WITCHCRAFT: CATALOGUE OF THE WITCHCRAFT COLLECTION IN THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. Edited by Martha J. Crowe; Introduction by Rossell Hope Robbins; Index by Janes Marsh Dieckmann.

Published by Kto Press / Kraus-Thomas, Millwood, New York, 1977. First edition.

Hardcovers, red cloth covered boards, gilt spine titles, 9.5x12 inches, xxcviii, 644, [8]. A comprehensive catalogue of the 3,000+ titles in the collection, no illustrations.

GOOD condition: The covers are lightly soiled; internally, "MASTER SET - Do Not Remove From Shelf" is stamped near the top of the front free endpaper, overstamped with "WITHDRAWN", otherwise the pages are tight, bright, clean, clear and unmarked.

An important bibliographical reference for that Witch in your life or soul.

From the Cornell University Library website:

******Part of Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell's Witchcraft Collection contains over 3,000 titles documenting the history of the Inquisition and the persecution of witchcraft, primarily in Europe.

The majority of the Witchcraft Collection was acquired in the 1880s through the collaborative efforts of Andrew Dickson White, Cornell's first President, and his first librarian, George Lincoln Burr. The collection documents the earliest and the latest manifestations of the belief in witchcraft as well as its geographical boundaries, and elaborates this history with works on canon law, the Inquisition, torture, demonology, trial testimony, and narratives. The collection focuses on witchcraft not as folklore or anthropology, but as theology and as religious heresy.

It features many early texts from the period when the theory of the heresy of witchcraft was being formulated, including fourteen Latin editions of the Malleus maleficarum, which codified church dogma on heresy. Four of these Latin editions were printed in the fifteenth-century, most notably the scarce first edition printed before April 14, 1487. The collection also contains other defining texts of the doctrinal discussion of demonology, such as Jean Bodin's De la Demonmanie des sorciers (1580), Nicolas Remi's Daemonlatreiae (1595), Henri Boguet's Discours des sorciers(1602) and Pierre de Lancre's Tableau de I'inconstance des mauvais anges (1612).

Significant in the collection are a small and extremely rare number of works by theologians who opposed the Inquisition, such as those of Cornelius Loos, the first theologian in Germany to write against the witch hunts. The most important materials in the Witchcraft collection, however, are the court records of the trials of witches, including original manuscript depositions taken from the victims. These documents, in both original manuscript and in print, reveal the harsh outcome of the more remote doctrinal disputes. Perhaps the most significant of all manuscripts in the Witchcraft collection is the minutes of the witchcraft trial of Dietrich Flade, a sixteenth century city judge and rector who spoke out against the cruelty and injustice of the persecutions in the 1580s. These and other trial documents are listed in the collection's finding aid.

In the 21st century, curators began building on AD White's witchcraft collection by acquiring modern materials such as posters and publicity for films featuring witches or sorcery, and newsletters on the activities of contemporary Wiccan and Pagan communities.******

TWO SIDES TO A PICTURE - A REVELATION BETWEEN TWO PLANES. By Mrs. C. M. [Celinda Malvina] Broughton [aka BROGHTON - Broughton on the title page, Broghton on the copyright page and spine]. Self published, Denver, 1903. First edition.

The book presents Broghton's spiritualist, psychic, and occult beliefs, in the form of a novel.

From the Dedication page: "This work is dedicated to suffering humanity to relieve its mental depression and physical pain. It is sent out as a messenger between this world and the one that controls the results of its production, while time, the all healing element, will bring together a knowledge that can and will liberate each one from present sorrows."

From the Preface: "Dealing with the circumstances that belong to the continuation of this life, requires a knowledge of the manner in which the experience of this life is linked to the continuation of results on a higher plane and then back to earth, and earth's producing causes.

In this life the external of all things is recognized. Here the body material is formed that identifies the casket through which life and intelligence manifest. Here the germ of all the millions is held and recognized to become the external realization of all the human race.

