Occult

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1968. First Edition. Near Fine/Very Good. First edition, first printing. Signed by Carlos Castaneda and inscribed to a previous owner, "To Jaqueline, on the day we climbed from the cellar to the attic and back to the cellar again [signed] Carlos Castaneda / Los Angeles, May 25th 1969." Bound in publisher's dark grey cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Near Fine with faint rubbing to cloth at corners, in Very Good dust jacket with price intact, sunning at and near the spine panel, edge wear with a 1.5-inch closed tear at the head of the front spine fold and light chipping. The author's first account of his encounters with Yaqui shaman Don Juan Matus, published while he was still a grad student by an academic press.

Paris: George Steinheil, 1888. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/No Jacket. 4to. 4to. Contemporary half vellum over marbled boards, red morocco labels on spines. Three volumes bound in two. This is a limited edition of 150 copies, this being No. 11. Volume 1: xxvjii, 284 p.p.; Volume 2: 458 p.p., Volume 3: x, 477 p.p. Illustrations throughout text of alchemtical symbols. Light rubbing to spine labels and extremities to boards. Slightly bumped edges. Light foxing throughout. Top edge gilt. A nice set in fine condition. Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907) was a French scientist and professor at College de France in Paris. Berthelot believed that all chemical reactions depend on the physical forces that can be measured. He proved that organic compounds can be formed by ordinary methods of chemical manipulation and obey the same principles as inorganic substances. He was the recipient of the Davey Medal (1883) and the Copley Medal (1900) for his scientific achievements. Berthelot was interested in and… Read more

Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes, 1834. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 8vo, green cloth boards with gilt tiles on spine. Library rebound with name in gilt on front cover. Scarce first edition of this treatise on superstitions, their origins and the customs associated with them. Contents include chapters on Evil Eye, Invocations, and Maledictions; Occult Infection and Cure of Maladies; Miscellaneous Remedies, or Antidotes to Disease; Amulets; Analogies to Propitiatory Sacrifice; Propitiatory Charms; Faculties Ascribed to Sorcerers; Superstitions Relative to Marriage; Doctrine of Sympathy; Ingredients and Instruments Superstition and Sorcery; Mystical Plants; Mystical Animals; Mystical Mankind; Prognostication, Divination; Imaginary Beings; Spectral Illusions; The Tongues; Tests, Trial, Conviction and Punishment of Sorcery. With errata, Addenda and index. A fascinating book. Ex reference library with minimal markings, pictorial bookplate on front pastedown, handwritten library number to reserve of… Read more

Chicago: [The Author], 1935. First edition. First edition. Signed by "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor on the front wrap, inscribed "With the compliments of the author, Griffith P. Taylor." 40 pp. printed on rectos only. Bound in original side stapled wraps. Very Good+ with light shelf wear and rubbing to wraps, small tear to front wrap at top staple. Subjects' names handwritten in ink on pages 6 & 8, presumably by Taylor. Truly scarce: no copies in OCLC and no reference to this text yet found. A self-published treatise on the beguiling and still-controversial phenomenon of synthaesthesia, which is when a perceived sensation typically associated with one pathway such as taste, color, sound is experienced in another, i.e. "hearing colors." The author was "Bill" Griffith P. Taylor, famous for officially inventing the earliest known industrial robot in 1937, a crane-like machine called The Robot Gargantua. The designs were published in Meccano Magazine in March 1938. Given his pioneering work in robotics… Read more

Paris: Librairie de Paulin, 1843. First edition. First edition. Signed by Claude Francois Lallemand on the title page, inscribed with a flourish on his signature that zig-zags across the word "Hachych," which alludes to the closing lines of the novel: "Il n'existe, d'ailleurs, d'autre trace de signature qu'un énorme zigzag allant jusqu'au bas de la page, et annoncant selon toute apparence, un violent désir de s'étendre sur le matelas don't il a été parlé...". 230 pp. Bound in publisher's original yellow wraps. Very Good with light soiling and staining to wraps, a little chipping and curling at extremities, slight roll to spine, contents foxed, half title apparently glued to verso of front wrap, uncut. Rare. A utopian hymn to hashish, first published anonymously in 1843. It purports to be a translation from an Arabic manuscript that the author discovered in his cabin while sailing for Marseille. Lallemand was one of the first people in France to take hashish and submitted his thesis on the… Read more

