Papus

1930 · Best.-Nr. papus-la-magia-e-l-ipnosi — Napoli: Casa Editrice Partenopea 1930. softcover. Very Good. 1930. In 8vo. Pp. 187 5. Napoli. Casa Editrice Partenopea. Original printed wrappers with the spine recently reinforced with Japanese paper. Wrappers chipped with small losses along the edges; binding somewhat weak. Fading to the front wrapper from sun exposure. Light toning throughout consistent with the paper quality. Uncut. Good. An uncommon Neapolitan edition of Papus's wide-ranging survey of hypnosis suggestion and occult phenomena first published in Paris in 1897 as La Magie et l'Hypnose. Published by the Casa Editrice Partenopea this Italian printing served a popular Naples-based occultist readership that its own advertisements at the back of the book vividly reveal: Éliphas Lévi appears alongside Dale Carnegie's guide to making millions magic and self-improvement sharing the same bookseller's list. This book moves in short chapters from the constitution of the astral body through hypnosis and the mechanics of suggestion into the darker reaches of occult phenomena before closing with practical ceremonial magic. Ref. BnF FRBNF30400008 original French ed.; OPAC SBN 0253689 ed. 1951. The opening chapter L'uomo astrale The Astral Man sets out the tripartite occultist anthropology underlying the work: the physical body a mediating corpo astrale astral body that animates the body's cells and an immortal spirit manifested through intelligence and will. Later chapters move through hypnosis suggestion the exteriorization of sensitivity stigmata malefizio malefic magic and the relationship between physical and astral forces. Albert de Rochas's experiments receive particular attention including attempts to photograph the exteriorized astral body and an experiment in which a cross-shaped mark scratched onto a sensitized plate was said to produce corresponding stigmata on the hypnotized subject's hand. The discussion expands into an elaborate correspondence between astral and physical light drawing upon Barlet's Chimica sintetica Synthetic Chemistry and August Strindberg's Sylva Sylvarum. A correspondence table brings together the Sole nero Black Sun and Sole bianco White Sun electricity and vitality Reichenbach's Od X-rays cathode rays black light and heat before the text turns to a kabbalistic reading of the Sepher Bereschit through the terms AOUR and AOR. The chapter Del Vampirismo On Vampirism has a particularly unusual genealogy. Papus explicitly introduces it as a translation made at his request by Sédir from Eulis 1874 by the American Rosicrucian Paschal Beverly Randolph. Randolph distinguishes three meanings of the vampire: a monstrous tropical leech that drains its prey of blood; an enormous bat whose whistle induces so deep a coma in its sleeping victim that its bite passes unfelt; and the legendary half-human half-demonic being that rises at night to violate freshly sealed graves and devour the dead. Randolph then turns the supernatural image inward describing living human beings incapable of love who fascinate and progressively exhaust those to whom they attach themselves prescribing indifference as the only defense. The following chapter La stregoneria - La licantropia Witchcraft - Lycanthropy returns to Papus's occult framework interpreting witchcraft phenomena through astral projection and drawing upon Éliphas Lévi Stanislas de Guaita and Albert de Rochas. Two pages at the end of the text and the rear wrapper are given over to the Libreria G. Rocco's advertisements and price list. The present title is itself offered for 600 lire surrounded by a revealing mixture of occultism and popular self-improvement. Nowadays we all know what an "energy vampire" is. Papus was talking about it a century ago. To be fair he was also talking about the vampire as leech as bat as corpse-devouring demon and finally as the person who fascinates and slowly exhausts everyone around them without ever drawing blood. Elsewhere hypnotized subjects sprout stigmata astral bodies are photographed curses rebound upon their makers and witchcraft becomes astral projection. We wouldn't quote Papus as our best scientific source but we are fascinated by experimental occultism and we don't challenge what we don't know! Casa Editrice Partenopea paperback