material, noting problems and inconsistencies. Volume 2 investigates tales of vampires and ghosts from many different European countries. Covering a vast repertory of legends, the work paints a vivid picture of the beliefs entertained in an ostensibly Christian era.

The Seeress of Prevorst
  • Being Revelations Concerning the Inner-life of Man, and the Inter-diffusion of a World of Spirits in the One We Inhabit
  • Justinus Andreas Christian Kerner
  • Translated by Catherine Crowe
  • Published online:
    05 June 2013
    Print publication:
    17 February 2011
    First published in:
    1845
  • Friederike Hauffe (1801–1829) suffered throughout her short lifetime from severe spasms and nervous fevers, and in her semi-conscious state she allegedly saw spectres and spoke and wrote predictions in an unknown, 'innate' language. When physically well, Hauffe could communicate with spectres of the dead, and created a complex diagram of circles to explain the nervous energy of a person and its changes throughout the year. The flow of consciousness and one's waking state in the spirit world, or 'sun sphere', was individual and seasonal. After continued illness, she was finally taken into the care of Dr Justinus Kerner for the last few years of her life. His use of magnetic treatment apparently gave her some relief, and she was able to use her 'spiritual sight' to aid others. Kerner's 1829 account of her life, depicting a woman with unusual psychic gifts, was published in English translation in 1845.

Spiritism
  • Eduard von Hartmann
  • Translated by C. C. Massey
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1885
  • Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906) had expected to follow his father's military career, but an injury forced him to reassess his ambitions. Torn between music and philosophy, he settled on the latter and in 1869 published his first book, The Philosophy of the Unconscious, which proved a great success. Published in 1885 as the period saw an enormous rise in the popularity of spiritualism, this work attempts to give psychological explanations for all occult phenomena, including subjective delusions as well as 'objective' physical manifestations, without resorting to hypotheses of ghosts, demons or trickery. C. C. Massey, a leading theosophist and translator of the work, wrote, 'Now for the first time, a man of commanding intellectual position has dealt fairly by us as an opponent.' This work will appeal to anyone with an interest in the growth of spiritualism and the philosophical and metaphysical debates of the nineteenth century.

The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia of History, Rites, Symbolism, and Biography
  • Edited by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    28 June 2012
    First published in:
    1877
  • The nineteenth-century writer and Masonic scholar Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie (1833–86) studied occultism with Frederick Hockley, and met the famous French occultist Éliphas Lévi in 1861. He was also involved in the foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 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. Some of the symbols are illustrated and lists of rankings are given, including a 'traditional' list of Grand Masters of England that includes Sts Swithin and Dunstan, Alfred the Great, Sir Christopher Wren (twice) and Charles II. Mackenzie aims in his entries to be critical when relevant: as he says in the Preface, freemasonry has 'received a willing tribute' in his book, but he hints at difficulties encountered in publishing material about a famously secretive society.

Isis Unveiled
  • A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
  • Volume 2, Theology
  • H. P. Blavatsky
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    28 June 2012
    First published in:
    1877
  • 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 outlines theosophy's precepts. The book is a mishmash of Hermetic philosophy, Christian history and Asian theology, and was allegedly dictated astrally from authorities including Plato, Solomon and Roger Bacon. Volume 2 questions the 'infallibility of religion'. Blavatsky attacks the Church's authority on spirituality and outlines its historic crimes. The book also explores the influence of Eastern philosophy on Christianity.

The Humbugs of the World
  • P. T. Barnum
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    22 March 2012
    First published in:
    1866
  • Ebenezer Scrooge's cry of 'Humbug!' is well known throughout the English-speaking world. But what did he mean? In this entertaining book, P. T. Barnum (1810–91), defines 'humbug' as 'glittering appearances by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear'. A showman himself and the creator of 'The Greatest Show on Earth', Barnum was famous for his own tricks, and describes here some of the most fascinating and outrageous examples perpetrated in his time. He explores the cases of Mr Warren, who wrote an advertisement in enormous letters on the pyramids of Giza, and the Fox daughters, who caused a stir among spiritualists in New York when they held seances with tapping spirits - in fact their own cracking knee joints. First published in 1866, this tour of Victorian humbug, fraud, superstition and quackery will appeal to social historians and readers interested in nineteenth-century popular culture.

