SIBLY, Ebenezer (1751-1800) [Editor] / Culpeper, Nicholas (1616-1654): Culpeper's English Physician and Complete Herbal : To which are now first added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult properties, physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind. , London : Printed for the Proprietor, by Lewis & Roden, Paternoster-Row; And sold at the British Directory Office, Ave-Maria-Lane; And by Champante & Whitrow, Jewry-Street, Aldgate, [no date - c. 1794 (date of dedication)] .

Second edition. 2 volumes bound as one. A very good full leather binding. 4to. 10.75" x 8.5" x 2". pp.16/pp.398/[2pp.]/pp.256 , well-illustrated with all 43 full-page engraved plates (some hand coloured), as called for. Original boards, dark brown full calf, professionally rebacked, the spine with 5 raised bands and recent brown leather title label. Recent plain endpapers (handmade paper). Engraved portrait frontis of 'Mr. Nicholas Culpeper, J. Pass sculp'. Outer edge carefully strengthened. Printed title (undated) followed by dedication to Thomas Dunckerly Esq. Provincial Grand Master and dated 'In the Year of Masonry 5798 (actually 1794). Clear English text throughout, with just the odd brown spot, well-illustrated with 29 (numbered) full-page plates of plants, neatly hand coloured. Followed by the second volume, with a red-tinted engraved frontis (of a naked male surrounded by signs of the zodiac - there is also a similar image of a naked female after p.11). The printed title page states the printers as: "London: Printed by George Sidney, Green Arbour Court, for the Author, and sold at the British Directory-Office, Ave-Maria-Lane; and by Champante and Whitrow, Jewry-street, Aldgate." The engravings of the male and female are by "Dodd Delin. Prattent Sculp ". Again the text is clean (except for some toning to the index) and there are a further 11 full page red-tinted engravings (numbered 30 - 40) of human physiology. Ebenezer Sibly (1751-1800) was an English physician, astrologer and writer on the occult. Sibly is celebrated for the natal horoscope he cast of the United States of America, published in 1787 and still cited. As a student of medicine, he became interested in the theories on animal magnetism of Anton Mesmer, joining Mesmer's Harmonic Philosophical School. Sibley also taught himself the basics of occultism. In 1784 he joined the Freemasons, and the dedication to the 1790 edition of A new and complete illustration of the occult sciences was to "the Ancient and Honourable fraternity of "Free and Accepted Masons". Four years later, he dated the dedication of his new edition of Culpeper's English Physician And Complete Herbal "To Thomas Dunckerly, Provincial Grand Master... in the year of Masonry 5798". He published the New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences in four volumes, 1784. In the same year Sibley also completed A Key to the Physic and the Occult Sciences, a systematic statement of his occult philosophy. Like Mesmer, he suggested that the world was animated by a universal spirit, the operative agent in both astrology and healing work. This spirit works on matter and can be used by the magician for his purposes. This understanding would become standard for magical thought through the century and anticipates the more heralded work of Éliphas Lévi. Also included in the Key, published a supplement to the famous work on herbal medicine by Nicolas Culpepper. As an astrologer he is said to have used the Placidian system. As a student of alchemy, he translated Bernard of Treviso (the fountain allegory). Sibly wrote a book called Universal System of Natural History in 1794 in the book he claimed that the White Race was the first on earth he said: “We must consider white as the stock whence all others have sprung, Adam and Eve and all their posterity, till the time of the deluge were white; in the first age of the world no black nation was to be found on the face of the earth.” Sibly believed that no humans had reached Africa until after the dispersal from Babel, that the continents first inhabitants had been white and that Africans had become dark only as a result of the actions of the climate there over successive generations." - See Wikipedia / Gale Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology / Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, 24 (l911), 81-106. **** "...It is interesting to note that, once again, the ubiquitous Thomas Dunkerly, so important in the fortunes of many degrees in Freemasonry was also describing himself in 1793 as Grand Commander of the Society of Ancient Masons of the Diluvian Order of Royal Ark Mariners. It was Dunkerly who appointed one Brother Ebenezer Sibley, another man of considerable ability in several fields, as his Deputy. Shortly before Dunkerley's death it was Sibley who welcomed Lord Rancliffe as the next Grand Commander..." - Northants&HuntsMark - Royal Ark Mariners Degree **** Full title reads: Culpeper's English physician and compelete herbal : To which are now first added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult properties, physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind. To which are annexed, rules for compounding medicine according to the true system of nature ; forming a complete family dispensatory, and natural system of physic / Beautified and enriched with engravings of upwards of four hundred and fifty different plants, and a set of anatomical figures. Illustrated with notes and observations, critical and explanatory. By E. Sibly. (Book ref. 38445)  £600.00

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