The Philosophy of Mystery

The Philosophy of Mystery opens as a richly Victorian inquiry into the uncanny, where ghosts, dreams, trance, and illusion are treated as serious subjects of philosophy, medicine, psychology, folklore, and poetry. Walter Cooper Dendy frames the strange borderlands of sleep, memory, imagination, and spirit with both scholarly ambition and dramatic flair, inviting readers into a world where the supernatural may be delusion, revelation, or something in between. Set amid the romance of the River Wye, Tintern Abbey, and moonlit Oxford cloisters, the book follows Astrophel, Evelyn, and Castalia as they debate spectral apparitions, fairy lore, demonology, and the possibility of life after death. Astrophel offers learned defenses of ghosts and prophetic dreams, drawing on mythology, classical writers, medieval authorities, burial customs, and haunting chronicles from Athens to Cadiz. Evelyn counters with sharp skepticism, while the others keep the conversation alive with wonder. Along the way, the book explores catalepsy, mesmerism, premature burial, and the strange powers of the sleeping mind, suggesting that ordinary life may conceal deeper truths about human consciousness and the soul. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.