The Supernatural in Relation to the Natural
  • James McCosh
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1862
  • The supernatural was an intellectual preoccupation for Scottish philosopher, theologian and later President of Princeton University James McCosh (1811–94), who attacked John Stuart Mill's 1843 System of Logic (also reissued in this series) for not addressing the issue of the supernatural. In this work, published in 1862, McCosh gives his full attention to the question, saying his aim was to 'disentangle the confusion' about the relationship between the natural and supernatural. He defines the supernatural as anything acting outside the sphere of nature. The first part of the book examines the natural world's relationship to the supernatural through a discussion of the laws and principles that are thought to govern nature. The second part takes the opposite approach, considering the relationship of the supernatural to the natural by examining instances within Christian literature, such as prophecy and miracles, which are difficult to explain.

Euphrates
  • Or, the Waters of the East
  • Thomas Vaughan
  • Edited by Florence Farr
  • General editor W. Wynn Westcott
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1896
  • 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 its insights into the history of hermetic thought rather than its alchemical advice. An important work of occultist philosophy in both its seventeenth- and nineteenth-century contexts, it purports to reveal nothing less than the origin of all life. The paragraph-by-paragraph commentary in turn demonstrates the history of its reception and interpretation.

Isis Unveiled
  • A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
  • Volume 1, Science
  • H. P. Blavatsky
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    28 June 2012
    First published in:
    1877
  • 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 outlines theosophy's precepts. The book is a mishmash of Hermetic philosophy, Christian history and Asian theology, and was allegedly dictated astrally from authorities including Plato, Solomon and Roger Bacon. In Volume 1, Blavatsky addresses the 'infallibility of science', attacking the methods of Darwin and others by arguing that scientific truth can only be accessed through occult understanding.

Experiences in Spiritualism with Mr D. D. Home
  • Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin Adare
  • Introduction by Edwin Richard Windham Wyndham-Quin Dunraven
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    02 August 2012
    First published in:
    1869
  • First published in 1869, this book describes the spiritualist activity of Scottish-born Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–86), who emerged as a medium in the United States in the wake of the Fox sisters' alleged 'spirit rappings' in the mid-nineteenth century. Written by the Irish journalist and politician Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, Lord Adare (1841–1926), who befriended Home in 1867, the book records Adare's observations of seventy-eight spiritualist sittings over two years, and reports verbatim the conversations between Home and the spirits with whom he was allegedly in contact. Adare also describes Home's supernatural interactions away from the formal setting of a séance. The accounts were originally written as private reports to Adare's father, the landowner and archeologist Edwin Wyndham-Quin, third Earl of Dunraven. Dunraven was deeply interested in spiritualist activity and wrote the introduction to this work, which also includes a classification of all spiritualist phenomena.

Magic and Fetishism
  • Alfred C. Haddon
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1910
  • 'A pioneer of modern anthropology', A. C. Haddon (1855–1940) contributed to the fields of embryology and evolutionary science before turning his interests to human civilisation and its history. In this work, first published in 1910, Haddon makes use of his wide-ranging knowledge of folk rituals and religious beliefs to introduce readers to basic principles of sympathetic magic, divination, talismanic powers and fetishism. A strong believer in the importance of preserving local religious practices and beliefs, Haddon uses the work to document customs from Britain to West Africa, America to Australia. Topics include forms of contagious magic, premised on a mutual influence between objects; amulets and talismans; magical names and words; and divination. In the second portion of the book, devoted to fetishism, Haddon offers an authoritative description of the fetish as a 'habitation, temporary or permanent, of a spiritual being', establishing basic definitions for an important field of cultural research.

The Inanity and Mischief of Vulgar Superstitions
  • Four Sermons, Preached at All-Saint's Church, Huntington in the Years 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795
  • Martin Joseph Naylor
  • Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    14 June 2012
    First published in:
    1795
  • 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 1795. Although he called the subject 'antiquated', he hoped his 'feeble effort, levelled against the gloomy gothic mansion of superstition, may not be entirely without a beneficial effect'. This collection of the four sermons was published in 1795, and appended with an account of the original events in Warboys.

A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences
  • Ebenezer Sibly
  • Published online:
    05 March 2013
    Print publication:
    23 February 2012
    First published in:
    1795
  • 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 final section of the work, Sibly touts his remedies, Lunar Tincture and Solar Tincture, developed to act upon female and male ailments, respectively. Composed from the 'pabulum of the universe', these medicines, Sibly claims, cure everything from gunshot wounds to dog bites.

