Some Fruits of Theosophy; The origins & purpose of the so-called Old Catholic Church disclosed by Stanley Morison
London: Harding & More, Ltd., 1919. Octavo (8 1/2 inches tall), original stiff printed wrappers. Mild toning to spine and wrappers, faint foxing to first and last leaves. A near-fine copy. Item #1544
"OCCULTISM, BY ITS VERY NATURE, BREEDS BOTH THE ROGUES AND THE SIMPLETONS. UNFORTUNATELY, BOTH CLASSES OF PEOPLE ARE INCREASING IN NUMBERS"
First edition of Some Fruits of Theosophy—Stanley Morison's first book and a scathing attack on Spiritualism—published shortly after his conversion to Catholicism. An excellent copy of a little-known work scarce in any condition.
Morison was imprisoned during the First World War for being a conscientious objector. Shortly after, as a young employee at Burns & Oates, Morison sought "instruction in the Catholic faith at the Jesuit's Farm Street church" (where the priest "smelled of port"). In a brief introduction ("Advertisement to the Reader"), Morison descries "a new and sinister scheme in which the sacraments, vestments, and devotions of the Catholic Church are being prostituted in the interest of Theosophy." The Theosophical Movement, in need of "revivifying," invaded and conquered the Old Catholic Church, which itself "rests upon a basis of chicanery, misrepresentation, and equivocation." Morison's essay consists of five sections: 1. Short History of the Theosophical Society, 2. The Old Catholic Church of 1870, 3. Bishop Mathews Old Catholic Church, 4. Theosophists, Christianity, and Alcyone, 5. The Old Catholic Church in the service of Alcyone. 6. Conclusion.
It was perhaps at the Farm Street church where Morison made the acquaintance of Father Herbert Thurston, "a peerless debunker of bad history and bogus expressions of religion" (Tom Burns). Warning of "the sinister elements latent in not a few of the religious movements fostered by this age of unrest," Thurston's short Preface conveys his outrage: "it is impossible to contemplate without indignation this masquerading of holy things by charlatans of evil life." The text is footnoted throughout with scornful assessments of Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, A.E. Waite, and Aleister Crowley ("a clever rogue...duping open-mouthed occultists"). With an Appendix: Bishop Mathew's Career, tracing the ecclesiastical wanderings of Bishop Matthew of the Old Catholic Church. Printed for Harding and More and decorated with an engraved colophon, initial letters, and a head-and-tailpiece. Nicolas Barker, in his biography of Morison, claims there is evidence of Morison's hand in the design of this pamphlet and praises the work: "deserves a place among the classics of fraud-exposure." Nicolas Barker. Stanley Morison; Tom Burns. The Use of Memory: Publishing and Further Pursuits.
Price: $150.00