London: The O.T.O., 1942. First American Edition. Very Good+. First American edition. [x], 137, [1] pp. with rear matter in pouch, errata slip laid in. Bound in publisher's white linen cloth stamped and lettered in gilt. Printed on fine Japanese paper with color reproductions and translations of the obverse and reverse of the "Stele of Revealing." Very Good+ with light toning to spine, soiling to boards and modest wear to extremities. Vintage bookseller's ticket of Samuel Weiser on front pastedown with offsetting to recto. Light toning to contents. Crowley's first attempt to do justice to the Book of the Law. Includes a full-size manuscript of the book, contained in a printed folder housed in a specially designed "wallet" at the rear of the text. Crowley had an unknown, but without doubt tiny, number of sets of unbound sheets of the second UK printing sent to his follower W. T. Smith, head of Agape Lodge of the O.T.O. in California, who had them bound locally, creating the first US edition. This… Read more

St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, [1968] 1973. First Edition. Complete. Very Good+. Minimal rubbing, scuffing and wear to box, minimal creasing to a couple of cards but most of them are pristine. Minimual bleaching on borders of some cards. Original printed outer slipcase with thumb-notches, cardboard inner box with gilt metallic finish covering and thumb notches. The first full-color version of the Thoth tarot deck to be printed in the USA The US printed first edition of Crowley's masterwork of tarot, with color reproductions of the card designs by Frieda Harris, artist and book designer. Crowley's exemplary work on tarot and the study of Kabbalistic magic(k) setting the stage for ritual and divination practice continuing into the esoteric, neopagan witchcraft movements of the 1950-1960s. One of the most important presentations of the reinterpreted Demotic texts of Egyptology and well-known applicable Hermetic ritual texts interloping Ptolemaic period texts and Occult Revival Rosicrucianism with… Read more

Pasadena, CA: Church of Thelema, 1942. First American Edition. Near Fine. First American edition, first printing, prepared from the 1938 British edition. 47, [2] pp. Bound in publisher's stapled dark blue wraps stamped in gilt. Near Fine with light soiling to wraps. Crowley's outline of the principles of Thelema, a spiritual movement surrounding personal freedom and the pursuit of one's true will; uncommon in such excellent condition.

Privately issued by the O.T.O.: London, 1938. First Edition. Near Fine. First published edition. 50, [6; ads]pp. Bound in publisher's buff stapled wraps printed in black. Near Fine with slight rubbing to covers, rusting to staples and light toning to contents. Posthumous bookplate of Edward Noel Fitzgerald (1908-1958) laid in at front. Crowley's outline of the principles of Thelema, a spiritual movement surrounding personal freedom and the pursuit of one's true will. From the collection of Edward Noel Fitzgerald, O.T.O. member and friend of Crowley, this is one of several copies given to Fitzgerald by Crowley, presumably for distribution.

Paris: The Lecram Press, 1930. First Subscriber's Edition. Near Fine/Very Good. Subscriber's edition. The first hardbound edition of Crowley's magnum opus, Magick in Theory and Practice, also known as Book 4. Part III. There were several variant issues, this is the one that has the boards bound in maroon cloth with the top edge stained red. xxxiv, 436 pp with illustrated diagrams. Near Fine with boards slightly splayed, fading to cloth at spine ends. In a Very Good dust jacket with light fading to spine and edges, light edge wear and soiling; numerous tissue repairs made to blindside. Crowley's discourses on theosophy based ceremonial magick, spelled as such to differentiate itself from theatrical stage magic; quite scarce in the dust jacket.

Los Angeles: The Philosophers Press,, 1938. Rare inscribed First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the editor on the front free endpaper, "For Burt, very sincerely, Manly P. Hall". The book reproduces a Latin "instruction book" of Rosicrucianism, dated to the late 1770s, which Hall (1901-1990), an American writer and mystic, bought in London in 1935. His library, "one of the world's leading collections of alchemy, esoterica, and hermetica", was acquired by the Getty in 1995. Folio. With 4 plates, 2 colour and one folding, black and white illustrations in text. Title page printed in orange and black, initial letters in orange, manuscript reproduced in orange alongside English translation in black by Marie Bauer and Martha Schweikert. Original red quarter skiver, spine lettered in gilt, red cloth sides. Spine ends a little worn, contents clean: a very good copy.