The higher plane to which this life is connected, is where the people of this life are attracted when they pass out through the change known to us as death. A plane where higher intelligence liberates the people from the contracting influence of past results and present misunderstanding, and opens to them the realms of natural investigation, placing within their reach the knowledge that nature holds. The following pages represent a connection with the highest or the twelfth division of this plane...

Mrs. C. M. Broghton, Boulder, Colo."

Hardcover Book, cloth covered boards, gilt titles and designs to the front cover and spine, 5.5x7.5 inches, 141 pages. ILLUSTRATED with a frontispiece portrait of the author, and 6 illustrated plates.

GOOD condition, there is a bit of wear to the cover's corner tips and spine ends, the front inner hinge is cracked but holding well, there is a small previous owner's label on the front paste down, otherwise tight, bright, clean and unmarked. A solid, presentable copy.

SCARCE. The true first edition of this book is almost impossible to find. Beware the recent print-on-demand copies of this book (e.g. Kessinger Publishing, Forgotten Books, et al) sometimes being mistakenly represented as original editions.

There is not a lot to be found about this interesting Woman Spiritualist, Natural Healer, and Psychic from Boulder, Colorado. She was certainly an interesting turn of the last century Western woman who deserves more research.

About CELINDA M. BROGHTON / CELINDA M. BROUGHTON (excerpts from the Boulder Public Library / Carnegie Library for Local History website):

******BROUGHTON, Celinda M. Almeda Beach, b. 23 Apr 1839, d. 17 Sep 1925, buried in Plot: B19S at Columbia Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado.

The Boulder Public Library holds a copy of Mrs. Broghton's 1903 book, "Two Sides To A Picture: A Revelation Between Two Planes" (143 p.) along with a letter inquiring about this natural healer. The Library also has Broghton's manuscript notes and philosophical writings including, "The Equilibrium Change of Nature's Revealing Power". There is an accompanying write-up by Victoria Woodard which includes the following: "the transcriptions of Mrs. Broughton's prophecies are filled with symbolic discussions of magnets (perhaps signifying balance), life forces, light, and grades of degenerates." The write-up also addresses general proceedings at Mrs. Broughton's séances.

[The Library also holds] Five issues of "The Advent of Philosophy", a 1902 publication which delves into the teachings of Celinda Broughton, a philosopher and psychic.******

ST. JOHN'S BREAD WEDNESDAY MESSENGER: Volume I, Number I. November 19, 1969. &

ST. JOHN'S BREAD WEDNESDAY MESSENGER AND PARANOID FLASH ILLUMINATOR Quarterly Journal: X-tree serious No. FOR [ca. 1970].

TWO ISSUES, published by St. John's Bread Church, Topanga / Venice, California, 1969, [1970], first and only printings. Edited by Paul Encimer. Zine, mimeograph, various paper colors, side staple bound, 8.5" x 11", 22 and 38 un-numbered pages. VERY GOOD CONDITION: with a fitting association to City Lights - both issues were originally mailed to City Lights bookstore in San Francisco with stamps, postmarks, address and penned printed matter on the rear covers, otherwise just some light edgewear, age toning, and the rear cover of one is pulling from the staples, overall tight, bright, clean and unmarked. Scarce.

This zine was without a doubt the most out there and influential counterculture voice of the late 1960s. A scarce primary source illuminating Discordia's hippie origins. An exploration of real and imagined spirituality, cabals, psychedelic drug fueled enlightenment, surrealistic esoteric confusion, poetry, fiction, comic paradoxical conspiracies, revealing secret knowledge of Discordianism for your perverse entertainment. Issued on multi hued paper printed on mimeograph machines, its ethos inspired the dawning of the zine age and spawned the Church of the SubGenius and the New Religious Movement.

St. John's Bread publisher Paul Encimer (1938-2021) Discordian name, Dr. Confusion was an early ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. His friend and contributor Kerry Wendell Thornley, Discordian name, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst was the co-founder of Discordianism and author of Principia Discordia. The first 10 pages of Thornley's poem Illuminati Lady, which Robert Anton Wilson described in Illuminatus! as "an endless epic poem which you really ought to read," is printed herein.

HAIL ERIS! ALL HAIL DISCORDIA!

