The Hill of Vision. A Forecast of the Great War and of Social Revolution with the Coming of the New Race. Gathered from Automatic Writings Obtained between 1909 and 1912, and also, in 1918, through the hand of John Alleyne, under the supervision of the author. Script by John Alleyne.

BOND, Frederick Bligh.

Published by Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1919

About this Item

First edition, first printing, an exceptionally fine copy in the jacket, of this collection of psychically produced pieces prophesying from as early as 1909 World War I. They were obtained by the English architect, illustrator, archaeologist and "psychical researcher" Frederick Bligh Bond (1864-1945). Bond was a member of the Freemasons from 1889, the Theosophical Society from 1895, the Society for Psychical Research from 1902, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia from 1909, and the Ghost Club from 1925. He is perhaps most famous for conducting the first ever dig in the discipline of what might be termed psychic archaeology, at Glastonbury Abbey. Convinced that the dimensions of the ruined buildings at Glastonbury were based on gematria (Cabalistic occult geometry), Bond in 1908 obtained directorship of excavations there. Using retired navy Captain John Allan Bartlett (the "John Alleyene" of this work) as his medium, Bond claimed to have contacted through automatic writing dead monks and the builder of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury, who advised him where to excavate. The excavations did rediscover the nature and dimensions of a number of buildings on the site, but when in 1919 he published The Gates of Remembrance, which revealed that he had employed psychial methods in his excavation, relations quickly deteriorated with his episcopal employers (who strongly disapproved of spiritualism), and he was eventually relieved of his directorship in 1921. The "ancestral voices, prophesying war" (to co-opt Kubla Khan) revealed in The Hill of Vision were obtained during the period of Bond and Captain Bartlett's Glastonbury excavations. Octavo. Original grey boards, titles and decoration in green. With dust jacket. A fine copy in fine jacket.

Seller Inventory # 143850

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Hill of Vision. A Forecast of the Great War and of Social Revolution with the Coming of the New Race. Gathered from Automatic Writings Obtained between 1909 and 1912, and also, in 1918, through the hand of John Alleyne, under the supervision of the author. Script by John Alleyne.
• Publisher: Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1919
• Edition: 1st Edition