The Manual of Occultism by Sepharial (1914): The many facets of the wonderful world of the occult.

by Sepharial

The Occult Sciences
— The Volitional Faculty
— The Will and Imagination
— Adeptship
— Astrology
— Kabalism
— Talismans
— Numerology
— Palmistry
— Hypnotism,
— Etc., Etc.

Genres: Occult

223 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Dr Walter Gorn Old (1864-1929) was an eminent English Theosophist, and a notable 19th century mystic and astrologer, better known as Sepharial. He initially studied medicine and followed this up with studies in psychology, oriental languages, astrology and numeurology. In 1886 he started to write an astrology problem page in the Society Times, where he answered the public's questions, and in 1887 at the age of just 23 was admitted to the "inner sanctum" of the Theosophical Society. He was editor of Old Moore's Almanac, which is still published in the 21st century. He was one of the founder members of the Theosophical movement in England. He became a very influential author in the fields of the occult, astrology and numeurology. He can be credited as the first astrologer to use Earth's "dark moon" Lilith in his calculations. His works include: Degrees of the Zodiac Symbolised (with Charubel aka John Thomas) (1898), New Manual of Astrology (1898), The Book of the Simple Way (1904) and The Kabala of Numbers (1913).

Reviews

[Levanah G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent book with a bunch of information in a few different topics. Easy to read even if you're new to occultism and doesn't feel very dated, even thought it's a bit old.
With that said, it's not at all close to a great book. Although the first two chapters (about astrology and chiromancy) were great and very accurate, the others... not so much.
Sepharial uses a bunch of information without giving a source, and you'll find that a lot of them are just plain made up if you look into them. Not only that, but he misuses Qabbalistic and Alchemical terms a lot, and his ideas of both those subjects are not very educated. You're better off learning about those from different books.
So, decent book if you can take it with a grain of salt, or maybe just skip a few chapters altogether. Good recommendation for a beginner who wants to know about astrology and chiromancy, but I'd avoid recommending it to someone who wants to know more about the Qabbalistic system.

If you want more accurate information on basically the same subjects (except astrology), a much better book for beginners is Techniques of High Magic by Francis King.

2/5, a hit or miss depending on the chapters.