Handwritten Index for Basilius Valentinus' "Triumphal Chariot of Antimony". The index was created at the Paracelsus Research Society. The Index is written in two 8x10 inch spiral notebooks filled with lined paper. The pages are written on one side only. The Index has a total of approximately 100 written pages. Laid into the first notebook is a sheet that briefly describes the Index and it's significance, and commends the student from Christchurch, New Zealand, who compiled the Index for the Society. The Index is undated and place unstated, but likely Australia circa 1980 (the "Collins Spirax" notebooks were made in Australia, .

GOOD condition, clean, with writing that is clear and legible.

A unique index to one Basilius Vaentinus's important work on alchemy.

About BASILIUS VALENTINUS (from Wikipedia):

******Basilius Valentinus (English: Basil Valentine), ostensibly a 15th century alchemist, possibly Canon of the Benedictine Priory of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany but more likely a pseudonym used by one or several 16th century German authors. Modern scholarship suggests that one author was Thölde, but that others were involved. Thölde published the first five books under Valentinus's name.

Whoever he was, Basilius Valentinus had considerable knowledge of alchemy. The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine is a widely reproduced alchemical book attributed to Valentine, first published in 1599 by Johann Thölde. It contains two parts, the second of which houses the twelve keys. These were accompanied by woodcut engravings from later publications in the early seventeenth century.

The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony was first published in Germany in 1604 under the title Triumph Wagen Antimonii,******

NACHRICHT von dem VORKOMMEN des BESESSENSEYNS : EINES DÄMONISCH-MAGNETISCHEN...

Full title: Nachricht Von Dem Vorkommen Des Besessenseyns Eines Damonisch-Magnetischen Leidens und seiner schon im Alterthum bekannten Heilung durch magisch-magnetisches Einwirken, in einem Sendschreiben an den Herrn Obermedicinalrath Dr. Schelling. Von Dr. Justinus Kerner.

(NEWS of the OCCURRENCE of POSSESSION, a DEMONIC-MAGNETIC SUFFERING, and ITS HEALING through MAGICAL-MAGNETIC INFLUENCE, which was already known in antiquity, in a letter to the Chief Medical Councilor Dr. Schelling. By Dr. Justinus Kerner.)

STUTTGART und AUGSBURG: Verlag von J. G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, 1836. First edition. TEXT in GERMAN.

Marbled paper covered card covers, black cloth covered spine, handwritten paper title label on front cover, small thin book, 4.5x7 inches, [2], 70 pages.

GOOD condition, mildly ex-lib with a shelving number label on the cover and a "Bible Society / Psychology" ink stamp at the bottom of the title-page, the covers have some scrapes, the rear cover fold is substantially splitting but the cover is still holding on, there is a thin tape ghost stain along the gutter edge of two pages, offsetting to the first and last page, and a previous owner's name and brief inscription in German dated 1889 at the top of the title page, overall a tight copy with pages that are tight, bright, and clear.

An original 1836 demonic copy of which you can take possession.

Agonía del tránsito de la muerte con los avisos y consuelos que cerca de ella son provechosos, Maestro Alejo Venegas de Busto.

(Agony of the Transition to Death with Helpful Warnings and Consolations when Approaching Death, with Brief Descriptions of Obscure Sentences and Words, by Maestro Alejo Venegas de Busto.)

ALCALA DE HENARES [Spain], Andrés de Angulo, Diego de Sancta Cruz, M.D.LX.V (1565). Sixth edition.

Hardcovers (19th century Spanish binding), 3/4 red leather (spine and corners) and red textured cloth covered boards, 5 raised spine bands, gilt titling and gilt designs to the spine, marbled endpapers, small 4o, 6x8 inches (14.5x20 cm). Pagination: ff. [8] CCXVI (i.e. [8], 216 leaves numbered in Roman numerals). Illustrated with intricate woodcut crests on titles.

