The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation.
New York: J.W. Bouton, 1891. Fourth edition. 24x16cm, 258pp. 85 plate and in text illustrations by A. L. Rawson. From the library of Pierre Bernard and Blanche DeVries with Bernard's Tantrik Order in America embossed stamp to title and dedication pages, several marginal markings in pencil throughout. Modern Indian binding of gilt tooled soft red leather with gray spine label and bands, gilt lettering, black silk endpapers. Title page sprung, pages toned and with some marginal smudging. Boards in nice shape, and housed in a red slipcase. Very good.
Important and lavishly illustrated edition of this Neoplatonist text by Thomas Taylor, who was the first to translate the complete works of Aristotle and Plato into English. This fourth edition is edited and with an introduction, notes, emendations, and glossary by prominent American Theosophist and Neoplatonist, Alexander Wilder.
Pierre Bernard founded his Tantrik Order of America in 1905 or 6, and published a single journal issue, Vol V No. 1, shortly thereafter. The Order was a secret society with lodges at least in San Francisco and Seattle, and later New York, the activities of which were sensationalized by press partly due to a sexual scandal involving a female student in 1910. The Order taught yoga and Hindu philosophy as a blueprint for living, but Bernard is credited with the exaggerated association of tantra with mystical sex in American opinion because of his lodge rituals, sensationalized and not, involving sex initiation, opium, occult practices, blood oaths, and other "iniquities."
This text by Taylor and Wilder seems to have been thoroughly studied by Bernard as he marks several key passages in the book. He lifts several Rawson illustrations for inclusion and quotes Wilder numerous times in the Tantrik Order journal and other promotional publications. A very interesting association copy with tangible ties to American esoteric movements. Item #7963
Price: $750.00