SIBLY, Ebenezer (1751-1800) [Editor] / Culpeper, Nicholas (1616-1654): A Key To Physic, And The Occult Sciences: Opening to mental view, the system and order of the interior and exterior heavens; the analogy betwixt angels, and spirits of men...[ plus; 'Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal'] . , London : Printed for the author, and sold by Champante and Whitrow, Jewry-Street, Aldgate; and at the British Directory-Office, Ave-Maria Lane, [1795?] .

First edition. "A Key To Physic, And The Occult Sciences..." bound with; "Appendix To Culpeper's British Herbal." A very good full leather binding. 4to. 10.75" x 8.5" x 1.75". [4pp.]/pp.395/pp.76 , well-illustrated with 27 full-page engraved plates. 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 frontis by Dodd delin., Prattent sculp. Printed title (undated) followed by dedication. Clear English text throughout (some leaves are light blue in colour), with just the odd brown spot or blemish. A Key To Physic, And The Occult Sciences ends with an index and includes: 'Directions for placing the cuts.' However all of the engravings are bound at the end of the book (after the Apendix...). The engravings for; "Appendix To Culpeper's British Herbal." are placed within the text. The engravings either by "Dodd Delin., Prattent Sculp ", or "Dodd del., Pass sculp. (some of which are dated 1794). Again the text is clean, however, there is some browning (mostly to the rear of the plates) to the engravings. There is one plate absent from the list for 'A Key To Physic, And The Occult Sciences...', and possibly 4 plates absent from 'Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal.' Still a very good copy of this scarce book ** 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: A key to physic, and the occult sciences : Opening to mental view, the system and order of the interior and exterior heavens; the analogy betwixt angels, and spirits of men; and the sympathy between celestial and terrestrial bodies. From whence is deduced, an obvious discrimination of future events, in the motions and positions of the luminaries, planets, and stars; the universal spirit and economy of nature, in the production of all things; the principles of etherial, and atmospherical influx, in constituting the proper recipient of life; the active and passive tinctures requisite in the generation of men and brutes; and the foundation and necessity of that invisible agitation of matter, which stimulates and impels every living creature to the act of begetting its like; the properties of vegetable, mineral, and animal magnetism: the fundamental causes and qualities, visible or occult, of all diseases, both of mind and body, and the simple modes prescribed by nature for their prevention and cure. To which are added, lunar tables, calculated from sidereal motion; exhibiting upon the most simple, yet unerring construction, the actual moment of the crisis of every disease, and the consequent termination thereof, whether for life or death. The whole forming an interesting supplement to culpeper's family physician, and display of the occult sciences; published for the good of all who search after truth and wisdom; to preserve to all the blessings of health and life; and to give to all the knowledge of primitive physic, and the art of healing. By E. Sibly, M.D. F.R.H.S. Illustrated with elegant copper plates. (Book ref. 38451)  £500.00

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