Sibly's Illustration of the Occult Sciences, Part IV

Ebenezer Sibly was an English astrologer, physician and Freemason whose large illustrated compendium on astrology, issued in four parts in the 1780s and frequently reprinted, became one of the most widely read occult works in Georgian Britain. The first three parts defend and teach judicial astrology, with the famous horoscope of the United States among its examples. The fourth part, presented online, turns to the world of spirits. Sibly distinguishes astrology, which he presents as a natural and lawful science, from magic, necromancy and witchcraft, which he describes as commerce with spirits and devils. Drawing on Swedenborg, he describes an intermediate world of spirits between heaven and hell and different classes of spirits, then gives accounts of Lucifer's rebellion, of witches, charms, divination and conjuration, with engraved plates of magicians at work, and explains the decline of diabolical activity as an effect of Christianity. The part also includes an alchemical account of reviving the form of a plant from its ashes, after Borelli. Although framed as a warning, the material on conjuration made the book a source for later practitioners, and Sibly was associated with manuscript grimoires; Peterson's 2009 edition of The Clavis or Key to the Magic of Solomon presents a talismanic manuscript linked to Sibly and Frederick Hockley. The work documents the survival of learned occultism in the age of Enlightenment.

What it contains

• Distinction between astrology and diabolical magic
• Swedenborgian world of spirits
• Classes of spirits and the fall of Lucifer
• Witchcraft, charms, divination and necromancy
• Engraved scenes of conjuration
• Palingenesis of plants after Borelli