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Astrology
The Dawn of Astrology (Volume 1) by Nicholas Campion
£40.00
Second hand / Antiquarian
The Dawn of Astrology – A Cultural History of Western Astrology
Volume 1: The Ancient and Classical Worlds
Published: Continuum Books, London 2008
Condition: Fine, dust jacket in protective cellophane wrapper. Pages clean and unmarked.
"This first volume comprehensively charts Western astrology from 30,000 BCE to the 17th century, with particular focus on its magical, political and apocalyptic movements and use in everyday life throughout history.This is the first in a two-volume history of Western astrology, a survey which stretches from Paleolithic lunar counters 30,000 BCE, to popular astrology in the 21st century. Most general histories of astrology have focused on the period between classical Greece and the seventeenth century, excluding both preceding cultures and modern developments. By contrast this book includes Neolithic culture, Mesopotamian astral divination and Egyptian stellar religion from the early period, and the development of popular astrology and New Age cosmology from the eighteenth century to the present. While there is some reference to astrology's technical history the emphasis is cultural, religious and philosophical.The book's original argument focuses on the interplay of three explanatory models of astrology which originated in Mesopotamia and Greece; the stars are seen either as signs, measures of time, or influences.Other themes include astrology's shift from an elite, authoritarian practice to a popular democratic one as it moved from Mesopotamia to the classical world, and the arguments about the relationship between the spirit and the stars which coloured Gnostic and Christian attitudes to astrology. Astrology is considered in relation to magic, politics and apocalyptic movements and, throughout, the theory of astrology is related to examples of its use at all levels of society.Astrology is the practice of relating events on earth to patterns in the sky. Most histories of the subject follow a conventional scheme in which astrology begins in the 3rd-1st centuries BCE but here this narrow definition is challenged. It concludes that European astrology emerged as a combination of the technical structure developed in Babylon together with Egyptian theories about the relationship between the soul and the stars."
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Procession of the Night Theatre by J.M. Hamade
out of stock - £21.99
By light, unites the Indian nakshatra, the Chinese xiu, the Arabic manzil, and more, in a comprehensive study of the lunar stations through their many significations, magics, and delineations. By darkness, proceeds through dream-logics and poetry familiar to the labyrinths of One Thousand and One Nights. Each night a lunar station…
Procession is about the lunar zodiac in all its grandeur. Unlike the familiar 12 sign zodiac of the Sun, the 27-28 fold circle of the Moon still maintains her starry retinue in full. Though astrological correspondences are given their proper weight, including interpretations for the seven primary planets in each station, this book is at its core an exploration of teeming sidereal imagery.
Accordingly Procession may be read as an ongoing story. All the same, for astrologers, magicians, and luna-philes alike, as the most complete reference on the subject to date.
Mirror of Stones by Camillo Leonardi
£35.99 £39.99
The third book of Speculum Lapidum was first published in Venice in 1502 by the astrologer and doctor Camillo Leonardi, a native of Pesaro with a doctorate from the famous University of Padua. As a courtier of Costanzo Sforza when the city of Pesaro passed to Borgia, Leonardi tried to win their favor by dedicating his work to the Duke of Valentinois, Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI.
In three books, the treatise describes the nature of stones and represents a synthesis of ancient and medieval knowledge on the topic. The first two books examine the origin and classification of stones and gems; in the third book Leonardi examines their magical virtues and powers in detail. These powers are not inherent in stones, but derive directly from the sky, planets, constellations, and fixed stars. Every object, animal, herb, stone resonates with the same energy it receives from stars, and for those who are familiar with the chain of correspondences between macrocosm and microcosm, anything is possible.
The book summarized the most important and well-known medieval lapidaries of its time, and thus it experienced immense good fortune. It was reprinted several times, translated into Italian, and published in 1565 by Lodovico Dolce in 1565), partly in English (in 1750), and French (Claude Lecouteux, 2002). However, the third book, owing likely to its overtly magical nature, has never been translated into English before.
The third book is comprised of 19 chapters. The first chapters (1-7) are dedicated to the discussion of the nature of stones and classification of seals in terms of three aspects: universal (not depending on the material used: the zodiacal seals), particular (depending on stars’ configuration: seals of stars and constellations), and significative (intensifying the inner virtues of stones: non-zodiacal/magical seals). Chapters 8-10 describe the astrological triplicities and their virtues. The remaining chapters collect several medieval lapidaries.
With this translation from Margherita Fiorello, we have the opportunity to keep in our bookshelves a tome that until now was known only to the greatest experts on the history of medieval and renaissance magic, a book originally written for one Cesare Borgia, a man whose name is deeply linked with necromancy and black magic. We don’t know if Leonardi believed in this legend, or if he merely intended to create a talismanic encyclopedia for his patron based on the medieval idea that stones, more than other natural and artificial objects, could best absorb stellar rays.
Nevertheless, this text grants us a fresh chance to explore the ancient magical and astrological lore of the stones and will allow us to put new gas on the fires of the contemporary magical revival.
De Radiis by Al-Kindi
out of stock - £38.99
2nd hardback edition.
Abū Yaʿqūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindī (c.800-870CE) De Radiis (On The Stellar Rays) proposes that all things emit rays that operate on all other things, producing an interplay of causes and effects from the stars down to material objects. The rays pouring down from the celestial harmony of the stars, constellations, and planets, he thought, accounted for the efficacy of astrology. Living beings, likewise, were the source and destination of rays, and humans out of all creatures were a “small world” or microcosm unto themselves, and therefore humans are able to cause things (whether themselves or others) to move and change. Sound “rays”, emitted through speech, song, and music could effect magical change by the same principle.
De Radiis provides a concise, comprehensive physical and magical theory using the philosophy of the Greeks, which Al-Kindi had a hand in translating into Arabic at the start of the Islamic Golden Age. This edition of De Radiis comes from a back translation into Latin from a lost Arabic original. Together with practical manuals of Arab magic, such as Picatrix, the theoretical treatise De Radiis had a profound impact on the Western esoteric tradition during the ensuing thousand years.
This new translation, by Scott Gosnell, translator of The Collected Works of Giordano Bruno and writer on the history and future of science and magic, rendered into clear, fresh language; it is an essential part of any complete esoteric library.
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