A CATALOGUE RAlSONNfi OF WORKS ON THE OCCULT SCIENCES BY F. LEIGH GARDNER Author of " RosiCRUCiAN Books" VOL. IL HstroloGical ^oq^^ WITH A SKETCH OF THE HISTOR V OF ASTROLOG V BY Dr. WILLIAM WYNN WESTCOTT (Supreme Magus of the Rosicrttcians of England) London PRIVATELY PRINTED I 9 T I 5". Freeman, sculpsit. WILLIAM LILLY, the Astrologer, *iiiii^'^"i/*u\- '-i foru ; PREFACE :o:- IN presenting my second volume of Occult Bibliographies to the public, I have to thank my numerous readers for the kind reception they have accorded my first effort on " Rosicrucian Books " ; the work is now quite out of print, and copies are only obtainable at a premium. I hope that this second volume will prove even more popular than the first one, as I believe it will appeal to a larger circle of readers. I do not pretend that this Catalogue is complete, but it refers to over 1,400 works, and to give some idea of the labour involved, I may say that, with the exception of a very few entries, all of the books herein enumerated have passed through my own hands, so that I can vouch for the accuracy of my description of them it has entailed the labour of many years, but it has been a labour of love, the result of my devotion to Occult Studies, and I do not hope for any profit from its sale. Should my health and means permit, I intend to issue a third volume on " Alchemical Books," and some of my friends are sanguine enough to predict a greater success for this than any of its predecessors have attained j at any rate I have endeavoured in the present volume to render as complete as possible a work intended to embody a catalogue of the literature of the whole world in this enticing branch of occult study, so as to place within reach of the student a volume of reference to a science that has laboured for many years under numerous shortcomings ; not the least of which are the Charlatanry and Quackery indulged in even at the present day by irresponsible quidnuncs who are all willing to supply the gaping crowd with prophecies to suit their taste, and cheap love oracles to all and sundry lads and lasses who are bold enough to seek to know what fate has in store for them. I believe Astrology to be a true science when properly under- stood ; it dates back to a great antiquity ; the Arabians, Chaldaeans, ( V ) vi PREFACE Babylonians, Egyptians, etc., all studied it, and have left their records. Astrology has gradually filtered down through numerous channels, becoming tinged and coloured more or less with the personalities and characteristics of the Translators and Annotators until the finale is reached in the present age. We, in our super- lative arrogance, go one better than the Ancients, and tack on two more planets, viz.^ " Herschel " and " Neptune," ousting "Saturn" and "Jupiter" out of two of their houses to make room for the new-comers, and would it be invidious on my part to say that they would be ousted in their turn should we discover two more planets in the future, as is quite possible, and no one can say where it would all end, once you admit the influence of new-comers into our ken. I am afraid much nonsense has been written about the influence of Herschel and Neptune, and I do not agree with these new ideas, because very few people live long enough for " Herschel " to complete the round, eighty-four years being the time taken to complete his cycle, a calculation published only on 20th March, 1865 (^^^ planet was discovered 13th March, 1781). With Neptune the time is longer still, so that to live through his cycle' is a still more remote possibility for any individual life. It is obvious that neither of these planets were known to the Ancients, for on an old mummy case in Egypt we have the planets arranged in order, and the signs of the Zodiac around them evenly distributed, shewing their Houses of Exaltation and Fall ; and again in the old records, Berosus {vide Cory's Fragments) states that the God Bel created the Stars, Sun, Moon and Five Planets, thus shewing that in the earliest ages there were only seven known planets corresponding to the days of the week, the septenary nature of man, and other similar correspondences. The modern writers have also thought fit to reject signs which have been handed down to us from antiquity, such as the ''Dragoiis Head'' and ''Tail'' and the '' Part of Fortune." If it is good enough for us to take up the Science from our ancestors at all, why reject one portion and accept another ; all the old writers include these three factors in their writings, and they must have had good reasons for doing so, yet our modern descendants, in their superlative wisdom, reject them and introduce two new PREFACE Vll planets as well, and with it all, they are none too correct in their prognostications, for it is one thing to prophecy, and another to prophecy that which becomes realised. In compiling this work, I have arranged the titles on the same plan as in the preceding one, which is also the method employed in the Library of the British Museum — viz.^ under Authors^ and when one or more publications have been issued by any one person, then they are arranged in chronological order, and are followed (with few exceptions) by other editions in various languages by various subsequent writers ; where this arrangement has been deviated from I have placed cross-references. It would be very invidious for me to say which modern hand- book I consider suitable to place in a beginner's hands ; he would do best to select one that adheres most closely to the old writers, and to ignore the fanciful nonsense which is foisted upon the unwary, especially by Charlatans who adopt the pseudonyms of the old writers. I have been obliged to mention their works, otherwise my book would have been incomplete, but beyond the bare mention I have gone no further. Concerning one notorious modern swindler, I have expunged his works completely, as I would not give him a gratuitous advertisement at any price. I consider it a mean and contemptible proceeding to use Occult Arts as a method of making money, and disaster will assuredly overtake anyone who does so. In conclusion, I have to thank my old friend and teacher. Dr. William Wynn Westcott, for his kindness in allowing me to use his "Sketch of the Origin and History of Astrology" as an Introduction to my book ; his prolonged researches and his knowledge of Astrology and of the other Occult Sciences are well known. F. LEIGH GARDNER. 14 Marlborough Road, gunnersbury, London, W. THE HISTORY OF ASTROLOGY T^HE nations of the ancient world were all more or less of opinion that the movements of the heavenly bodies, the occurrence of eclipses, and the appearance of comets exercised an influence over the fate of the human race, and the destinies of men. They feared the extraordinary manifestations of the sky, and saw portents destined for their instruction in the eclipses of the sun and moon, and in notable conjunctions of the planets. Eclipses of the sun especially, which caused a temporary darkness, seemed to them to be warnings of the anger of their gods, and signs of coming punishment. The Greeks and the earlier Romans do not appear, so far as Greeks and Roman literature can show, to have practised, studied, or taught any original system, of which the astronomic observa- tions were used for purposes of astrologic divination; this line of thought seems rather to have had its origin among the Chaldeans of Babylonia, from whom it came to the notice of the more Western nations after the travels and wars of Alexander the Great. The Greek philosophers did not readily adopt astrologic ideals, but professors of the Chaldean magical art of Astrology spread among them, and we find astrological notions become notable in the later years of the Roman Republic, and were well marked in the curious jumble of Eastern and Western science which existed in the third and fourth centuries of our era. The Greeks made a considerable study of Astronomy, and so were in a position to understand the claims made by the Chaldeans for their views of the influence of the stars upon human destinies. Having learned the elements of the strange astrologic doctrines, the later Greeks sought for references to them in their own earlier writers ; and especially in the venerable works of Homer and Hesiod, possibly because they disliked to ( ix ) X HISTORY OF ASTROLOGY acknowledge that any sort of learning was not in the possession of their ancestors. So far as can be judged the deities of the early Greeks were not closely related to the Sun and Planets, although the later Greeks identified their Apollo with Helios the Sun, and Artemis with the Moon. The earlier Greeks looked upon the Sun as driving his chariot through the sky, but the sun was not an Olympian God, and held a minor rank in the earliest Pantheon. Venus, the planet, was called Hesperus, as the evening star, and there was the morning star Eosphorus, but it was not until the time at any rate of Pythagoras, circa 612 B.C., that they were considered to be the same heavenly body. It has been asserted by Miiller, the German savant, in his treatise on Mythology, that the astronomical Greek myths were few, and they were not closely related to their religion.