OAHSPE: A New Bible in the Words of Jehovih and His Angel Embassadors.

A Sacred History of the Dominions of the Higher and Lower Heavens on the Earth for the Past Twenty-Four Thousand Years, together with a Synopsis of the Cosmogony of the Universe; the Creation of Planets; the Creation of Man; the Unseen Worlds; the Labor and Glory of Gods and Goddesses in the Etherean Heavens; with the New Commandments of Jehovih to Man of the Present Day. With revelations from the second resurrection, formed in words in the thirty-third year of the Kosmon era.
New York and London: OAHSPE Publishing Association.. 1882.

the sum of corporeal and spiritual knowledge

First edition. Large quarto. 293x225mm. pp. xii, 890. Folding plate. Pink Hints to the Reader leaf and Index tipped in at the beginning. Illustrated throughout. Contemporary half calf, cloth covered boards. Recent and expert repairs to joints. Slight marking to boards. Some foxing (especially to the endpapers) and soiling in places and minor worming to the fore-edge of the first few leaves. Overall a very good copy. Rare in commerce, only four copies appearing in the auction records in last century. With pencil notes and annotations throughout, probably by the H.F.Watson whose ownership inscription is on the front free endpaper. 
John Ballou Newbrough (1828-1891) was a dentist and spiritualist who wrote this extraordinary work by means of psychography (or automatic writing) caused by a bright light enveloping his fingers and forcing him to write. Hard to define succinctly or with any meaningful degree of accuracy, it is a mixture of ethics, theology, cosmogony, theomachy, prophecy, ritual, history and the relationship between angels and humans. The strange word OAHSPE is defined as "sky, earth (corpor) and spirit. The all; the sum of corporeal and spiritual knowledge as at present". A New York Times article of 21 October 1882 recounts the launch of OAHSPE at which Newbrough said that his intention was "not to supplant other Bibles and religions but to set forth a history of all religions going back 24,000 years". Two academics were present to authenticate some of Newbrough's claims and to confirm that "a man could not produce such a work" and that it had to be "the work of supernatural agents". Newbrough's OAHSPE attracted both attention and money and one happy outcome of this bizarre book is the proceeds of its sale were to be used to establish kindergartens for orphans in New York.

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