BOND, Frederick Bligh (1864-1945)

[Automatic Writing] [Spiritualism] [First World War] The hill of vision : a forecast of the great war and of social revolution with the coming of the new race / gathered from automatic writings obtained between 1909 and 1912, and also in 1918, through the hand of John Alleyne, under the supervision of the author

Boston: Marshall Jones Company, M D CCC XIX [1919]. First Edition. Hardcover. A superb First Printing of Bligh Bond's prophesies of the Great War, "gathered from automatic writings obtained between 1909 and 1912, and also in 1918, through the hand of John Alleyne." Crown 8vo (195 x 130mm): 134pp. Publisher's grey speckled paper-covered boards elaborately paneled, decorated, and lettered in green repeating design of dust jacket (which is unpriced, with flap corners clipped, as issued). Tightly bound and virtually pristine (likely unread). Somewhat scarce, with Library Hub Discover listing only nine holdings and few copies in commerce. Fine / Fine. Item #BB2538

In addition to his practice as an architect and archaeologist, Bligh Bond was a psychical researcher. He joined the Freemasons in 1889, the Theosophical Society in 1895, the Society for Psychical Research in 1902, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1909, and the Ghost Club in 1925, and from 1921 to 1926 he was editor of Psychic Science (then named Quarterly transactions of the British College of Psychic Science). Late Victorian and Edwardian literati seemed especially prone to belief in the phenomenon of Automatic Writing, the supposed psychic ability that allows a person to produce written words that flow from a subconscious, spiritual, or supernatural source. When Dickens died in 1870 leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished, his spirit supposedly was so enraged that it channeled the novel's conclusion to the itinerant printer T. P. James. And shortly after his marriage in 1917 to Georgie Hyde-Lees, W. B. Yeats was heavily influenced by her "automatic script." Arthur Conan Doyle, in his book The New Revelation (1918), wrote that automatic writing occurs either by the writer's subconscious or by external spirits operating through the writer. Doyle and his wife led an automatic writing séance with Harry Houdini during which Lady Doyle wrote fifteen pages of purported messages from Houdini's mother, which Houdini discounted as bunk. N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).

Price: $349.00