Podcasts religion Mary Ann Atwood - A Suggestive Inquiry Into the Hermetic Mystery

Mary Ann Atwood - A Suggestive Inquiry Into the Hermetic Mystery

Published: Nov. 26, 2021, 4:24 p.m.

Landmarks of Esoteric Literature - Mary Ann Atwood - A Suggestive Inquiry Into the Hermetic Mystery. An most amazing story. A Manly P Hall lecture.

Mary Anne wrote A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery (1850)[3] at her father's request, and in parallel with his own composition of a lengthy poem on the same subject. Thomas South paid for the book to be published anonymously in 1850, but without having read it, trusting his daughter's judgement. Reading it after publication, he believed Mary Anne had revealed many hermetic secrets that were better left unpublished, and therefore bought up the remaining stock and, with his daughter, burnt them, along with the unfinished manuscript of his poem. Only a few copies of the book survived.

Ms. Atwood published nothing after A Suggestive Inquiry. Walter Leslie Wilmshurst, in his 1918 introduction to the reissue, laments that the thoughts of her later years did not find fruition in another work. He claims, however, that there is much to be found in her papers, of which he was then in possession. These have not yet been published. The special collections archive of the Brown University library currently holds around 700 of Ms. Atwood's letters.

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