HERMETISM and miscellaneous. - Set of some twenty bound and - Lot 75

HERMETISM and miscellaneous. - Set of some twenty bound and stapled volumes. CATTIAUX (Louis). Le Message retrouvé. Paris, chez l'auteur, 1946. In-4, paperback. First edition, one of 200 numbered copies on vélin pur fil du Marais. Preface by Giovanni Lanza di Trabia-Branciforte, known as Lanza del Vasto. Autograph signed letter from Louis Cattiaux: "To René Alleaux, this message as a token of fraternity in our Lord Herms Trismegistus, the well-named... 1953" - CORPUS HERMETICUM. Paris, "Les Belles Lettres", 1945-1972. 4 volumes small in-8, brown half-chagrin. Composite copy of the 2 first editions. Greek text by Arthur Darby Nock, and French translation by André-Jean Festugière. - DIBDIN (Thomas Frognall). Voyage bibliographique, archéologique et pittoresque en France. À Caen, chez Mancel, 1825. 4 volumes in-8, ornate blond half-calf (period binding). Published the same year as the original. Wood-engraved illustration in the text, and copperplate illustration outside the text. - KERDELAND (Jean de). From Nostradamus to Cagliostro. Paris, Éditions Self, 1945. In-16, black half-chagrin. First edition. - LANTOINE (Albert). Finis Latomorum ? La Fin des Francs-Maçons? Paris, éditions de L'Ermite, 1950. In-16, paperback. First edition. Frontispiece portrait. - SIMON DE PHARES. Recueil des plus célèbres astrologues et quelques hommes doctes. Paris, Honoré Champion, 1929. Large in-8, grey cloth bradel. First edition edited by Ernest Wickersheimer. Autograph signed letter from Ernest Wickersheimer to Édouard Herriot. - TOURREIL (Louis-Jean-Baptiste). Religion fusionienne. Tours, Juliot, 1879. Large in-8, ornate black half-basane, a little rubbed. Some wood-engraved compositions out of and in the text. - Etc. PROVENANCE: THE ALCHIMIST AND APOLOGIST OF TRADITIONAL SCIENCES RENE ALLEAU (bookplate and notes in several works). Trained as an engineer, René Alleau (1917-2013) turned to esotericism and wrote his thesis on 17th-century alchemy under the supervision of Gaston Bachelard. At the same time, he became a disciple and friend of alchemist Eugène Canseliet. From October 1952 to June 1953, he gave a series of twenty-five lectures on Hermeticism, which proved a great success and led to a close relationship with André Breton, a regular listener. He went on to direct several publishing collections, including Denoël's vast Bibliotheca hermetica (1970-1976), contributed to Encyclopedia universalis and, in 1973, co-directed the international Cerisy symposium on René Guéon and the current state of traditional thought. He published a large number of books and personal articles on esotericism (particularly alchemy), in which he was keen to follow a middle path away from the excesses of both scientism and occultism.