Lives of the Necromancers
  • Or, an Account of the Most Eminent Persons in Successive Ages, Who Have Claimed for Themselves, or to Whom Has Been Imputed by Others, the Exercise of Magical Power
  • William Godwin
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    16 February 2012
    First published in:
    1834
  • The political philosopher and writer William Godwin (1756–1836), who was also the husband of writer Mary Wollstonecraft and father of Mary Shelley, was known for his philosophical works and novels. In this work, originally published in 1834, Godwin turns to the issue of the supernatural, and to some of the famous - and sometimes unexpected - people associated with it. He begins by defining some magic practices, such as divination, astrology, and necromancy, giving examples of the latter from the Bible. The remainder of the work consists of brief sketches of people and places involved in the occult world, beginning in the Ancient Middle East and Greece, surveying the Christian era in Europe, and ending with the New England witch trials. In a remarkable work of synthesis, he discusses apparently supernatural episodes in the lives of many historical figures, from Socrates and Virgil to Joan of Arc and James I.

A Thought-Reader's Thoughts
  • Being the Impressions and Confessions of Stuart Cumberland
  • Stuart C. Cumberland
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    08 March 2012
    First published in:
    1888
  • Although famous throughout Europe for his mind-reading skills, Stuart C. Cumberland (1857–1922) was a staunch critic of the 'rascality' of some spiritualist practices and their practitioners. He claimed that many of the séances and other events which he had experienced were merely fraudulent money-making impostures. He wrote several books on his life as a thought-reader, in which he also revealed the techniques of fake mediums and psychics. (His That Other World, of 1918, is also reissued in this series.) In this 1888 work, Cumberland narrates his own history and career and describes some of his most memorable séances. One of these took place in the House of Commons, where Cumberland subjected none other than the prime minister at the time, W. E. Gladstone, to having his thoughts read. Their encounter made a great impression on the author, who found Gladstone one of his most remarkable subjects.

Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid
  • Charles Piazzi Smyth
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    16 February 2012
    First published in:
    1864
  • Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900) was appointed to the post of Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Regius Professor of Astronomy at Edinburgh University in 1846. He was respected for his practical work, and his Teneriffe, an Astronomer's Experiment (1858) is also reissued in this series. However, this book, first published in 1864, is testimony to the author's interest in 'pyramidology', and although it was so popular in his own lifetime that it was reprinted five times, his eccentric interpretation of the data he had collected by measuring all aspects of the Great Pyramid of Giza damaged his scientific reputation. Smyth was convinced that the British measurement standard of an inch as a basic unit of length was associated with the sacred cubit of the Bible. This measure was supposedly incorporated in the Pyramid, which he claimed was built under divine guidance by the Ancient Israelites, and enshrined scientific information.

Demonology and Devil-Lore
  • Volume 2
  • Moncure Daniel Conway
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    02 February 2012
    First published in:
    1879
  • Moncure Daniel Conway (1832–1907), the son of a Virginian plantation-owner, became a Unitarian minister but his anti-slavery views made him controversial. He later became a freethinker, and following the outbreak of the Civil War, which deeply divided his own family, he left the United States for England in 1863. He gained a reputation for being the 'least orthodox preacher in London', and was acquainted with many figures in the literary and scientific world, including Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin. In this two-volume work, first published in 1879, Conway draws from examples across the world to discuss the origins and decline of beliefs in demons. In Volume 2, he discusses the role that the Devil plays in Christianity (including analysis of the story of the Fall of Man), and that similar figures play in other religions, offering the view that such figures are personifications of certain human attributes.

Essay on Superstition
  • Being an Inquiry into the Effects of Physical Influence on the Mind in the Production of Dreams, Visions, Ghosts, and Other Supernatural Appearances
  • William Newnham
  • Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    16 February 2012
    First published in:
    1830
  • William Newnham (1790–1865) was a general medical practitioner, also qualified as an apothecary, who played a prominent role in his profession and was widely recognised for his skill. His particular medical interest lay within the fields of gynaecology and obstetrics, although he also published several papers on topics including phrenology and human magnetism. This 1830 publication contains a series of essays he had recently written for The Christian Observer. In them, Newnham argues that dreams, visions, apparitions and other apparently spiritual manifestations, whether good or bad, arise from physiological rather than supernatural causes. He provides evidence that the effects on the brain from disease, medications (including nitrous oxide and opium) and trauma, causing 'disturbance of brainular function', can produce such experiences. Anticipating criticism, he insists that the light of science benefits true religion rather than undermining it, contrasting 'real Christianity' with 'superstitious' creeds including Catholicism, Islam and Hinduism.

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