Reginald Scot — The Discoverie of Witchcraft (London: William Brome, 1584) FIRST EDITION
SCOT, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft, Wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected…London: Imprinted by William Brome, 1584. First edition. Quarto.
A rare and important Elizabethan first edition of Scot's celebrated sceptical treatise on witchcraft — among the earliest major English works to argue against witch persecution and to expose conjuring, imposture, and superstition. The work is historically foundational in the intellectual history of magic, religion, and early modern rationalism, and is frequently cited in relation to the cultural background of Renaissance theatre (including Shakespeare).
Printing / points of issue


Title-page present (dated 1584).


Final leaf present with "FINIS." and colophon: "Imprinted at London by William Brome."


Decorative printer's device present on final page (as photographed).


Woodcut initials and illustrative matter present.… Read more

TITLE CONTINUED : And also two sermons: One in Proof of the Christian Religion; The other concerning the Good and Evil Angels. By Francis Hutchinson, D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Minister of St. James's Parish in St. Edmund's-Bury. FIRST EDITION 1718. 8vo, approximately 200 x 125 mm, 8 x 5 inches, pages: xv, [5], 1-270, plus 2 pages of adverts, half-title present, full contemporary panelled calf, no title to spine. Spine worn with small repairs to head and tail, small repair to top of lower cover, slight scuffing and scratch marks to covers, hinges rubbed, corners bumped with slight wear, 30 mm (1 inch) crack to head of upper hinge, endpapers age-browned, minor old worming to upper margins of pages 121-153 (with small old worm track to 6 leaves neatly repaired) and page 210 to final page, holes all small (see attached images) none affecting text, small repair to top margins of leaves D2 and D3 and tip of 1 lower corner, nowhere near text, 3 other small minor repairs to margins, some… Read more

London, printed for Joshua Kirton at the Kings Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1652.. FIRST EDITION 1652. First word of title and part of running title in Greek characters. Small 4to, approximately 180 x 125 mm, 7 x 5 inches, pages: [16], 1-240, [24], 241-376, bound in full vellum, gilt lettering and decoration to spine, gilt decoration to edges of covers, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, 3 bookplates: Sir William Grace; Henry Cunliffe Armiger to first pastedown and first free endpaper; Fox Pointe Collection on last pastedown. Vellum slightly dusty and soiled, pale age-browning and staining to title page, title page slighty dusty with small ink letter and small repair on blank side to top margin, trimmed copy affecting the lower margins of pages 369-374, with loss in lower margin of 4 catchwords and 2 signature numbers, 16 ink pointing hands in margins plus a few ink marginalia, small repair to 3 margins, not affecting text, occasional small ink stain or brown spot, otherwise a very good copy. An… Read more

London, printed by J. N. Assignee of Edw. Sayer for D. Brown et al., 1716.. FIFTH EDITION OF PLEAS OF THE CROWN 1716, INCLUDING THE SECOND ISSUE OF THE TRYAL OF WITCHES AT THE ASSIZES HELD AT BURY ST. EDMUNDS 1716. 3 title pages at front and each part has a separate title page; (1) Pleas of the Crown, (2) A Short Treatise touching Sheriffs Accompts, (3) A Tryal of Witches at the Assizes held at Bury St Edmunds for the Country of SUFFOLK, on the Tenth Day of March, 1664, (pages [5], 78-104; (4) A Discourse touching Provision for the Poor, (5) Pleas of the Crown, The Second Part by Giles Jacob. 8vo approximately 190 x 115 mm, 7½ x 4½ inches, pages: [22], 1-272, [8]; [4] 5-143, [1]; [2], 1-121. Bound in full contemporary calf, gilt lettered label to spine. Age-browning to margins of first General title page, heavy age-browning to pastedowns and endpapers, occasional pale age-browning to text, a very good tight copy. "The publication, A Tryal of Witches, related to the 1662 Bury St. Edmunds witch trial,… Read more