York Harbor, ME: Arcane Publications, 1968. First edition (stated). Xv, 394pp.; bibliography; index. Purple cloth; gilt spine titles; dust jacket. A couple of negligible smudges to textblock edges. Else fine in a near fine jacket, shallowly clipped at all four corners. Foreword by Hans Hofmann.
Sharp first edition of this work purporting to detail the scientific facts about past-life recall, by American writer, yoga instructor, and astrologer Marcia Moore (1928- 1979). One of several titles ostensibly co-authored with Moore’s third husband Mark Douglas, and self- published on the Arcane Publishing imprint he founded to capitalize on his wife’s recognition as an authority of sorts on matters metaphysical (though Douglas, a conman by most accounts, was more likely trying to capitalize on his wife’s significant wealth as the daughter of Sheraton Hotel founder Robert L. Moore). Moore today is perhaps best known for her advocacy of the dissociative anesthetic drug ketamine, which she felt might be the secret key to past-life recall, and which was the subject of her final book, Journeys in the Bright World (1978), co-authored with her fourth husband, Howard Alltounian. A heavy ketamine user, she died in 1979 under mysterious circumstances, having disappeared in the woods near her Washington-state home.
