Astrolearn astrology library progress report
– No. 13: 24th October, 2015
This past week, I have dealt, as anticipated in the update two weeks ago, with the enhanced cataloguing of the hundreds of German books bought at auction in the summer of 2014 from the collection of a late esoteric bookseller in Pforzheim, Germany, and lacking proper shelf space so far. At the same time, the three books too large for any shelf (elephant folio-sized) were processed. This was completed only last night. As a result, I have put back the posting of my weekly update until today, Saturday. In fact, I had already been running late with my posts by one day for the past couple of weeks at least, and it seems to me logical to move their official publication day permamently from Thursdays to Saturdays hereafter, hence the nine-day gap between the date of the last and that of the present one.
Received from France earlier in the week, as expected, was a most interesting two-volume set of typescript-form lecture publications by Alexander Ruperti from the 1940s, published “under the auspices of” Dane Rudhyar’s organisation the Foundation for Human Integration.
Both lectures were originally conducted by Ruperti in Lausanne in different parts of 1946, the first during the winter months towards the start of the year, and the second in the late Autumn. He self-published the first on his own during the same year, and I already had a copy of this edition. Then at some stage subsequent to that, he got together with Rudhyar to negotiate the combined publication of both lectures in a new edition in association with Rudhyar’s organisation. Whether this happened at the very end of 1946 or not until 1947 or later is unknown since the publication itself is undated. But what is undeniably historically important is the fact of Ruperti’s organised collaboration with Rudhyar to disseminate his thinking to the European French-speaking world at that stage.
Ruperti, to the best of my knowledge, did not publish any further astrological books after these lectures for over 30 years. His well-loved English-language work “Cycles of Becoming” was published in 1978, with a French edition following in 1981. Then over the course of the rest of his life, several further works appeared in French, works that have never seen the light of day in English.
As mentioned in recent updates, because funds are tight, there are no significant acquisitions underway presently. I continue to devote my full attention to getting the catalogue in better order.
There are a couple of shelves of large-format paperbacks worth processing next, and various other odds and ends to clear up. I’m not entirely decided on the order in which to proceed for the work of the week ahead, but of course will report back at the end of next week on the progress made.
This past week I have also been doing a bit more thinking about how and when to publish the catalogue. One possibility that occurs to me is to divide it into two volumes, one long one dealing just with standalone books and pamphlets first of all, and then at a later stage, a shorter one dealing with the journals and almanacs. The English- and French-language journals and almanacs are already catalogued here on this website, but not the German ones, and it is also the case that this side of the collection is a lot less advanced than it ideally would be before going to print. For that reason, I may delay formal print publication of the journals and almanacs section for years and publish only the books section in the early part of next year, while referring readers to this website for information on the existing stocks of journals and almanacs. I could also upload the existing German journal and almanacs holdings to the bibliography section at this website in due course.
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