GOOD Condition: Covers are rubbed and have some scrapes, most noticeably on the leather corners, still the covers are solid, doing their job well, and quite attractive. Internally, the title page and the subsequent couple of leaves have a little professional conservation at top margin that affects a bit of the title page image and a couple words at the top of the following two leaves; there is the ghost of the removal of a bookplate on the front free-endpaper, the title page has some early marginalia that has been lined out and there is some relevant scholarly ink marginalia on the latter pages related to the description of obscure words in that part of the text; overall solid, tight, bright, clean and clear. A nice copy.

COLLATED page by page with a 1565 copy in the Austrian National Library (the pages of THIS copy are much whiter and brighter).

About MAESTRO ALEJO VENEGAS DE BUSTO (from Wikipedia and elsewhere on the Internet):

******Alejo Venegas de Busto, b.Toledo 1497 or 1498, d.Toledo, 1562, was a Spanish Renaissance writer, humanist, lexicographer, and considered a Spanish mystic.

His best known work is the AGONY OF THE TRANSITION TO DEATH... (Toledo, 1537), an ascetic, mystic work that he dedicated to Doña Ana de la Cerda, Countess of Melito, on the occasion of the death of the writer's great protector, her husband Count Diego de Mendoza. This work derives specifically from the Praeparatio ad Mortem (1534) by Erasmus. The second edition appears in Toledo in 1540, the third in Toledo, 1543, the fourth in Zaragoza, 1544, the fifth in Toledo, 1547, the sixth in Toledo, 1553 and the seventh in Alcalá, 1565. Beginning in the third edition Venegas added his Brief Declaration of the Sentences and Obscure Words. The book has continued to be reprinted and was edited in the 19th century by Eugenio de Ochoa (Paris, Beaudry, 1847) and in 2001 by Marc Zuili (Paris, L'Harmattan, 2001). Various parts of this work have appeared in numerous other publications, including works on Spanish and Christian Mysticism.******

CAGLIOSTRO (Joseph BALSAMO) : La Franc-Maçonnerie et l'Occultisme au XVIIIe siècle (Freemasonry and Occultism of the 18th century). D'Apres des Documents Inedits (From Unpublished Documents). By Henri d'ALMERAS.

PARIS : Société Française d'Imprimerie et de Librairie, 1904. First Edition. TEXT IN FRENCH.

Hardcovers (front cover disbound but present),

leather covered spine and paper covered boards, top page edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Pagination: [2] blank prelim leaf, [1] first title page with small engraving of Cagliostro, [1] blank verso, [1] half title page, [1] Du Meme Auteur / List of Author's Previous Works, [1] Frontispiece leaf with tissue guard, [1] title page, [1] blank verso, 386 pages.

Condition: The front cover is disbound but present, the rear cover's spine fold is worn and tender but holding, the spine covering is chipped and peeling, the boards are worn at their edges and have some scratches and rubs. Internally, the pages are toned along their edges, there is a previous owner's signature on the first blank page, otherwise the pages are tight, bright, clean and unmarked.

A complete copy of this SCARCE 1904 work on the Freemason and Occultist, Cagliostro, by the noted historian Henri d'Almeras.

About CAGLIOSTRO (from Wikipedia):

******Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, b.1743 d.1795, was the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo (Joseph Balsamo).

Cagliostro was an Italian adventurer and self-styled magician. He became a glamorous figure associated with the royal courts of Europe where he pursued various occult arts, including psychic healing, alchemy and scrying. His reputation lingered for many decades after his death, but continued to deteriorate, as he came to be regarded as a charlatan and impostor, this view fortified by the savage attack of Thomas Carlyle in 1833, who pronounced him the Quack of Quacks. W.R.H. Trowbridge in his Cagliostro: the Splendour and Misery of a Master of Magic (1910), attempted a rehabilitation.

Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco credits to Balsamo the creation of the Egyptian Rite of the Freemasons and intensive work in the diffusion of Freemasonry, by opening lodges all over Europe and by introducing the acceptance of women into the community. Occult historian Lewis Spence comments in his entry on Cagliostro that the swindler put his finagled wealth to good use by starting and funding a chain of maternity hospitals and orphanages around the continent. Occultist Aleister Crowley believed Cagliostro was one of his previous incarnations.******