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175, [1] pp. Double-page frontispiece containing two images; folding cosmic diagram; and two plates, all hand-colored copperplate engravings; the diagram and plates tipped onto the fore-edges of text leaves. Title-page printed in red & black. (8vo) early paste-paper boards, remnants of paper spine label. Custom folding case. Second Edition. 

Second Edition; the work was evidently compiled in 1696 and first published in Leiden in 1723. Later editions were issued in 1779 & 1850. This edition is most uncommon, with OCLC locates some 15 copies but only one outside of Europe, at Duke University. Johann Georg Gichtel (1638-1710) was a theologian and attorney who embraced mysticism and the teachings of the inspirational Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), whose works he edited in 1682-1683. Gichtel wound up leading a life of ecstatic poverty in Amsterdam as head of a small cult known as Gichtelians or Brethren of the Angel. Their goal, and the thrust of this complex hermetic-mystical treatise, is the understanding of Divine Wisdom through self-knowledge and through freedom from all carnal desires. The four human images in the frontispiece and plates depict the evolution of humankind from the spirit by means of an inward spiraling of energies through the planets, although the iconography is much more complex than that. The large cosmic diagram seems to combine elements of astrology and spiritualism. These images were evidently based on visions of Gichtel's and may have been prepared by Graber, whose role in this publication is uncertain. The book was probably edited by Johann Wilhelm Überfeld (whose name is written in on p. [2]) (1659-1731), a follower of Gichtel who in 1730 published an edition of Gichtel's edition of Böhme's writings that is now regarded as the standard.