SCIENTIFIC & METAPSYCHICAL OCCULTISM — SPANISH OCCULT TREATISE, 1924

PRÁCTICAS CIENTÍFICAS DE OCULTISMO
or
Las Ciencias ocultas reveladas por la Metapsíquica
José Poch Noguer – Madrid, 1924

Published in Madrid in 1924, Prácticas Científicas de Ocultismo belongs to that generation of singular works situated at the shifting boundary between experimental science, spiritism, and operative esotericism. Far from being a merely speculative treatise, the book presents itself as a methodical attempt to unveil the invisible forces acting behind matter, expressed in a language combining demonstrative rigour with a fascination for the unexplained.

Its author, José Poch Noguer, places his work within the European metapsychic current — a discipline now extinct which claimed to study scientifically the manifestations of the invisible: mediumship, materialisations, apport phenomena, levitations, mental transmissions, automatic writings, or states of deep trance. Yet behind its rational appearance, the work fully immerses itself in the realm of the occult sciences, seeking less to demystify them than to reveal them as a field of real but still misunderstood forces.

The book develops the idea of an intermediate world, invisible yet active, accessible to certain individuals endowed with latent faculties. Mediums appear as instruments of passage, capable of producing physical manifestations, object displacements, ectoplasmic formations, or partial materialisations. Occultism is not treated as a folkloric belief, but as a psychic technology grounded in laws still unknown yet presumed to be operative.

The iconography powerfully reinforces this dimension. The engravings depict spiritist séances, experimental devices, apparition figures, scenes of levitation, or luminous manifestations. Their aesthetic oscillates between scientific diagram and mediumistic vision, creating a disturbing atmosphere in which laboratory and occult cabinet seem to merge. This imagery, highly characteristic of the occult revival of the early twentieth century, constitutes today one of the most sought-after aspects of the volume.

This type of work testifies to a moment when the learned West attempted to explore esotericism rationally, without breaking with its spiritist and hermetic roots. It belongs to the same intellectual climate as the societies for psychical research, the European spiritist circles, and the first attempts at a scientific classification of the paranormal.

The present copy preserves its full material presence. The publisher’s original gilt-stamped cloth binding shows an even aged patina with signs of use. The paper is uniformly toned, with foxing consistent with its age. The iconography is complete. The cover is very slightly detached from the text block — a minor and common flaw — without any major structural weakness; the volume remains sound and fully usable.

Numerous illustrations in the text. 504 pages. Original Madrid edition, Casa Editorial Orrier, 1924.

Format : octavo
Dimensions : approx. 20 × 13 cm
Size : approx. 7.9" × 5.1"
Language : Spanish
Date : 1924
Binding : original publisher’s printed cloth binding